Crazy Cats

Cats are easy pets to have right? You just have to throw them some food and water (ok, probably not throw…that would be messy.  Pouring in a controlled manner would probably be more efficient) clean out the litter box every so often, and take them to the vet when they are sick, right?  That is SO much easier than taking care of a DOG.  Dogs need walks, exercise, training, chew toys, playing toys, attention ALL THE TIME, etc etc etc. 

FALSE!  This idea seems to be the prevailing thoughts of nearly every person I have met (and with whom I have discussed the cat/dog dichotomy) and it makes me SO FRUSTRATED!  Cats are living beings whom by taking into our care makes us responsible for their welfare on a daily basis.  And yes, they can survive with just food, water, and an occasionally clean litter box (in fact, they don’t even need this, they are just as happy – if not more so – to use your bed) but are we taking enough consideration into their mental states and behavioral health? 

Take one of my friends for instance.  This year, she moved off campus and was allowed to have pets in her apartment complex.  She decided she did not have the time or energy to take care of a dog so instead decided to get a cat.  OK, I understand this logic…dogs have to be taken outside to relive themselves, so for someone who may be gone for long (8-12hrs) stretches at a time, a nice well mannered cat is probably a better option.

 What does she get though?  A KITTEN! And not just any kitten, an FELV+ kitten who was very young when she got him.  He could have contact with no other cats as soon as he was diagnosed with FELV.  I have no issues with adopting a cat like this, but I don’t think that she really understood all of the work that would be needed to raise a cat like this.  His FELV was not really the problem; it was the fact that he was VERY young and had no opportunities for socialization.  This cat needed vigorous training right from the very start, but because of the misperception that cats are easy and don’t require thought beyond basic care, he was not able to get what he needed to be a well adjusted cat.

 Needless to say, this cat is now about a year old and neither he (nor my friend is very happy).  The cat is living in a very under stimulating environment and will do anything to try to fix this.  He jumps on everything, destroys things as this gets a GREAT reaction out of my friend…exactly what he wants, reactions are fun which leads to attacking my friend in an increasingly more dangerous fashion.  He also creates toys out of everything regardless of how hard it is to make the toy.

This is the current living situation:

The cat stays in a small dog crate while she is gone due to fear of what he will do to her apartment.
I can understand her worry about the apartment, she is responsible for any damages he does and at this point, he has no issue with wantonly destroying anything.  My issue is with how small and confined the crate is.  It is literally big enough to fit a litter box and for him to lie down.  He can see out the door and through small slits in the sides.

The cat sleeps in the crate at night so she can get some sleep and he will not be able to destroy something during the night.
Ok, let’s think about this.  My friend has classes from about 8-4 every weekday.  Then she usually has something to do during the evening, say, from 7-10.  Then she sleeps between 11pm-7am.  This means that during the week the cat is probably out of his crate for MAYBE four hours.  The three between 4-7 (assuming she gets done with class on time and has nothing else to do) 30 minutes in the morning before going to classes and 30 minutes at night before she starts to go to bed.
OK that’s not a lot of time, but the weekends MUST be better right?  Yep, a little…my friend gets up around 11 then goes shopping (Sat) or to church (Sun) from 12-4ish and then will usually head out to do something again for the evening.
All of this means that my friend’s cat probably gets about 30 TOTAL hours of contact with something living in a WEEK. But wait, it gets better.

If the cat does something “kind of bad” he gets punished (loosely using this term, if you know the true meaning you will see this is not true punishment) by spraying with lemon juice water.
I am not quite sure what “kind of bad” means, but I think it contains things like jumping in restricted areas and playing with things that are not toys.  The punishment used to be a shake can, but the cat started ignoring that so it escalated to a spray bottle, but that became a fun game so they added lemon juice to the water to discourage that.  Apparently the lemon juice is not working anymore and much to my frustration/anger (there are not strong enough words to describe it) she is seriously considering a shock collar for the cat. ACK!!! NO!!!! (the worst part is this is without implementing ANY of the things I have suggested…which will be found in tomorrow’s post as this is getting ridiculously long)

When the cat does something “really bad” he has to spend 15 minutes in “timeout” in his crate.
Ok, I understand the concept of timeout, and use it for my dogs sometimes, but this really isn’t helping.  When pressed about how much time the cat spends in timeout, my friend states “about half.”  So take that 30 hours a week, and now make it 15 hours.  And it keeps getting smaller as the cat gets worse, creating a vicious cycle.  Just the other day, the cat invented a GREAT new game called break the lid off the toilet seat.  This makes TWO toys A) the toilet seat lid…it slides GREAT across the floor and makes noises too! and B) the water in the toilet…water is fun there is no denying that.  As a result of this new game, the cat now has to be crated when my friend is in the bathroom.  I can just imagine how little out of crate time this cat is going to be getting in 6 months.  No wonder he is under stimulated…I would be too! 

While this might be an extreme example, I have seen variations of this occur many times to even the best intentioned cat owners.  This was not intended to make anyone feel guilty but rather to point out a flaw in our perceptions of cats that is having significant effects on their heath.  There is no denying that stress increases the likelihood of disease not only in humans, but also in our beloved companions. 

Tomorrow I will discuss the various suggestions I gave to my friend (although she is not implementing them because CLEARLY I have no idea how to deal with cats…nope, all those classes and all that research into cat behavior gives me NO IDEA how to help her with her cat…better to just shock him, that will solve it…ending bitter rant now).  Most of these suggestions are easy, cheap, and some even require almost NO continual effort on your part (score one for laziness!) but all should help with many cat related behavior issues. 

Also, tomorrow should end the string of serious issue posts.  I really do apologize for all the seriousness.  Also, you should be warned that my style of funny is not so much funny, but large amounts of sarcasm/unrelated tangents, so when the funny DOES come out, please be prepared, most people have a hard time with it.