Cat Problems
Nov. 22nd, 2024 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aI should lead off saying that the cats are totally integrated at this point. Once we started letting Megara roam free, Mango was totally OK with her thanks to the weeks (months?) of careful integration, mainly focused on churu-feeding and then a gate that allowed non-threatening new-cat sightings. More than totally OK: they chase each other back and forth in a totally fun way! We were still locking Megara up at night, but one night she refused to come back to her room, and I said, well, I guess that's that.
Beyond that, Megara is getting increasingly friendly. She spends all of her time upstairs, much of it hanging out at the corner of our couch. (Though we learned there's a not great reason for that.) She's also getting better and better about being petted when she's laying around. (Less so when she's up and about.) And we've learned that though hands still scare her, feet don't. (Petting a cat with your feet is difficult, but possible, and fairly safe when you're lying on a couch and she's at your feet.)
But we're also having a variety of cat problems that have increased in stressfulness since we're shortly heading out of town to visit friends and family on the mainland. Fortunately, we've come up with a variety of solutions too.
PROBLEM THE FIRST: THE EVIL BLACK CAT
I've written previously about the evil black feral cat that torments Mango at night by hanging out on our porch or patio. He growls and yowls and throws fits, waking me up, but he also gets aggressive and sometimes attacks his brother. (Displaced aggression is apparently a common problem with cats; we had the same issue with Callisto.) My last solution was to lock up the boys at night for two weeks, to convince the evil cat that our house was uninteresting and to spray the outside with citrus.
Which worked for a couple of weeks, but the black cat came back on Wednesday night, first threatening the boys in the laundry (mud) room in the evening then taunting Mango until he woke up the whole household at 5am.
I was at a loss, but fortunately Kimberly came up with a solution. We'd had a similar issue in Berkeley with Cobweb, where an evil outside cat (Tuxedo Max, I think) would climb on our garage and Cobweb would throw herself at the window such that we were afraid she was going to knock it out. We eventually taped a few pieces of paper on the window to block her view and wrote BAD CAT on them. Problem solved.
So Kimberly suggested we do the same. The problem is that our house is made of windows here in Hawaii, so it was a lot of work. We used butcher paper to cover the bottom half of our front door and the thin windows on either side. Then we did the same with the sliding glass door in back. That was all a LOT of work. Maybe two hours. We were able to just put printer paper on the double-hung windows that overlook the patio and the small window that overlooks the garage roof (where the evil black cat has also appeared).
We had about half of that up last night with no trouble, and it's all done now. We might still need to put some up in the mud room, but doing so would destroy the usability of the jalousie windows there, so I'm reluctant, and the only time the evil cat has appeared there was that one evening, never at night.
So, we'll see if this solves that issue.
PROBLEM THE SECOND: A COUCH ACCIDENT
Someone had a pee accident on the couch last week. Almost surely Megara. I initially blamed it on maybe confusing her by laying out a blanket on the couch, which she might have taken as litter-appropriate. Though I think that might be true, it was surely encouraged by Elmer problems, more on that in a sec.
The solution here is pragmatic: Urine remover and baking soda. I figured that out when we had sick cats over the last few years. I haven't managed to clean all the smell out yet, but I'm getting there.
PROBLEM THE THIRD: ELMER DON'T PLAY
So this is the other big problem. Elmer has taken to chasing Megara to the point where she's hissing and growling and goes flying under the bed and then won't come out for a few hours.
It doesn't happen whenever Elmer sees her, but it does happen once or twice a day.
More notably, it seems to happen when she goes downstairs, where Elmer spends most of his time. When she and Elmer go flying through the house, Elmer chasing her, it almost always seems to originate in the downstairs.
We really noticed this when we came to the realization a few days ago that Megara hardly goes downstairs any more and seems genuinely afraid to do so.
Downstairs is where the litter boxes are.
So, we have a variety of solutions for this.
#1: I got a collar for Elmer today with a bell on it. We haven't had the boys collared for two years, because Mango constantly slipped his, and eventually started slipping it off when he was under the bed. There in fact may still be a Mango collar there because it's almost impossible to access.
When Elmer got his collar today, he was horrified that he now jingles. Now he's just lying around looking mopey, accepting the fact that he just jingles now. We're hoping this will reduce the fear factor for Megara, because she can track where he is.
#2: We're probably going to lock Megara in our master bedroom while we're gone. She'll hate it, but we'll leave her plenty of toys and a cat tree and it's a pretty big space with the bedroom and attached bathroom and walk-in closet. Obviously, this will keep any fights from happening while we're gone, but we also hope it'll reset the dynamic.
#3: We've got some squirt bottles. I've been pretty adamant based on my recent readings that we not discipline the orangies with squirt bottles. But, I just want to be able to bring the chasing to an abrupt halt. So we'll see how that all goes.
PROBLEM THE FOURTH: SCREEN ADDICTION
On Wednesday night, I was woken up three times in the night by cats. The second time was the 5am black cat visit. The third time was Elmer chasing Megara at 6.30am. But the first time was at 12.30am, and that was all Megara.
I woke up to Alexa talking in the kitchen. Not the first time that's happened. It really spookily happened not long after we moved here, with some weird lady talking on our Alexa in the middle of the night. This time, a video about ostriches was playing. As I came into the kitchen, I heard it talking about how ostriches were unusual because they had wings but couldn't fly.
And then, as I advanced into the kitchen further, Megara jumped off the counter and fled.
She'd turned on Alexa to watch a video about ostriches in the middle of the night!
No solution to that one, other than the fact that I've told her not to do it again.
Beyond that, Megara is getting increasingly friendly. She spends all of her time upstairs, much of it hanging out at the corner of our couch. (Though we learned there's a not great reason for that.) She's also getting better and better about being petted when she's laying around. (Less so when she's up and about.) And we've learned that though hands still scare her, feet don't. (Petting a cat with your feet is difficult, but possible, and fairly safe when you're lying on a couch and she's at your feet.)
But we're also having a variety of cat problems that have increased in stressfulness since we're shortly heading out of town to visit friends and family on the mainland. Fortunately, we've come up with a variety of solutions too.
PROBLEM THE FIRST: THE EVIL BLACK CAT
I've written previously about the evil black feral cat that torments Mango at night by hanging out on our porch or patio. He growls and yowls and throws fits, waking me up, but he also gets aggressive and sometimes attacks his brother. (Displaced aggression is apparently a common problem with cats; we had the same issue with Callisto.) My last solution was to lock up the boys at night for two weeks, to convince the evil cat that our house was uninteresting and to spray the outside with citrus.
Which worked for a couple of weeks, but the black cat came back on Wednesday night, first threatening the boys in the laundry (mud) room in the evening then taunting Mango until he woke up the whole household at 5am.
I was at a loss, but fortunately Kimberly came up with a solution. We'd had a similar issue in Berkeley with Cobweb, where an evil outside cat (Tuxedo Max, I think) would climb on our garage and Cobweb would throw herself at the window such that we were afraid she was going to knock it out. We eventually taped a few pieces of paper on the window to block her view and wrote BAD CAT on them. Problem solved.
So Kimberly suggested we do the same. The problem is that our house is made of windows here in Hawaii, so it was a lot of work. We used butcher paper to cover the bottom half of our front door and the thin windows on either side. Then we did the same with the sliding glass door in back. That was all a LOT of work. Maybe two hours. We were able to just put printer paper on the double-hung windows that overlook the patio and the small window that overlooks the garage roof (where the evil black cat has also appeared).
We had about half of that up last night with no trouble, and it's all done now. We might still need to put some up in the mud room, but doing so would destroy the usability of the jalousie windows there, so I'm reluctant, and the only time the evil cat has appeared there was that one evening, never at night.
So, we'll see if this solves that issue.
PROBLEM THE SECOND: A COUCH ACCIDENT
Someone had a pee accident on the couch last week. Almost surely Megara. I initially blamed it on maybe confusing her by laying out a blanket on the couch, which she might have taken as litter-appropriate. Though I think that might be true, it was surely encouraged by Elmer problems, more on that in a sec.
The solution here is pragmatic: Urine remover and baking soda. I figured that out when we had sick cats over the last few years. I haven't managed to clean all the smell out yet, but I'm getting there.
PROBLEM THE THIRD: ELMER DON'T PLAY
So this is the other big problem. Elmer has taken to chasing Megara to the point where she's hissing and growling and goes flying under the bed and then won't come out for a few hours.
It doesn't happen whenever Elmer sees her, but it does happen once or twice a day.
More notably, it seems to happen when she goes downstairs, where Elmer spends most of his time. When she and Elmer go flying through the house, Elmer chasing her, it almost always seems to originate in the downstairs.
We really noticed this when we came to the realization a few days ago that Megara hardly goes downstairs any more and seems genuinely afraid to do so.
Downstairs is where the litter boxes are.
So, we have a variety of solutions for this.
#1: I got a collar for Elmer today with a bell on it. We haven't had the boys collared for two years, because Mango constantly slipped his, and eventually started slipping it off when he was under the bed. There in fact may still be a Mango collar there because it's almost impossible to access.
When Elmer got his collar today, he was horrified that he now jingles. Now he's just lying around looking mopey, accepting the fact that he just jingles now. We're hoping this will reduce the fear factor for Megara, because she can track where he is.
#2: We're probably going to lock Megara in our master bedroom while we're gone. She'll hate it, but we'll leave her plenty of toys and a cat tree and it's a pretty big space with the bedroom and attached bathroom and walk-in closet. Obviously, this will keep any fights from happening while we're gone, but we also hope it'll reset the dynamic.
#3: We've got some squirt bottles. I've been pretty adamant based on my recent readings that we not discipline the orangies with squirt bottles. But, I just want to be able to bring the chasing to an abrupt halt. So we'll see how that all goes.
PROBLEM THE FOURTH: SCREEN ADDICTION
On Wednesday night, I was woken up three times in the night by cats. The second time was the 5am black cat visit. The third time was Elmer chasing Megara at 6.30am. But the first time was at 12.30am, and that was all Megara.
I woke up to Alexa talking in the kitchen. Not the first time that's happened. It really spookily happened not long after we moved here, with some weird lady talking on our Alexa in the middle of the night. This time, a video about ostriches was playing. As I came into the kitchen, I heard it talking about how ostriches were unusual because they had wings but couldn't fly.
And then, as I advanced into the kitchen further, Megara jumped off the counter and fled.
She'd turned on Alexa to watch a video about ostriches in the middle of the night!
No solution to that one, other than the fact that I've told her not to do it again.