(no subject)

[balmofgilead]

Taking a step back...

I'm pretty impressed with my (the?) cat's temperament. He's never shown even the slightest bit of malice toward me, never hissed at me--even when I gave him a bath, he reacted in a scared way, not an angry way. He doesn't get upset when I pick him up to move him from my chair (where he likes to sit when I'm not using it) or at any other possible moment. I'm not sure what's typical for cats/older kittens, but I know I've had other cats show me some malice in the brief encounters I've had with them.

He's also been pretty affectionate, clearly enjoying my lap and whatnot, sleeping on my bed, purring most of the time that he's near me, and he pretty much litterbox trained himself immediately. I must admit that the affection did enormous things for my satisfaction ranking as a pet owner--before he warmed up, it was kinda frustrating and unfulfilling.

The only annoying thing is that he's crazy about food. (Well, that and the waking me up, which he's still been doing, because he gets hungry, but at the more reasonable hour of 7:30 or so.) If I don't go to great lengths to hide the bag of food, he'll find it and scratch at it until there's a hole in the bag, even when there's a small amount left in his bowl, even when he's just eaten. He's even opened up the closet door to get at it...

Comments

[space-carlos.livejournal.com]

Your guy was a stray previously, yes? That could have something to do with it. Animals who've spent time on their own "in the wild" sometimes freak out about the whole regular meals thing...it becomes an obsession.

Or he could just be like my Chow Chow, who in her old age has decided that no amount of food is ever enough...to the point where she dove into a bag of Kibble recently and got through half the damn thing before I figured out what that weird noise was.

[balmofgilead.livejournal.com]

Yup, he was a stray. That's a good point--I suppose the fact that I've been giving him food regularly doesn't, in his mind, mean that I always will.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

He seems to have quite thoroughly adopted you! Marcy did that when I showed up at the shelter looking for a cat; when I asked her if I could pick her up, she immediately curled up on my shoulder, purred with a vengeance, and began butting my head with hers to demand extra petting. I could not, in good conscience, leave without her, after that. :-)

Some cats are just pigs. Mine are. When Mikey was younger, he would go into the cabinets to get the food from the bag...until I put the food in a child-proof cabinet, that is.

Perhaps you might want to store his food bag in a large, snap-top, Rubbermaid container. He won't be able to get into that to scratch a hole in the bag.

[balmofgilead.livejournal.com]

Our last dog did the same thing to my mom and me at the shelter--just sort of locked eyes with us in a certain way and picked us out to be her owners.

My cat head-butts my hands all the time for extra petting, too :)

I should probably get a plastic container for his food. I've been holding off 'cause I'll be moving soon, but it's not like a plastic container is a big deal to move, come to think of it.