As you know, if you’ve been following my column, I’ve been whingeing for a few months now about the fact that, although I chose the new cat specifically to be my best pal, he took an instant liking to the hubs, leaving me in such a fit of pique that I took to my bed for an entire afternoon. There’s absolutely no need for you to point out the ridiculousness of that action; I already know. But every now and then, an afternoon in bed doesn’t come amiss. In fact, I put the time to good use, thinking about trying a different approach with Peasy.
I realized the thrust of the problem fairly quickly, and that is that while I entered into the new relationship with a good deal of emotional neediness, Peasy did not. Peasy was simply happy to have a new home and a new male friend. If I wanted to try to interest Peasy in a friendship with me, I was going to have to figure out a new approach. I gave considerable thought to how my relationships with my previous cats had started.
What was different about those circumstances? I adopted Muffin right after my 13 year-old cat died. I was still grieving the loss, and wasn’t particularly needy with Muffin. I think that this fact gave her and I both the space to start a relationship at our leisure. Winkie came onto the scene because I had been involved with the man who adopted him. When we broke up, the man decided that Winkie would be happier with me. Since I agreed wholeheartedly, Winkie joined Muffin in my home.
Winkie and I already had a relationship by then (obviously), and while I loved him dearly, he was quite a little stinker who got into a fair amount of trouble: once, he managed to open a cupboard, one day when my back was turned, pull out the small can containing cat treats, wrestle it to the floor and somehow remove the plastic lid. When I came home, I found him lying on the floor with the evidence between his front paws.
The circumstances of my relationships with my other cats were somewhat similar. Buddy came home with me because I’d had a white cat once before, and Buddy was a white kitten who needed a home. Spanky was someone’s barn cat that wanted to be an indoor cat, so I took him home where he happily built relationships with the other cats. He liked me well enough, but it was a cat family he’d been wanting. Junebug was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Gracie was another quick decision.
I realized, in retrospect, that all of those relationships developed naturally, over time, without much in the way of emotional need on anyone’s part. Clearly, this was the way I should approach things with Peasy. So I backed off trying to get his attention, and let him lead the way. While he didn’t seem like a cat who liked playing, I had bought a couple of toys anyway. One was a stick with feathers on the end of a string, and one day, I found him pawing at it. When he began to play, I joined in, dragging the feathers around the lounge for him to chase. This quickly turned into an every day thing, particularly after I’d fed him some catnip.
My home office is where his kibble and water bowls are. Since I work in that home office, I feed him the bulk of his meals, which has moved me up a rung or two on the popularity ladder. I also keep a bag of cat treats on my desk. He knows that the bag is there. If he wants a snack, he’ll sit at my feet and issue a squeaky request, which I always grant. This goes on throughout the day, reinforcing the idea that the woman is the go-to source for all things tasty.
Pretty quickly, I noticed that, while he still spends the bulk of the evenings on the chair with the hubs, he’ll also jump up on the sofa, at some point, and take a nap near my feet. As you can see, he picked up on the changes in a fairly short amount of time. In all the articles I’ve read on bringing home a new pet, one of the must-do’s is always play. Playing with your pet teaches him that you are safe to be around, not to mention fun, and is a major part of the bonding process. Supplying your new pet with food and water shows him that you are the caretaker of his needs, but play shows that you are invested in the relationship.
You must excuse me now, I’ve a play date with Peasy.