Crazy-Ass Cat
Kee-rist.
Mathurin is going senile, I swear to god. He's always been dotty; even in his youth he enjoyed being spanked, beheaded all manner of wildlife, and in his spare time he would crouch furtively in the closet, diligently chewing the seams of our clothing and all of our shoelaces. You could hear him in there, the quiet creak, creak of his fangs piercing hemlines and bootlaces. But lately, he's gone genuinely batshit insane. Senile.
Just in the past three weeks, it's become marked. I'm not surprised, he's fifteen for god's sake, but it's really worsened lately.
He forgets when he's been fed. At first, this was a lag of half an hour, but now he forgets almost instantly. He will follow you to his bowl, watch you put food in it, then follow you back to the cabinet where the food is kept as soon as you go that way, forgetting all about the food in his dish. Meanwhile, the other cats shark in and eat it, and since he has no idea it's there, he pays them no mind. You have to make sure he pays enough attention to the plate and not the magic food-giving hands to actually notice that there is food there, not just eternally forthcoming.
Today, he howled for food with food in his mouth. He was eating, Sargon touched the Magic Cabinet, and Matt ran over and started yowling, with gooshy food dripping out of his mouth. Some cats are that fucking stupid and crazy from birth, but for him, this is new.
He will howl to be fed if we so much as set foot in the tiled part of the house. This is aggravating as hell, as he also surfs underfoot. I've nearly broken my toes three times in the past four days because of this, and I have broken several dishes. You can't turn around without stepping on him, and he won't shoo because he runs five steps and then forgets you've shooed him.
He fights with the other cats now, too. Worse, he forgets he does it. He'll have a fight with Sif or Fish and run off, then return 30 seconds later because he has totally forgotten that they're there. They fight again. This happened four times the other night because he wanted to be under the kitchen table for some reason, and Sif was there. He kept running around the corner and forgetting about her.
He wanders into empty rooms and stands there, staring at nothing. And he will do this for a good three or four minutes if you let him. If you sneak up on him while he's doing this, he'll completely freak out and go tearing off like he has a bottle rocket in his ass. Often he runs into things, even though he's not blind at all. He just runs faster than he thinks. God forbid another cat should come up behind him; he practically levitates.
His reaction to being chastised with the spray bottle is to immediately take a giant piss. Seriously. Squirt him with the bottle because he's trying to steal your food and he runs straight to the litter pan and pees. Audibly. That's just fucking weird. Aggravating is the fact that though he has a private litter pan the other cats WILL NOT use, he won't use it. It sits, clean, in his own special space that the other cats don't go into. But he uses their litter pans. Only. And he takes the smelliest craps you can imagine. The entire house reeks of rotten-chicken gooshy-food cat poop after he drops one of those stinkbombs. Even the other cats avoid it, and the dog.
Yeah, it's all kind of funny, but it's also just plain sad. I feel bad for Matt. He's old, this is not the house he grew up in, and he's having to compete for resources and affection with three other cats who are far less noisy, annoying, stinky, knobby, and senile than he is. And there's really nothing I can do to help him. He's not even close to the point where I'll consider having him put down. He has a good life, still. He's mobile, alert, his senses are very sharp still, he's just out of his goddamn mind, and it's irritating the shit out of me having to constantly nudge him out of the way and endure his howling (and if you ignore it, by the way, he will start screaming and then he will climb your fucking leg with claws like pitons). And the cat fights aren't helping his case any.
When my dad comes back from vacation I'm going to politely ask if he'll take him back, since I think he's being made worse by being around other cats. He doesn't like them, and it puts a lot of stress on his withered old brain. I'd feel better if he were allowed to convalesce peacefully, and descend into insanity without the constant melodrama of cat fights and broken dishes. I don't like it, but he's clearly not doing so well here.
Meh. I'll have to see what we can work out. It's a shame he's going mad. Though it's hard to recall that when he's all bony and dirty and smelly and absolutely bugfuck nuts, he used to be quite a formidable cat. I hate to see him like this.
Mathurin is going senile, I swear to god. He's always been dotty; even in his youth he enjoyed being spanked, beheaded all manner of wildlife, and in his spare time he would crouch furtively in the closet, diligently chewing the seams of our clothing and all of our shoelaces. You could hear him in there, the quiet creak, creak of his fangs piercing hemlines and bootlaces. But lately, he's gone genuinely batshit insane. Senile.
Just in the past three weeks, it's become marked. I'm not surprised, he's fifteen for god's sake, but it's really worsened lately.
He forgets when he's been fed. At first, this was a lag of half an hour, but now he forgets almost instantly. He will follow you to his bowl, watch you put food in it, then follow you back to the cabinet where the food is kept as soon as you go that way, forgetting all about the food in his dish. Meanwhile, the other cats shark in and eat it, and since he has no idea it's there, he pays them no mind. You have to make sure he pays enough attention to the plate and not the magic food-giving hands to actually notice that there is food there, not just eternally forthcoming.
Today, he howled for food with food in his mouth. He was eating, Sargon touched the Magic Cabinet, and Matt ran over and started yowling, with gooshy food dripping out of his mouth. Some cats are that fucking stupid and crazy from birth, but for him, this is new.
He will howl to be fed if we so much as set foot in the tiled part of the house. This is aggravating as hell, as he also surfs underfoot. I've nearly broken my toes three times in the past four days because of this, and I have broken several dishes. You can't turn around without stepping on him, and he won't shoo because he runs five steps and then forgets you've shooed him.
He fights with the other cats now, too. Worse, he forgets he does it. He'll have a fight with Sif or Fish and run off, then return 30 seconds later because he has totally forgotten that they're there. They fight again. This happened four times the other night because he wanted to be under the kitchen table for some reason, and Sif was there. He kept running around the corner and forgetting about her.
He wanders into empty rooms and stands there, staring at nothing. And he will do this for a good three or four minutes if you let him. If you sneak up on him while he's doing this, he'll completely freak out and go tearing off like he has a bottle rocket in his ass. Often he runs into things, even though he's not blind at all. He just runs faster than he thinks. God forbid another cat should come up behind him; he practically levitates.
His reaction to being chastised with the spray bottle is to immediately take a giant piss. Seriously. Squirt him with the bottle because he's trying to steal your food and he runs straight to the litter pan and pees. Audibly. That's just fucking weird. Aggravating is the fact that though he has a private litter pan the other cats WILL NOT use, he won't use it. It sits, clean, in his own special space that the other cats don't go into. But he uses their litter pans. Only. And he takes the smelliest craps you can imagine. The entire house reeks of rotten-chicken gooshy-food cat poop after he drops one of those stinkbombs. Even the other cats avoid it, and the dog.
Yeah, it's all kind of funny, but it's also just plain sad. I feel bad for Matt. He's old, this is not the house he grew up in, and he's having to compete for resources and affection with three other cats who are far less noisy, annoying, stinky, knobby, and senile than he is. And there's really nothing I can do to help him. He's not even close to the point where I'll consider having him put down. He has a good life, still. He's mobile, alert, his senses are very sharp still, he's just out of his goddamn mind, and it's irritating the shit out of me having to constantly nudge him out of the way and endure his howling (and if you ignore it, by the way, he will start screaming and then he will climb your fucking leg with claws like pitons). And the cat fights aren't helping his case any.
When my dad comes back from vacation I'm going to politely ask if he'll take him back, since I think he's being made worse by being around other cats. He doesn't like them, and it puts a lot of stress on his withered old brain. I'd feel better if he were allowed to convalesce peacefully, and descend into insanity without the constant melodrama of cat fights and broken dishes. I don't like it, but he's clearly not doing so well here.
Meh. I'll have to see what we can work out. It's a shame he's going mad. Though it's hard to recall that when he's all bony and dirty and smelly and absolutely bugfuck nuts, he used to be quite a formidable cat. I hate to see him like this.