Special. Like the cat.
It’s been a few months since I last made a post about kitty’s urination issues.
Back when he was in the midst of UTI badness and then first diagnosed with the cystitis, I started praising him every time he peed, along the lines of, "Good job, Boo! Mama appreciates your commitment to urination!"
This was, of course, mostly for my own sake, because it never occurred to me that his little walnut-sized brain would comprehend what I was saying, and because I felt so helpless to do anything useful about his issues, you know? I mean, I basically turned into some weird cross between a urologist and a character from Dune, all, “The urine must flow.”
Anyway, fast forward a couple of weeks from the stress-induced cystitis diagnosis, and I was feeling slightly less paranoid, and stopped rushing to observe every time I heard the susurration of little cat feet on silica granules. I’m in the kitchen, and I hear him hit the box, and figure, okay, when I’m done w/ the dishes, I’ll go check it out and make sure everything’s copasetic.
Then he comes out to the kitchen and yowls at me. I’m thinking ooooooooooooh, fuck because that probably meant it was hurting when he peed, or he couldn’t go, or something. I immediately go check the box. He follows me. There is a nice, big, fresh puddle of cat pee. And I’m all, “Oh, good job, Boo!” and then he wanders off.
Trying not to be paranoid, I think, okay, I’ll see if it happens again before I drag his fuzzy ass back to the vet’s and cause him even more stress.
It happens again.
And again.
And then I realize he’s only doing it when he pees and I’m not in the room with him, and don’t therefore immediately praise him (I can see his box from my bed when we’re in my room at night and I’m sitting up using Hamish). That’s right. Not only does kitty apparently recognize tones of praise when he hears them, but he has come to expect them for certain acts.
He is coming to get me to demand praise for successfully urinating.
*head in hands*
And what with all of this urination observation I’ve been up to, I’ve noticed something else: when he first got sick, I went out and bought one of those cheap, open topped plastic trays, because UTIs can cause a lot of cats to start peeing outside their usual box, as they associate the location with the pain from peeing - cat logic, apparently - so I figured I should give him another option that was not a corner in my closet or my shoes. The vet agreed this was a good idea. He seems to prefer it now, and only uses his craptorium for, well, crapping. He is seriously pretty fucking anal about this. The streams must not be crossed.
Anyway, when he piddles in the open box, he then hops out, and tries to cover it up by burying it in litter with one of his front paws. But he’s standing kind of parallel to the box side, so he doesn’t look and cover at the same time.
He inspects the puddle, then kind of paddles his little paw through the litter in the vague, general direction of said puddle, and then looks again to see if he’s managed to cover it up. Which he usually hasn’t. He makes a little kitty face of perplexed disappointment that all his efforts have been for naught, and tries again.
IDK if all cats do this (because I have not heretofore engaged in much feline urination observation) , or if he’s just even more extra special than I previously thought, but we’ve already established that I’m clearly bugfuck ridiculous here, so it’s probably good that we found each other.
Back when he was in the midst of UTI badness and then first diagnosed with the cystitis, I started praising him every time he peed, along the lines of, "Good job, Boo! Mama appreciates your commitment to urination!"
This was, of course, mostly for my own sake, because it never occurred to me that his little walnut-sized brain would comprehend what I was saying, and because I felt so helpless to do anything useful about his issues, you know? I mean, I basically turned into some weird cross between a urologist and a character from Dune, all, “The urine must flow.”
Anyway, fast forward a couple of weeks from the stress-induced cystitis diagnosis, and I was feeling slightly less paranoid, and stopped rushing to observe every time I heard the susurration of little cat feet on silica granules. I’m in the kitchen, and I hear him hit the box, and figure, okay, when I’m done w/ the dishes, I’ll go check it out and make sure everything’s copasetic.
Then he comes out to the kitchen and yowls at me. I’m thinking ooooooooooooh, fuck because that probably meant it was hurting when he peed, or he couldn’t go, or something. I immediately go check the box. He follows me. There is a nice, big, fresh puddle of cat pee. And I’m all, “Oh, good job, Boo!” and then he wanders off.
Trying not to be paranoid, I think, okay, I’ll see if it happens again before I drag his fuzzy ass back to the vet’s and cause him even more stress.
It happens again.
And again.
And then I realize he’s only doing it when he pees and I’m not in the room with him, and don’t therefore immediately praise him (I can see his box from my bed when we’re in my room at night and I’m sitting up using Hamish). That’s right. Not only does kitty apparently recognize tones of praise when he hears them, but he has come to expect them for certain acts.
He is coming to get me to demand praise for successfully urinating.
*head in hands*
And what with all of this urination observation I’ve been up to, I’ve noticed something else: when he first got sick, I went out and bought one of those cheap, open topped plastic trays, because UTIs can cause a lot of cats to start peeing outside their usual box, as they associate the location with the pain from peeing - cat logic, apparently - so I figured I should give him another option that was not a corner in my closet or my shoes. The vet agreed this was a good idea. He seems to prefer it now, and only uses his craptorium for, well, crapping. He is seriously pretty fucking anal about this. The streams must not be crossed.
Anyway, when he piddles in the open box, he then hops out, and tries to cover it up by burying it in litter with one of his front paws. But he’s standing kind of parallel to the box side, so he doesn’t look and cover at the same time.
He inspects the puddle, then kind of paddles his little paw through the litter in the vague, general direction of said puddle, and then looks again to see if he’s managed to cover it up. Which he usually hasn’t. He makes a little kitty face of perplexed disappointment that all his efforts have been for naught, and tries again.
IDK if all cats do this (because I have not heretofore engaged in much feline urination observation) , or if he’s just even more extra special than I previously thought, but we’ve already established that I’m clearly bugfuck ridiculous here, so it’s probably good that we found each other.