He usually steals my chair whenever I get up to go to the bathroom. This time, he claimed the desk. When I try to reclaim my chair, I have to battle him for it because he will playfully defend it with teeth and claws.
Ella is in panic mode right now because I'm watching a podcast where there is thunder, lightning, and rain, and she is convinced that she is going to be in a storm. She was sleeping in her bed next to my computer when the storm began on the television and she's confused.
Ella knows that the barometric pressure has not dropped and there is no ozone in the air, so there are conflicting signals being received.
It probably throws her awareness off, creating a form of cognitive dissonance; perhaps instinctual dissonance. She looked very concerned and finally decided that it might be safer upstairs.
David used to tend to my former Best Cat Ever's eye needs, since she'd let him hold her 'baby style' in the crook of his arm while he liberally flooded her squinted-up eye with saline solution. I don't know if she'd have tolerated ointment or not, but the salt water seemed to work well enough.
I had an attack cat. That cat had chased friends out of my house and little kids out of my yard. When I would come home from work I had to announce my presence because Snowy would be on top of the fridge ready to shred the intruder. She was mean. Snowy got in a fight once and had a puncture would that needed to be reopened, cleaned, and then have a large syringe put inside and underneath the skin to shoot an antibiotic ointment up there twice a day. That cat would sit still for me to do that uncomfortable thing and not give me a hard time at all. I've been through the "eye drops & ointment" thing with my dog, but she always was a compliant puppy.
As she grows older, Ella is becoming more and more controlling. She rarely walks past Bubba without hissing at him but her hissing doesn't have the same level of vehemence that it did several months ago. She routinely tries to chase him off of whatever he's on, but he is becoming more resistant to that. On the positive side, while Bubba is probably close to twice Ella's size right now, I have never seen him show any anger toward her, even when it might be deserved. His attitude is that it's all play to him. Ella has more success in controlling me. She tells me when it's time to get up, when it's time to take a nap, and when it's time to go to bed. In between, she will sometimes insist that I go upstairs. When Michelle is home and upstairs, I refer to that as Michelle falling in a well, which is a reference to the old Lassie show, where Timmy fell in a well and Lassie led the rescue effort. So when she insists that I go upstairs, I'll ask, "Did Michelle fall into a well again?" Of course, she also leads me to the food bowl if she wants more to eat, to the treat door when she wants a treat, and to the back door when she wants me to take her to a walk. It's hard to turn her down. She stares me in the eyes intently, and taps me on the shoulder or on my leg, depending on where I am. If I try to ignore her, she gives me a look that says that I can't ignore her.
My cat had a FBS...Full Bladder Sensor. When Snowy wanted me out of bed, she would jump on that exact spot, run to the bedroom door, then look back to see if I was following. If not, I got the treatment again.
Bubba doesn't often pay attention to the television but I am watching a podcast of a guy in the wood with his dog, and Bubba keeps slapping at the dog. It's funny and I don't want to yell at him, but it's a soft-screen television and I'm afraid that his claws are going to cause a problem. If so, I've had that television for a few years now, so that would be an excuse to buy another one. It's clearly the dog that he's interested in.
I seldom think of that and, when I do, the cats quit doing whatever they were doing when I bring the camera out. Several times, I have tried to video them fighting, as they do that a lot, but each time they stop and look at me when the camera comes out. "What? We're not doing nothin'."
Yeah, a cat usually understands when you're trying to help them, even if the process is uncomfortable for them. Probably Snowy isn't really a 'mean' cat, just irrationally frightened by certain situations, due to some past experience of which its human caretakers are unaware. I used to watch Jackson Galaxy cat-help videos on YouTube and was amazed by how 'easy' some of his remedies were.
Funny thing, my mom once had two cats, a huge male named Thomas and a skinny little girl named Penny. Thomas would eat all the food, and not let Penny get even a mouthful if he could help it. He'd not let Penny sit on my mom's lap and would push her off if he saw her there. My mom commented that "Thomas doesn't want Penny to have anything," but never tried to keep it from happening. But then when she was in hospice at home, it was Penny who sat with her day and night, while Thomas kept his distance, probably due to the noise of ther oxygen equipment? Sad for my mom, that her pampered 'favorite' so quickly transferred his 'affection' to anyone and everyone who'd feed him too many treats.
Ella makes me feel so bad when I have to leave for a while. She saw us packing suitcases and stuff and decided to normalize things or perhaps persuade me of the benefits of going to bed rather than leaving home. She insisted that I follow her into the bedroom, where I was expected to lie there with her. She was probably hoping I'd fall asleep and forego our trip. She and Bubba will be well taken care of, as Michelle's partner and another woman who works at her Center will be coming by to make sure they get two servings of canned food, and that the water is fresh. Michelle's partner has been by before, and Ella likes her, and the other woman adopted Bubba's brother, who apparently looks pretty much like him. I still feel guilty about leaving them. Bubba is afraid of anyone new but once they open up a can of cat food, they're not new anymore.