While my second cup of coffee is brewing, let me talk about my cats.

We’ve been having some cat issues this week. Heightened aggression. A couple of actual fights. Kitty tension and stress. It didn’t start this week, but it’s certainly been coming to a head the last few days. I don’t make many demands on my animal companions, and I usually prefer letting them sort their own issues out all by themselves, but I also don’t want to be running to an emergency vet due to someone getting an eye scratched out, and I do prefer having peace and quiet in my household. The cats know if I get agitated enough and can determine who is to blame for the lack of peace and quiet, the guilty party will be blamed. This is why they have become exceptionally good at acting up at the furthest point in the house from the humans and dispersing quickly when humans approach.

Now I had been able to determine, through careful observation, that the parties involved in the latest cat spats are Tora and Myu. Tora isn’t a kitten anymore, and she’s beginning to question her position at the bottom of the pecking order, and she wants to partake of the best cat napping locations alongside her –in her view– equals. Myu has determined this doesn’t please her one bit.

I’d originally suspected that Tora was the actual instigator of the fights. This surprised me, because of the three cats, she is the sweetest and least aggressive one. So I watched some more for any sign of which cat was actually picking the fights. This morning, I got my sign. Tora was in the kitchen, and she squeaked in that way she does when she wants attention. I called her name, and she came running for head scratches. Myu was lying on the floor beside my chair (one of those prime cat napping locations), and as soon as I had dispensed the appropriate measure of kitty loving on Tora, Myu hopped up and jumped all over Tora. Well, now I know who’s to blame for the lack of peace and quiet in my household.

I can’t say I am terribly surprised. Myu is really a bitchy little cat. She’s never been happy with the fact that Ronin is the top cat, and there isn’t anything much she can do about that. She’d love to be the queen of the house, but he is a big fat bully, and he’s not afraid to put other cats in their place if need be. With my help, we all worked through that little situation, and now the two of them begrudgingly share the best sleeping and hiding spots, but Myu has never been happy about it. Therefore, she’s got to make sure she keeps the new (as in over two years ago) interloper in her place … and she’s become a bully too.

So now I have to get involved again, because like I said, I do not want to be running to an emergency vet with a ripped up cat at some ungodly hour of the night. It’d be stressful and expensive, and then there’d have to be decisions made about whether or not all three cats get to continue living here. That’s a decision I don’t want to have to make, but I also am not going to have cats fighting and ripping each other up in my house, especially not over something as stupid as who happens to be snoozing on the couch or getting head scratches at any given moment.

Therefore, out comes the Water Bottle of Doom. Unlike Ronin, who is capable of looking completely innocent before launching an assault, Myu is very easy to read. I can tell she’s about to have a fit of aggressiveness several minutes before it happens. She does not hide her emotions well. Unfortunately, during this morning’s incident, I did not yet have the water bottle handy, so when she trotted over to kick Tora’s butt (within the area of my ability to physically intervene), I smacked her lightly on the butt. I wish I could have gotten a photo of her face, because she was quite shocked by that. Physical punishment is a rare, RARE thing around Casa de Orb. So rare, it just about never happens. I can only think of a few incidents in the last four years (both times due to Ronin thinking it a good idea to attack me when he was having a bad day – he doesn’t so that anymore). This also makes butt-smacking effective in the short term. I bet Myu doesn’t jump on Tora for the rest of the day. At least I certainly hope not, or she’s going to find herself doused by the Water Bottle of Doom and sitting in the bathroom for a while to think about her transgressions.

I do think we need to try Feliway at some point, but the stuff isn’t exactly cheap. Money is always tight, and it’d be better if some sort of peace could be achieved without the need of another monthly expense (and essentially drugging the whole household with cat pheromones). But if this hasn’t worked itself out with my help and guidance in a month or so, more drastic measure will have to be taken. The cats may believe we humans are merely their servants, but they’ll may be shocked to discover that we are, in fact, the rulers of the kingdom … and dammit, some of us are getting really tired of being awakened by the howling of angry cats. It’s going to stop, or it will be stopped.

NOTE: Ronin is currently occupying the precious floor space beside my chair, and Myu is sitting on the edge of the desk glaring at him with a death-stare. She knows better than to even try to take him on, so she’ll just sit there and be angry until he toddles off to sleep elsewhere. And Ronin’s reaction to the recent scuffles between the girls has really been somewhat humorous. I am going to have to try to catch a photo of him when they start getting snippy with each other, because he totally has a look of “WTF is going ON?!?!” on his face (with a little bit of “See, wasn’t me this time! added).

This morning, at 3:48 am while I was cozily dreaming of happy things, my slumber was abruptly ended by the sounds of a full-on cat fight somewhere within the walls of my home. If you’ve ever heard cats fighting, you’ll know they are very, very loud. It’s certainly not something a human can sleep through when it’s happening just down the hallway. It didn’t take long for both humans to be wide awake and attempting to sort out what the hell had just happened.

Tora was running around the house. Myu was hiding under Lin’s desk. Ronin was in his favorite “safe spot” under the kitchen table. I grabbed each cat in turn and checked for injuries, and thankfully, there were none. I can’t imagine anything less fun than running to an emergency vet with an injured cat at 4 o’clock in the morning. Oh, there are probably some scratches I didn’t see, but there wasn’t anything obvious, and all the cats were more annoyed with my full-body pat-downs than showing any signs of pain, so yippee … no major injuries (this time).

Since no one saw which of the cats were involved in the actual cat fight, I had to try to deduce from their behavior in the immediate aftermath who the responsible parties were. I’m about 99% certain it was Tora and Myu, if only because Ronin was in his favorite “safe spot” with a stupid and freaked out look on his face, and then after I finished checking Myu for injuries, he came out and licked her head affectionately (and she allowed it). The girls also got into a little tussle at some outrageous hour of the morning a couple weeks ago as well (right on me on the bed – a real eye opener, let me tell you). I’m not quite sure what their problem is, but they do seem to be having some kind of problem with each other lately.

I don’t know what to do about it. The fighting isn’t a daily activity, thank goodness, and I do like to think the cats work out their little issues among themselves and probably do so better than if I started chastising them or enforcing nice behavior with punishment. But … it isn’t going to take too many more instances of being awakened at ungodly hours by the sound of fighting cats for me to be pushed right over the edge. In fact, I think I am really, really tired of it right now, and it’s only happened twice.

It definitely feels like perhaps it’s time to try Feliway. A lot of people say it works great at relaxing cats and bringing harmony to the household. A few people say it doesn’t do anything at all. Guess I won’t know until I try it, and I think I am ready to try it. I’m tired of the cats having these occasional obnoxious periods of fighting. I want non-stop peace and calm from the cats!

This morning, my alarm went off at 9 am. I hit the snooze button. I knew I would be hitting the snooze button. I planned ahead. Knowing I wanted to be awake by 10 am, I set it the alarm an hour early, thereby giving myself an hour of ten minute mini-naps. LOL!

But that’s not how it turned out. My alarm went off … and we were beset upon by cats. Not one cat. Not two cats. No … all three cats. Ronin was trotting between the bed and hallway croaking his throaty meow and insisting someone pay attention to whatever it was he thought needed attention. Myu was wandering around on the bed demanding head and belly rubs. Tora was squeaking and squeaking and squeaking. The cats were agitated, and they were being adamant that someone pay attention to that fact NOW.

I’d forgotten this used to be a regularly occurring weekend morning event, so I was perplexed by this (to me at the moment) unreasonable cat behavior. Why were they not letting us sleep in?! What could the problem possibly be?!

After they finally forced me to get out of bed with their antics, I staggered to the kitchen and discovered the crisis. The feeder was almost empty. Not completely empty, but empty enough that there was only one serving of food in the bowl. Far more empty than it’s been since we bought the feeder and went on vacation. The cats were in a state of panic! They were obviously going to die of starvation if someone didn’t fill the feeder NOW!

So I did, and each cat took exactly one bite of food and toddled off to do other cat things secure in the fact a week’s worth of food was available to them at all times. Just in case, you know, we disappeared for a week again.

Lin isn’t a fan of the feeder. He says it’s making the cats fat. It isn’t. Ronin is the same (huge) weight he was when I was in complete control of what and how much he ate, and the other two are showing no signs of gaining weight at all. They seem to do alright controlling their own eating, so long as they know there is a constant and ready supply of food. Additionally, they aren’t losing their minds as meal times grow closer, or losing their minds when the bottom of the bowl can be seen (aside from this morning’s incident), and they aren’t getting in moods and being destructive, because I haven’t stopped what I am doing to feed them the instant they think they need to be fed. To me, that’s nothing but WIN.

When the feeder next becomes empty, I might experiment with going back to regular feeding times and separate bowls, but I doubt I’ll stick with it. The cats and I are generally happy with the current set-up. Less aggravation and fuss for me, and less food stress and angst for the cats. But … we’ll see I guess! I imagine the first time the cats start demanding humans get up and feed them at some unreasonable pre-alarm time when the humans would rather be sleeping, Lin may change his tune. Though you know who mostly gets pestered by the cats don’t you? Yes, me … the Goddess of the Feed Bag and provider of all things edible.

Before we left for vacation, we bought a gravity-fed feeder and water bowl for the cats. I’d intended to only use it while we were on vacation and go back to the usual feeding pattern as soon as we returned, mostly out of fear the cats (who do love to eat) would just keep gaining weight. Since it still had food in it when we got home, I left it up just to see how the cats use it.

Interestingly, no one seems to be over-eating. In fact, none of the beasts has gained any weight. They each take a nibble when they want and then wander off to do whatever it is they are in the mood to do. I’d begun to suspect all three of them had food insecurity issues (i.e. always afraid the food they are getting is the last ever), which is insane, seeing as the only one who may have experienced any actual hunger in their lives is Tora (the street kitten). The other two have never known a day of hunger in their entire lives, as evidenced by them being pudgy kittens and now pudgy cats. But it always felt like the insane mouth-stuffing that would happen when I put down the bowls of food was motivated more by being afraid there wouldn’t be food later and less by actual hunger. They are all very relaxed about food now, and it appears none of them has been over-eating. Not even Ronin.

I was also concerned that without the motivation to remind me to feed them the cats would collectively ignore the humans entirely. There used to often be days when the only time I’d see a cat was when it was getting near time for a meal, and then, of course, they were all up in my face letting me know in no uncertain terms they wanted food NOW. Well, they seem to be paying more attention to the humans than ever. They still come around for attention at the usual morning, noon, and night feeding times of yore, but they also seem to be spending more time in general in the vicinity of their human servants. I hadn’t expected that, but I like it.

The cats really seem to like the feeder. They seem like much more relaxed cats than usual. Therefore, the feeder (and water dispenser) will be staying right where it is. Added bonus? I no longer have to remember to feed the cats or worry about being home at their usual feeding times. It’s kind of nice … like the kids have grown up to be teens and can now take care of themselves. One less thing I have to think about each day!

Extra added bonus? Tora can’t spill the water anymore, and she’s stopped playing with the water altogether. Yes, no toys in the water bowl and no puddles of water on the kitchen floor with a silly cat rolling around in them. Pure joy! LOL!

NOTE: Because someone will ask, the brand we bought is Le Bistro. We bought them at PetsMart, but I know I have seen them at Walmart as well. Probably pretty easy to find, and according to the girl at the cash register at PetsMart, they are their top-selling brand and they don’t get complaints about them like some of the others. I’ve had no complaint about them so far, and considering they weren’t the expensive ones, I’m sort of surprised. I’d recommend them for sure if you need something like that for a vacation, because I would have been happy had they only lasted that long. Far cheaper and less hassle than boarding the cats somewhere. But they are pretty ruggedly built, and I suspect they are going to last long enough for me to call them a huge bargain. Oh, and we bought the dark blue ones for dogs (the small dog version). The cat ones didn’t look as well made, but they are probably just as good.

The cashier did say that one guy complained about them. He’d used them outside by the side of his house and they disfigured and started leaking. Well, yeah. Probably so. Ever notice what happens to plastic things left outside during the summer in Texas? Can’t say I am surprised. All I can say is seems to me this guy has dogs outside who have nowhere to get out of the sun if they are forced to eat and drink out in it, which makes me wonder about the guy’s suitability as a pet parent.