I've been in touch with an animal behaviorist to break Whistler of his habit of sleeping all day and waking me up several times in the night to feed and pay attention to him.
I recognize that my cat is probably bored. He was always a very dependant animal, unlike Shadow, who will solicit play in an irresistable way, tapping me on the shoulder and mewing as I sit at the computer, or hanging upside down from the back of my chair as I sit grading papers at the table, or making goofy faces at me while I am trying to read, standing smack in the middle of a page. Whistler, on the other hand, just gets listless and bored. As my son puts it, he is a "mama's boy," something my son never was.
I thought about teaching him to walk on a halter and taking him out for a walk, recognizing that it would probably not work. First of all, cats don't think much of leashes. And when you do take them out, they tend to climb up a tree, leaving you holding the end of the leash. Plus, as the vet tells me, coyotes sometimes take plump beasts like Whistler right off the leash, an easy target.
He's too fat to run, even if I let the leash go, and coyotes are agressive these days.
So I tried to play with him again. You have to understand; I've got cat toys all over the house, having spent a fortune at various times for this. The cats have little interest in any of them. But if I make enough of an effort, I can usually get Whistler to play, after 15 minutes or so of watching them sit there, apparently unmoved. I usually give up and go away.
Shadow is easier; if one simply rolls up a little ball of paper, that's sufficient to start her up. Whistler is more difficult to get started, but once he is started, he'll play for a good long time.
It's working. He sleeps better, and is kinder to me, not waking me as often or as insistently.
I just need to keep it up. It's probably good for me too.
2 comments:
Does Whistler really have a habit, or is he just a nocturnal creature who can't help being awake at night? I love the image of you playing with him to tire him out.
He has a habit and is in fact clinically depressed, if cats can be called by that nomenclature. He could take medication. Jeremy's psych doc says she prescribes for domestic cats and dogs all the time for things like OCD and depression, but the vet has to work with her, and my vets don't do that sort of diagnosis.
Some cats, however, have habits one can break. This is about not getting enough play to keep him happy.
I am a rather inward cuss, much of the time, and just forget to play with him.
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