Lots of travel lately has kept me playing catch up with the pets. Thankfully travel is over for a bit and I’m home to settle in and get back on top of things.
Martin is happy and settled in his new apartment with my son. He travels back and forth when my son comes home for the weekend, and has been doing well with the change. It took Puck and Bean about 3 minutes to remember Martin and then they were all running and playing again. Nice that he is such an adaptable cat!
Hector misses me when I travel. I wouldn’t ever say she is a “sweet” bird, but she definitely puts up with more head scratches and demands to talk to me more now that I’m home again. Love my crazy bird!
Recently I realized how protective I am of Hector. When people want to come visit her, I’m always worried. They picture the Greys you see in the movies, friendly, snugly, full of tricks, and having conversations. That’s just not Hector. She’s not a cuddler. She doesn’t even really like being picked up. She likes her cage door open, and she likes the freedom to climb around on her cage. Her cage is her safe place, and she isn’t a big fan of going anywhere else in the house with me. I force it on her every so often because I think it is good for her, but I am careful not to stress her. I try to interact with her at her comfort level. If she wants to be on her cage, I feed her treats there, I interact with her there, and her cage is near the kitchen and my desk, so I can talk to her often.
I’m always worried people will come over to see Hector and expect to hold her, see her do tricks, and have a conversation with her. The truth is that she is beautiful to look at, she may or may not chose to step up on a stranger’s hand, and she definitely won’t cuddle or perform tricks. If you look away and ignore her, she may decide to talk or whistle, but don’t expect her to talk when you want her to.
Logan is my current worry. It’s always got to be one of them, right? I bought a cat cage. I hate it, but she can’t live in the bathroom forever, especially since we are planning some remodels. The crazy part to me is that she seems to actually like her cage.
It looks like a bunch of milk crates with shelves. It’s much wider than a normal milk crate. It’s got rectangular space inside, not just square. There are “shelves” on every level to make it easy for her to go up and down. The bottom now has her litter box, food and water.
Our current routine is that I check her in the morning, clean up her box, check her food and water, and of course give her lots of pats. I check on her several times during the day as I’m walking around the house.
At dinner time, I let her out, she comes to the kitchen and eats canned food with Puck, Bean, and sometimes Martin. She stays loose for a few hours while we eat dinner, and she hangs out on the couch with us while we watch TV. At some point between about 9pm and when I go to bed, there is sometimes some hissing between Logan and the boys, so I bring her back down to her cage. She goes in happily.
I cover the top part of her cage to give her a cozy, safe space.
It took a little while to get the anxiety medicine from the vet, so I just started her on that yesterday. I’m not sure how much it will help, but we’ll see. How do I even test that? I don’t want to leave her free-roaming in the house again and risk her peeing again?
Part of me feels terrible keeping a cat in a cage, but she seems happy about it. Honestly, I think what Logan needs is to a quiet home, maybe with a senior that would love a nice lap cat. I don’t think she would have any litter box issues if she didn’t have the stress of the boy cats and the dog.
I’ve thought about trying to find someone to take her, but I’ve had her since she was two weeks old and I can’t imagine not having her. I think the best option would be if I could find someone who wanted a cat, but not the responsibility. I would be willing to take care of Logan’s expenses, vet, food, etc. in return for a quiet space for her to live, and maybe visiting rights? I don’t know if that is possible.
I’m a little embarrassed with myself for this, but I ordered some cat diapers. I wouldn’t use them all the time, but I thought the combination of a cat diaper and her cage could maybe give me the chance to offer her move freedom without sacrificing my carpets and leather couch? I’ll let you know how it goes. It doesn’t seem like it would be easy to put a diaper on a cat, and I’m not sure Logan wouldn’t quickly find a way out of it! Wish me luck with the cat diapers!
