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page features my musings from 2002.
When one has pet cats, or is involved with rescuing cats, there are some interesting, funny, surprising, distressing or puzzling things one observes. Here are some vignettes of experiences I have had with cats under my care that I wrote at the time they occurred, rather like a diary. Margaret Schill |
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Galen's Freeze-Dried Chicken Treat Addiction and withdrawal February 9, 2002
I just spent $60 on six 3oz. jars of Halo freeze-dried chicken treats. They are quite expensive. That should hold my addicted cat Galen and his four cohorts, for a month- I hope. I've been ordering the Halo for months, but I ran out before the new shipment came in and we had some sorry, pitiful, stressful three days waiting for the new shipment. Galen could not believe that we ran out. No other treat will suffice. And he LOVES the freeze dried chicken treats with an extreme passion. He growls at the other cats if they come near him when he is eating some. I've been making him wait until 7:00 pm for his treats, but I can't hardly do anything in the evenings without him demanding of me. He will now jump on my back, if I am sitting, wail and wail, to make me get up and give him more freeze-dried chicken treats. I have to drape my suede jacket over the back of my dining chair and wear a heavy sweater so I won't get clawed when he starts going through his withdrawal antics. I He gets desperate, looking at me with wide, imploring eyes and the most frantic meows. If I ignore him, he makes the most pitiful, sad, quiet, beseeching meows. One round of treats for "dessert" is no longer enough for him. And of course, the other four cats want some too. They love the Halo but have not become insane addicts over it- not yet. Galen needs chicken treat re-hab. I am not exaggerating. That's one reason why I think treats should not be given often. I made the mistake of spoiling my cats by giving them treats, and did NOT give them sparingly enough. Galen would rather eat that than his food. March or April, 2002 Galen had taken to climbing up my back to get to my shoulder, to meow loudly in my ear, being as he must have thought I was hard of hearing, for not jumping out of my chair to get him his beloved Halo Chicken Treats when he meowed from the floor. I was stoic about it for a while, but one day I did not realize he was going to do it, and the surprising pain made me jump and yell out. He didn't stop jumping on my shoulder subsequent days, but did refine his technique for doing it without using his claws. He couldn't stay up too long without using his claws to anchor, but did manage to balance a few seconds. It was kind of cool, so I didn't mind that, being as it didn't hurt anymore. When he wants the Chicken treats, he goes to the refrigerator where they are kept and says, "kah-CAW". That is apparently how to say "freeze dried chicken treats" in cattish. 5/13/02 This is probably not a serious problem, but Galen, who is just about three, has been taking to lying on the floor at times looking sort of dead. He does this after he has been doing his demanding yelling and pulling at me to get him some freeze-dried chicken treats, with me not getting up. It mostly happens when I am eating dinner, as that is getting on to time for the 7:00 cat treat time. He can't stand to wait for the chicken treats. He lies there on his back, with his front paws curled up to his chest, and often when I look at him, he stares at me without blinking. It 's really creepy. He ignores me when I call him, staying still and dead seeming, but when my husband calls his name sharply and tells him to quit scaring me, Galen turns his head and looks at him, and makes his happy purrrt noise or a single loud meow, like he is answering him. My husband says he is just trying to freak me out or hypnotize me into getting up and getting him his beloved Halo freeze-dried chicken treats (Galen is a major chicken treat addict). My husband never gives them to Galen and Galen doesn't do the dead thing when I am not at home. I have been forced to ignore Galen sometimes and not give him the chicken treats, as gets too incessantly demanding too often. He mostly makes the dead looking pose when I am sitting down somewhere for a while, and his body is positioned so I would have to pass him to get to the refrigerator. As soon as I move my feet as is I am about to get up, he jumps up and runs to the refrigerator, where the chicken treats are, so he is not really weak and half dead. When I've been up and about doing things, he is in his usual resting spots and poses, curled up like a proper cat, in his pet bed or the window hammock. I just never saw a cat lying on his back with his front paws all curled up like that, looking so dead, so it has been making me worry. Those paws curled up to the chest just look "wrong" and sickly. He seems quite fine otherwise. He's now leaping and hopping now after a bug that got in. He likely is just "lying" guard to make sure I don't go to the refrigerator without his knowing it. But I also worry he might really and truly be so full of despair and depression for being denied his chicken treats whenever he wants them. He had previously been scratching my back, then leaping up onto my shoulder from behind to make me get up, but I started ignoring that, (I did give in at first), so maybe this is his new attempt to make me get up, or maybe he is really full of despair that his shoulder leaps and scratching no longer work? (I keep my suede jacket on my chair now so I can't feel his claws and I no longer get startled by his sudden leaps onto my shoulder- I just keep on eating my dinner. He has excellent balance and never fell into my food, even though he always jumps onto my right shoulder as I am using my right hand to eat.) I put him on a chicken treat schedule so he now only gets them at 7:00 pm (oh well, mostly only then). I guess one does have to be tough on an addict, though, for their own good, but I hate seeing him lying there like that. He wouldn't really be so full of real, true utter despair, that he just lies there like that, would he? I know this sounds like a joke or something stupid, but those curled up paws really disturb me and he is my most precious snuggle baby (I don't have a favorite among my five cats, but if I did, Galen would be it, but of course, I don't have a favorite.) I tried giving him other treats instead during the non-chicken treat times, but he doesn't want them- not even real deli-sliced chicken or turkey breast. But I can't give him all the freeze-dried chicken he wants. Oh, the dilemma. I just can't stand to think that he is truly full of despair and depression.
Galen going through Halo Chicken Treat withdrawal. It was a very sad thing to witness. He'd just curl up and waste away after his demanding yelling and jumping at me didn't work. Galen looks a lot more dead and creepy in real life when he maintains the pose, with his eyes opened, for what seems like a long, long time and won't move when I call to him.
5/14/02 I have been working on weaning him from the freeze-dried chicken treats since it has gotten so out of hand. Galen seem to hate the Petromalt hairball stuff. Sometimes when he is driving me crazy begging for more and more treats, I get out the Petromalt, open the cap and approach him, offering him a different kind of treat. He takes off like a shot as if something dreadful is after him. My cat Simon likes it and comes to lick it out of the tube. Strange cats. I should keep that at the dinner table too, to wave under Galen's nose like smelling salts when he does the dead thing while I am eating dinner. We tricked him today and ate outside, so he couldn't jump on my back to do his dead pose at my feet while I am trying to eat dinner in attempts to make me get up and get him some chicken treats. He just sat normally for a while looking through the lattice of the porch, then went back inside, probably extremely irritated at Minerva's non-stop half hour meowing to be let outside the cat pen into the real yard where we were. He did grip on her neck twice, holding her down like mother cats do to pesky kittens. She didn't shut up so he left. As soon as I came in I gave him his treat, (and all the other cats too, of course), so he didn't have to do his maneuvers. Last night we ate very late, so it was time for his 7:00 treats before we ate. He didn't bother me while I was eating. Maybe I should move up his treat time to 5:00, but I am not sure he won't also try to get the treat at 7:00 also. I believe he would, but it is worth trying. I did discover that he will eat Whiska's Lickin's tuna flavor treats, so I'll keep those at the dinner table also, to toss over to him. Even if it's not what he prefers, he ought not be so distressed and depressed about getting something else instead. He is very particular about treats. He won't eat his beloved Halo chicken treats if I put them in a bowl. They have to be on the floor. Some sections of the floor are not good enough on some days, for some mysterious reason, so on those days, I have to toss the chicken treats to another section of floor. Placing them on the floor is not good enough. If I put them on top of some cat food, they are contaminated, and he won't go near them. I think he is really too fussy and spoiled, so I won't worry so much. After reading what I wrote I think he a bit of a brat and I have been way too indulging. From now on the treats will be where ever they land. If he doesn't go eat them, Simon or one of the others sure will move in quickly so they won't go to waste. I think he gets a kick out of training me even more than wanting the chicken treats. He has trained me well. 5/14/02 later on Re-reading what I wrote does sound kind of funny, for an adult human to get so controlled by a cat. I guess it's the "grandparent syndrome" where grandparents let grandkids get away with stuff they never in a million years let their own children get by with. Galen's cat mother didn't hesitate to give him a hiss and a swat when he interrupted her when she was doing something. But that's when he turned to "Granny" (me) and I molly-coddled and spoiled him. Well, I will still wind up spoiling him but I won't worry about his emotional state being damaged by not getting his way all the time. My other four cats have their little tricks and particular behaviors, but not like Galen. He must come from some other kind of gene pool. Galen's other training of me He trained me to do other things also. He goes into some part of the house, and meows and meows until I go find him. Then I have to pick him up and pet him. He just purrs and purrs. He could just come up to where ever I happen to be for petting, and he does sometimes, but he seems to prefer me looking for him. When he was younger and we had a big box on the floor, I used to have to crawl into the box with him, as much of me as would fit, several times each evening. He's been trying to make me squeeze into a closet with him, but there is not really room for me with all the stuff in there. I was almost going to clean out some of the stuff so I could fit, but that would be really getting too carried away. Update: Galen was successfully (more or less) weaned off his addiction to freeze-dried chicken treats, with the help of Kitty Kissers chicken liver treats. They are not the same as the Halo freeze dried chicken treats. Galen doesn't like them as much, but they do help with the withdrawal symptoms (and they are only $2.99 a box versus the $12 for a 3 oz. jar of Halo freeze-dried chicken treats). I also put some different dry cat food in an empty Halo chicken treat jar, and shook it to get the dry food coated with the left over powder from the chicken treats. Galen would eat that chicken treat flavored dried food. It took a few months, and like all addicts, he will never be fully recovered. I got another jar of the Halo freeze-dried chicken treats a long time afterwards, and Galen went right back at his old ways. So, that great temptation needs to be kept from him. So easy to slip back ....
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Minerva talks to us April 12, 2002 One of the most endearing things is when my cat Minerva is on the enclosed porch and she sees one of us at the door looking at her, she talks to us with that rapid Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah sound cats usually make when they see birds. She started doing it a year ago. She looks straight at us and then usually blinks at us, sometimes striking a very cute pose showing her belly. We do the noise back to her and she replies, varying the rhythm and pitch a bit each time. This can go on for a quite a conversation. It seems she is thinking it's fun to see if we can imitate her various rhythms and pitches and then her imitating ours that we make up. She always adds on to the rhythmic melody we make, and then we copy that, or try to. It really amazing how cats will interact with people, more than one would expect and in different ways than one would expect. It's fun playing the "rhythm melody game" with Minerva.
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Tensions in a multi-cat home with three males reaching maturity September 16, 2002 There are some changes going on with the cat's "hierarchy". To be expected as the males are all around two years-old, the age when cats reach social maturity. Jolie has a urinary tract infection (UTI), so she could be getting stressed from the changes, which then led to the UTI. I even get stressed and nervous sometimes with the going on between the cats. Simon was the last of the other cats to come in, before we rescued Jolie, and promptly took over, a cocky almost adult intact male. Except Snookums, getting close to two years-old when Simon came in from the streets, would not be dominated. She hissed at him nonstop if he came close, so he finally, after a few weeks of being hissed at repeatedly, he attacked her to the point she really, really got stressed and we had to rehome her. He would try to attack her whenever he got the chance. Her screams and snarls scared me! We had them in different areas of the house, but Simon sometimes managed to get to her and attack her. Simon had never attacked any of the other cats, but used strong body language to get his message across, and sat on them and holding them down by the neck. They didn't resist or hiss at him, so he was fine with them. When Jolie came, she was meek and totally deferred to Simon, so he came to like her. She was the only one who would play wrestle with him, and he was ever so gentle with her. Now, for about the past two months, Sumner has been making these challenging moves towards Simon, by frequently swatting at Simon when Simon walks by. Simon mostly ignores it and keeps walking, almost acting subservient to Sumner, trying to not have a problem. But sometimes he stops and stares, with the irritated ear positions. There was the day when Sumner just would not leave him alone and Simon finally chased after him. Sumner's Eye Sumner had been following Simon around, sniffing his butt very closely, which was really getting on Simon's nerves. Simon kept walking on, trying to get away from Sumner, but Sumner just kept sniffing and following, sniffing and following. Simon was running out of places to walk to, and finally sat down and gave Sumner the irritated warning look. Sumner did not respect it, or perhaps does not "speak" that cat dialect so didn't understand. (Sumner was raised in my house and Simon is from the streets, so Simon picked up some signals Sumner must not have been taught by his mother. I know she never did that irritated ear flip thing.) Next thing I saw was Simon chasing Sumner into the bedroom. Then there was an upset cat snarl-cry and I saw Simon sitting next to the bed, and Sumner was under it (the bed is low and Simon can't fit too comfortably under it, being larger and "fuller" than spry, skinny Sumner). A few minutes later, Sumner was in the living room with one eye a red orb! He was just sitting calmly, with one eye a blob of red. I got all freaked out and imagined Simon poked Sumner's eye out, (which would likely not be possible). I made my husband take the close up look, just in case it was something ugly, but Sumner's eye was ok. We did take him to the emergency vet (since of course, this happened at night). It was just a scratch on the skin next to his eye, with the blood having trailed on his eyeball. His eye actually looked fine even before we loaded him up to go to the ER, but we wanted to make sure his cornea hadn't gotten scratched. It hadn't. But Sumner had to have some eye ointment. Did Sumner learn? NO! Another time he was giving Simon the "evil eye" and Simon was trying to just walk on by. I thought it would help if I distracted them some, to avoid a repeat of the above, so I just walked near Sumner and started chatting with them in a friendly voice. Sumner ignored me, but Simon, who was a few feet away, sat down and looked attentively at me, politely listening to me, being a good boy. It really seemed like he was actually paying attention to what I was saying (I think Simon truly has "above average" intelligence as far as cats go). Sumner then rushed at Simon. I suppose he thought Simon would run away, but Simon stayed in place, just putting up a paw to keep Sumner from crashing into him. Sumner ran his face right into Simon's paw. From one cat to another, that would hurt. Another trip to the ER (night again, of course). This time no blood, but Sumner was keeping his eye closed so we wanted to check it out again to make sure his cornea didn't get scratched. Nothing at all was scratched this time. It just must have hurt Sumner ramming his eye into a paw. Like a person running their face into another person's fist. My mistake was to not be facing both of them, or being in between both of them, and I was focusing too much on Simon, worrying that he might do something. I didn't realize Sumner was rushing Simon until it was too late. Sometimes intervening can mess things up, particularly if you do it wrong or misidentify the "bad guy". I think we have been blaming Simon more than is fair. He really seems like he tries to avoid fights with Sumner. He does tend to stop when we call to him, as long as he isn't too riled up. The problem is that none of the other cats heed us! And Simon is not going just sit there and be messed with. Simon can fight viciously, drawing blood, but the others are house raised innocents. So we try to keep Simon calm and happy. ***************************************************************
For the past few weeks, every other day or so, I hear Galen squeak, and find Simon on top of him doing the dominating neck hold thing. Galen does not seem to care much, though, as when I arrive and Simon gets off Galen, Galen just lies back comfortably and looks at me. Galen, in turn, has been doing the neck hold thing to Minerva, but she doesn't seem to mind at all (being in love with him), and in fact goes up to him doing little prodding and poking things to him, which sometimes results in his holding her down. Sometimes Minerva seems to be trying to provoke Galen in a tussle, and I hear her hiss at him, after she has kicked him with a back leg and he then stood up, towering over her with his ears in the irritated pose. Sometimes Simon seems to want to play fight with the others, but no one wants to do it anymore. I've been getting a little tense at times, as I am afraid of Simon getting riled up too much and doing to the others what he did to Snookums. He does bring them crickets from the outside pen, so I guess he is trying to be nice to them. None of them hiss at him like Snookums did, so I guess he won't respond to them like he did to her. Maybe Jolie doesn't really care about that stuff, as she is at the bottom of the hierarchy (I think), so her position is safe, (laugh). Though, she has been doing challenging things to Sumner, the only one it would be really safe for her posture against. I think it may more likely be that her UTI is just from some bacteria from fecal matter, as the vet said it could be. Anyway, since I was off work today and was up most of the night, Jolie and I had a nice snuggle nap. She seemed very needy, and crawled up to lay her head on my chest, kneading and purring. She hasn't done that since we rescued her. It was so endearing. Then she would lay on my stomach, then my feet, than back up to my chest. I hope this second round of meds does the trick. It is seeming to be the case, for the cats and people, that one round of antibiotics doesn't clear things up like it seems it used to. Sept. 18, 2002 Last night was a bit stressful. My three males are around two years-old, the age of social maturity for cats. I heard Simon make his scary, guttural moan from hell "urrrerrrrurrr" noise, the one that sounds unearthly that he uses when an intruder cat comes in the yard and he is all agitated, breathing heavy, smelling musky and ready to bust out and get the intruder. (None of the other males ever get that musky smell, likely because they were neutered before reaching sexual maturity.) Except I found him and Sumner in the laundry room sitting face to face about 6 inches apart. Simon was sitting very still and didn't seem to be ready to attack, but that noise was a big warning. Sumner is really asking to get torn up. He has been swatting at Simon when Simon passes by, so likely did it again. I called to them to be nice, and they dispersed, but then Simon took it out on Minerva (but not viciously), who made the mistake of running past Simon, which woke up hubby, which got him yelling at Simon and so on. (Galen always smartly runs behind the headboard of the bed with just his head sticking out to keep track of the action.) Little Jojo was just sitting around. I hope she didn't get too stressed. Later on she was really letting the toy rat (not the mouse, but the big rat) really have it, so I guess she was ok, taking out the stress on the toy rat. Simon went out in the pen, where he always goes when he gets yelled at, and made his loud "Ar ar ar" call into the night. Not sure what he was saying or who he was saying it too, but that it is a similar call to the one he makes when he is bringing us in some bugs, except he was just standing on the ledge, bugless. Maybe he was calling to everyone that he was sorry for the ruckus (probably not). Or calling out to the cat gods. He gets upset when his human daddy is upset with him.
I just love Simon so much. It's hard for him being a somewhat worldly adult natural acting cat stuck with a bunch of forever, ignorant kittens in large bodies. The ones raised indoors from kittenhood just don't get it. They are so different from a natural acting adult cats. They do not understand what all his sounds and body postures mean, and things that matter to him don't really matter so much to them. I'm sure he gets all perplexed when we fuss at him for getting onto the other cats, since he knows he was giving them the correct warnings. He tries so hard to do what we tell him, as best he can understand, and he understands remarkably well. None of the others do, and they were raised with humans. I love all my cats, and Galen is my most precious cuddly baby Boo, but I secretly like more wild, feisty natural cats the best. It wound up with me sitting out in the pen with Simon, to then be joined by all the other cats. I tried to shoo them from the pen, but they all wanted in with Simon and me. Why, after all the ruckus, I have no idea. Then later on Simon and Minerva touched noises, so I guess he didn't rough her up much earlier to really bother her. I still never can decide when to intervene or not. If I didn't disperse Sumner and Simon, Simon wouldn't have jumped Minerva- probably not anyway, if he worked it out on Sumner. But then he might have really let Sumner have it, which would have been worse. Maybe since the other cats do act immature and more like kittens compared to Simon, he won't ever treat them like he did Snookums. She was from the streets also, just too small to handle Simon. And she sure knew all the cuss words from the streets that my forever kittens don't. Simon and Sumner were touching noses today and Sumner didn't smack him once, so maybe it's all ok now. How much to worry and when to stop!?!
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Dominance and submission November 10, 2002 Simon's been holding Galen down by the neck at least once a day that I know of lately. He holds on for a while and sometimes doesn't let go when I call to him. I hear cat mewling noises so go to see what's up. Galen is the one mewling- but not like he is in great distress, perhaps just meekly protesting and asking to get up like a baby kitten does when his mother is sitting on him to control him. Twice, I heard Simon do his "I got some prey" call that he does when he has brought in a bug, only to find him clamped onto Galen's neck, like Galen is what he brought in. When I go to them and Simon finally detaches, Galen just reclines on his side next to Simon and looks at me. He does not seem upset about it and certainly could have left the area. Today, Simon would not let go even when I shook a bag of treats, which usually gets him to come running. I had to push on him to make him let go. But then Galen just reclined calmly next to him and just looked at me. Simon does not hiss at or try to fight Galen. Just holds him down. It seems almost like they both like it.
They are both neutered and almost the same size- Galen about 9.5 lbs and Simon 13, but about as tall and long as one another. They are 3 and some months years-old and lived together for a bit over two years. Simon is from the streets and Galen was born in my house, being babied. I was thinking maybe there is some outside cat getting Simon stirred up so he is trying to control the cat next to him since he can't get to any cat outside, but it is only with Galen that he does this. Now, Galen does a similar thing to Minerva sometimes, but only when she has been pushing on him, pestering him to interact with her. Sumner has been making challenging behaviors to Simon, such as smacking Simon when Simon passes by. Minerva gives Simon no respect at all- just hisses if he gets too close. Jolie is no push over either and is too quick and agile for Simon to catch easily, being that she can dart into smaller spaces than Simon, plus she hisses when the others bug her. Galen is generally docile and I never heard him hiss (he did growl if someone tried to nab his Halo Chicken treats, but that is an extreme circumstance). Maybe Simon fears he is losing control of his kingdom and Galen is the only one he can definitely control so Galen gets an extra dose of it whenever the others "disrespect" Simon? 11/12/02 I woke up early this morning to the sounds of tussling (but no yelling or screaming), which was Jolie and Sumner in the Catio (like a window air conditioner but all clear for cats to get real good roomy outdoor views). I took Jolie out, who was closest to the opening, but she growled and jumped back in for round two. Sumner finally left. A bit later, I found Sumner holding down Jolie by the neck back in the catio! Jolie didn't like it though, and squirmed a lot to get away. I guess this is the new "fad" amongst my cats.
Here's Galen doing it to Minerva a few weeks ago after she climbed up on the cubby and squeezed herself next to him, making him wake up from his nap by being pushed over by her. Minerva didn't seem to mind at all. She got what she wanted; Galen awake and paying attention to her. I didn't worry about them because they are in love. Later on, my husband heard Simon "talking up a storm", just a series of meow meow meows for quite a bit, which he doesn't usually do. He found Simon and Galen sitting under the table, with Simon "talking" to Galen, in a friendly "tone of voice", and Galen just sitting their listening. Adult cats don't usually use meows to communicate with each other. I suppose Simon was telling Galen the new plan to puzzle the people. It doesn't seem that I need to worry about Galen and Simon and their new relationship. And I suppose since Jolie jumped right back in to Sumner, I don't need to worry about her either. I just hope Simon and Sumner don't try to do the hold on each other or there will probably be a real fight.
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Sumner's night time yelling September 23, 2002 Sumner, has taken to making loud calling noises in the evenings and in the middle of the night. Every time I go see what's up, he's playing with one of his toys. He didn't used to "yell at" his toys. I don't know why he does now. I used to think he wanted to play and was calling for someone to get up and do that, but that wasn't it. If I threw his toy for him to chase, which he does like sometimes, he'd just look at me and walk off. Actually, I think he is copying my hunting cat Simon, who always makes a loud call when he brings some prey inside.
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