A cat! I have a cat!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

Thought I’d give a kitty update …

We got this cat to be a companion for my wife, because of her mental and emotional issues. But then her … stuff … happened and she was absent for a couple extended periods, so Ghost has completely attached himself to me. Now that my wife’s back (and doing well, and staying sober, and I’m staying sober too), he’s still more interested in hanging with me than with her.

This is the most unusual cat I have ever met in my life. He has the biggest variety of noises I’ve heard from a single cat.

He plays “fetch”. Seriously. He has a few little ball toys that he likes. One day I was sitting at my computer, and Ghost came trotting over with a ball in his mouth. He looked up at me, then turned and dropped the ball into my shoe. I retrieved the ball and threw it to the other end of the room. Ghost hauled ass after it, brought it back, and dropped it into my shoe again. Repeat, over and over. Yesterday, I guess he couldn’t find a ball, because he filched my wife’s emery board/nail file from the coffee table downstairs, carried it upstairs, and was trying to put that into my shoe :stuck_out_tongue:

Ghost still really hates it when I go to work. According to my wife, after I leave he sits at the front door meowing his head off for a while. Then he lays down and watches the door, and will fall asleep next to the door. After a while, he gets up and goes upstairs, where he falls asleep on my computer chair. If he happens to still be up there when I come home … it’s pretty hilarious. I’ll call out his name, and from upstairs we hear this blood-curdling yowl (basically, it’s his version of shrieking “Daddy’s home!”), followed by Ghost flying down the stairs and running to greet me.

He acts more like a dog than a cat.

I just love him to death, but dear God, I can’t wait to get him neutered (this week, hopefully), just to stop him pissing on everything. And to make him freaking go to sleep. He doesn’t like me sleeping, and is constantly trying to wake me up. I take sleeping pills and can sleep through most of his racket, but after about five hours of sleep the pills have worn off enough for his meowing to wake me up.

The pissing thing … I’ve heard some cat experts explaining that they do this because they like you. They’re trying to mix their scent with yours. As one expert put it, he’s saying, “Hey, you and me, right?” That would explain why he consistently pisses on my spot on the bed, and on my spot on the sofa. On the plus side, we’ve discovered that he will piss in the bathroom sink. We’ve seen him do it multiple times. We’re encouraging this, hoping he’ll start doing it there instead of on the furniture. Just this morning, I was taking my morning leak right after I got out of bed. I finished my business, flushed, turned around, and there was Ghost with his back legs in the sink, letting fly, copying Daddy :smiley:

62

IME, when male cats have marked somewhere before being snipped they’ve continued to pee there afterward, same spots and frequency. You may be able to move his peeing from the sink to the toilet w/ a training system and maybe forego the need for litter for the rest of his life. I used Citi Kittty but there are a few out there to pick from.

63

Oh dear. Make sure you get him fixed as soon as possible. Is he peeing, or is he spraying? If you find pee on the wall, he’s spraying. If he’s just peeing, you can get products to remove the pee smell, which makes him think that’s a good place to pee again. I’ve also had some luck putting down paper that isn’t very absorbent where they go, since they don’t like peeing on it.

You might try putting the litter box in the bathroom, since he’s copying you anyway!

As for waking you up, hiss at him when he does it. That’s what mama cats do when they are mad at their kittens, so he should recognize it as “Stop that!”

64

I’m glad your relationship with your cat is working out well.

65

You have a cat named Tikva, too? You’re the only other one I’ve met so far!

66

I’m still not sure if that’s a cat or a Luck Dragon! :wink:

67

I agree that this is good advice. You might even try moving him into the litter box if you find him peeing in the sink and moving his paws, like when you train a young kitten. Ghost is kind of old for that, but he’s clearly watching you, so it’s worth a try. And don’t forget to run water down the sink a few times a day. You really don’t want cat urine building up in your pipes.

68

There’s a special litter called Cat Attract that is recommended for getting cats to use the litter box. I know of several fosterers who use the kitten version (Kitten Attract, of course) to train the kittens they raise. So far, I haven’t heard of any failures.

69

There’s nothing like having an awsome cat as a companion. I grew up with cats. When I moved away I wasn’t able to have pets in alot of the places I lived. Well its been 20yrs and I finally have a place tht accepts cats. I took in a stray tht was sleeping on my porch. I had forgotten how much I love having a cat on my lap!!

70

Late, semi-sad update.

We gave up Ghost on April 1, turning him over to the local Humane Society. There were a couple reasons.

Bad timing. We technically were not supposed to have a pet in our apartment. The original plan had been for my wife to get a doctor’s authorization for a companion animal (due to her disability and emotional issues) - apparently there’s an official form/certificate that lets you get around “no pets” clauses … but she jumped the gun and accepted the cat without first getting the certificate. I probably should have nixed it, but when you just want your wife to be happy …

So, in late February, our apartment building’s owner put it up for sale. That meant that the rental management people needed to bring potential buyers through, somewhat frequently, to show the apartments. Crap. That meant removing the cat and all evidence of his presence from the apartment on the days of the showings, and the only way to do that was to put him and everything else in the car and take him to work with me. Needless to say, this was not enjoyable for us or the cat. And then April 1 rolled around. As you know from other threads, my wife wrecked my car last November and my sister loaned me a vehicle to get us through winter. But I had to return the car on April 1, since my nephew would be turning 16 in May and it was to be his. The building was still up for sale, and now we would have no way to hide the cat.

The other problem was that Ghost was un-neutered and also wounded. When we first got him, my wife bought him a cheap $1.00 collar at the Dollar Store. One day I noticed that that cheap collar had twisted, making a sharp point that had caused a small cut on Ghost’s neck. I immediately got the scissors and cut it off of him. It was a very, very tiny nick, but he just wouldn’t stop scratching at it, and his scratching made it bigger and bigger. We had considered trying to give him away, but we realized that nobody was likely to want an injured, unfixed cat. And, unfortunately, I didn’t have the money at that time to take him to a vet.

So, with reluctance and sadness, we handed him over to the Humane Society. We hoped they could patch him up and adopt him out, but knew that, at worst, he’d get a painless death.

My wife checked up a few weeks later and learned, happily, that Ghost was fixed up and adopted by a family of four, with two young children. I think the kids will be good for him as playmates. We had been starting to realize that we were just too old and creaky for such a young cat - we couldn’t play with him as much as he needed. He had too much energy, and we didn’t have enough.

We miss him badly, but are very happy that he has a new family :slight_smile:

71

That’s good that he has found a good home.

Please remember next time that having pets is a serious responsibility.

72

Sad for you, but I’m glad to hear he found a new home.