Update on Skittish Kitty

One of the things listed as Nunny's fears has changed. Nunny has had a break through and is no longer afraid of the sound of catfood being poured in the dish. It doesn't anger him anymore. In fact, i can actually pour cat food right in front of his face while he's trying to eat and he doesn't get upset!

That is a break through and progress has been made for sure.

A little bad news...Nunny is back on the tuna. I don't know how or why i would do such a thing but one day it just started. I've always felt bad that after the tuna situation, he never really got a treat on a regular basis that he loved so much as he did tuna. He'd sometimes have ham bits from a slice of lunch meat but nothing excited him like tuna. He's very finicky and would reject 100% of the treats i introduced him to, whether human or cat treats.

So he's back on tuna and it's literally a drug to him. He is consumed with tuna, tuna, tuna. He asks for it every half hour! Too much consumption of tuna can lead to yellow fat disease and i don't want that for him. I"m eventually going to have to wean him off it. It's going to be hard.

The last time he was on it, he was so incredibly picky about where it was given to him that if it wasn't in the right room and spot, he'd reject it! That's how we were able to get him off it. We'd just stop giving it to him where he wanted it to be given and he'd refuse to eat it. Talk about spoiled, huh? LOL

But this time around, he seems not to care where it's given to him. He's not gotten particular at all about it. So it's going to be very difficult. I'll slowly taper down until he's down to just a once a day treat. But he asks for it in very noticable ways. EVERY HALF HOUR he asks!!! He meows incessantly and throws himself on the floor, trying to look as cute as can be to get it.

This is a problem. I hope to have him off it by the first of the year and to report that not only is he off it, but he's doing just fine without it. I'd like to find a comperable and safe alternative. If anyone has any suggestions, i'd love to hear them.

Not all bad...

Nunny is much more than a skittish kitty. He's not just neurotic. For instance, he's laying inside a flat lid to a storage container on the couch right now looking ever so gorgeous.

One thing i've learned about my cats is that i can tell what kind of mood they are in by the looks of their fur. If their fur is soft and fluffy, their mood is excellent. If they're in a bad mood, i notice their fur corresponds, looking rougher and split. There's lots of openings and it's dull looking. And looking over at Nunny, resting...he's in a fabulous mood.

We have this ritual. Whenever i see him resting in a good mood (which is always) i make this noise indicating that i'm coming to give him some love and he always stretches and receives my rubbing and patting and swiping. :) He stretches and takes it all in and knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is loved.

Nunny loves to be covered with paper. Newspaper, tissue paper, any kind of paper. He likes to be covered in it, lol.

We bought a computer (this one) last year and the box it came in (huge box) is his house. We decided we'd keep it around until he didn't use it anymore but it appears as though it's a permanent home for him. He uses it every day. So we have to keep this ugly cardboard box in our living room. LOL - which is fine. It's his home too!

Nunny used to be addicted to tuna. That's a word we don't use in this house. It's spelled if we must use it. Nunny used to be so incredibly addicted that it ran his life and his entire being. Everything was always about tuna, tuna, tuna. He got to the point that he was asking every half an hour! Just fyi when he "asked" for tuna, he would rub against the wall, look at us and then throw his body down in the center of the floor. LOL which is a huge crowd pleaser. Nothing cuter than seeing Nunny just drop his body with no regard to hitting the floor. Anyway i read an article about yellow fat disease coming from too much consumption of tuna and that it could be very harmful so we just cut Nunny off one day. Actually, that's not true.

Get this: Nunny, as addicted to the tuna as he was would only allow us to serve him a certain kind AND it had to be in the exact spot that he wanted. If it wasn't in the spot he wanted (and that spot would change daily) he would NOT eat it until we put it in the room and spot he wanted. So here we are falling all over ourselves trying to sooth his urgent need for a tuna fix, trying to find the exact spot he wanted it in. So that's how we were able to get him off it. We just stopped looking for the right spot.

More later.

Skittish kitty

I think Nunny was born from a kitty mill. The reason is he is terribly neurotic. It can't be from his upbringing because he's been treated so well. Never been abused, always been treated as a member of the family with full rights. Never disciplined! He gets what he wants when he wants it, as long as it's not harmful to him. Never teased, taunted or made to feel a moment's discomfort with the exception of the mandatory vacuuming. He also doesn't like it when we pour cat litter or cat food so we try to do it when he's not around.

Also his brother Simmy is often underfoot and occasionally gets stepped on. That will cause Nunny to storm and strike at us. He loses it mentally for a minute and becomes ferocious. He scares the crap out of us, quite frankly. But we know it's not his fault and that he doesn't mean to be like that. He just snaps. So we don't escalate the situation at all. He has the same reaction to cat litter and cat food and even when the front door is stuck and we're trying to get out, wiggling the knob. He senses struggle and hates it. He also doesn't like the sound of bags rattling and russling. The vaccuum causes him to hiss and retreat. But everything else causes him to come at us, forgetting that we're his parents who love him and are not trying to do anything to hurt him or anyone else.

Because of his upbringing, i have to assume he was born in a kitty mill. Maybe over bred. He's absolutely gorgeous with a bulls eye on his side. Luxurious fur and a gorgeous pink nose and bright beautiful eyes. Fluffy fur and he's BIG! He's absolutely gorgeous but his mental state is not always the best.

Nunny lays in the bathroom a lot and is horrified by the sound of the toilet flushing. So we've actually trained him to tell him, "Flush" and he knows that's his cue to get out of the room before we actually flush and cause that horrible noise. He's very smart.

We've also recently discovered that he becomes very angered by the sound of Donald Duck speaking! My best friend was on IM and she was changing her IM chime from voice to voice and upon playing the donald duck noise, Nunny came in with a vengence and stormed and slashed the crap out of me! I immediately turned the computer volume off! No more donald duck voices in our house!

Never the less, he's our boy and he wouldn't be happy in any other home. We know just how to take care of him and he wouldn't be suited anywhere else in the world. No one would be as good to him as we can be. We know all his little quirks and pet peeves and just how to make him feel at home. We love him so very much.

The day i met Nunny

I was working at the time, in the car with one of my clients, who is a very nice guy named Mike. He is mentally retarded and i took care of him and a housefull of other boys. It was November and we decided to stop by the pet shop. My husband had always told me we couldn't have a cat because it's a potentially 20 year responsibility. I decided i was going to get one anyway and show him that way. How could he refuse a kitten?

We walked in the petshop and i saw Nunny laying in his litterbox. LOL - he was so chill and laid back, totally oblivious how silly he looked laying there in his basically, toilet.

I paid for him and requested he remain there another night because i had to spend the night at work and wouldn't be able to take him home yet.

The next day i went and picked him up and brought him home. I put him in a box and brought the box in to my husband. He opened the box and instantly fell in love. He was a little peeved about being tricked like that but he wouldn't have it any other way. :)