matty

[SHATOUSHKA]

matty is my second cat.

one night when i was coming home, she came
up to me at my door. when i bent down to
pet her, she seemed really thin... so i took
her in.

i wasn't sure how things would go considering
she was wearing a flea collar at the time...
but her hips and shoulders were really
predominant and her coat was really grimy.
i could tell she hadn't had food in a while,
so i fixed her up a bowl of a couple of
cans of fancy feast and some water. she
gulped it down... she may have even begged
for seconds. i know she was a kitten of about
6... maybe 8 months... possibly younger...
but she seemed to be at that stage between
kitten and adult. binx is over a year old,
and matty, in comparison, has a much 'younger'
face. which is why i think she is younger
in age.

*interlude*

prior to matty, i owned a second cat named
phineas... which i picked up from the pound
as a friend (and possible mate) to binx.
phineas was suffering from a terrible cold
when i got him and he was, of course, hungry.
he stuck around the house just long enough
to get over his illness and put on a few
pounds before his incessant mewing at the
front door caused me to open the door....
and he never came back.

*end interlude*

so with my experience with phineas... i
was concerned that i would grow accustomed
to matty and the day would come that she
would wish to leave or her true owners would
come. fortunately (???) neither one has
happened (yet) and matty now has put on
a few pounds and her coat is now a fresh white. =)
she now uses phineas's old cat dish and i
even bought a collar for her very own.
(i took the flea collar off the day i took
her in. it reaked and caused matty to smell
like that medicated powder).

but this isn't my point...

after a time, i began attempting to draw
conclusions about how matty came into this
situation.

the flea collar gave me a clue that either
her previous home was infested with fleas...
or she was treated as an outside cat.

i had assumed that if she were an outside
cat, as most cats do, she prolly wandered
off and either:

A) couldn't find her way back home

or

B) her owners moved/abandoned her

this brings me to my point...

matty hates closed doors in the house...
save the front and back door -- both leading
outside (and, of course, the closets).

when a door is closed, she will scratch and
claw at the bottom of the door until its
opened. this happens upstairs since it is
the only place in which the doors may become
closed.

i usually close the door when i go to sleep
(though i don't really prefer it opened or
closed) because i have a free-standing
corner shelf in my room that has fallen over
once when i was asleep... and the cats seem
to enjoy playing behind it. i don't want
to cause accidents (and when it fell the
first time, it scared me enough to take
precautions). however, during the first
week or so that she stayed with me, matty
clawed the area under the door CONSISTANTLY.

*FYI-- the area behind the shelf has
been stuffed with various things, including
a huge stuffed xmas bear i picked up at
a flea market. this deters the cats from
going behind it*

but.....

matty still claws like crazy when i have to
use the bathroom or shower or something...
or when i close the doors upstairs. she won't
necessarily claw at the doors if i am downstairs,
but if she checks downstairs and i am not
there... she will go upstairs and claw.

(sadly, this gives me the impression that
matty may have been abandoned.)

since there are occassions when the doors
(or A door) must be closed... any ideas
on how to keep her from friggin clawing???

the corners by the door jams are starting
to show hardwood and its pissing me off!!!


help help help


ps... i like her. i'm not getting rid of her.
binx is free to leave.....

(jk... i love binx)

(no i don't)

(ok... yes i do)

[SHATOUSHKA]

oh yeah... i forgot to mention that i have tried
putting towels and other various shit under the
doors (on the outside)... but she just gets around
all that mess...

[zelazny]

well, to be honest, the only thing that ever helped our cat to stop doing something used to be a.. what's the word. this thing you spray plants with, you can pump it to put pressure on it and then spray water with it. It's not really handy indoors and he got some fear of the device itself, but he hardly claws anymore at all.
Then again, he didn't claw quite that much, but he seems to do it less.

[Tard]

A friend of mine did that, with a water-pistol. It didn't STOP their sofa-clawing, but lessened it.After awhile the kitties would start looking over their shoulders before clawing, to make sure there wasn't a big purple plastic Magnum aiming at 'em. "D'ya feel lucky, punk?"

[SHATOUSHKA]

it seems matty only claws when i am on the other
side of the closed door... otherwise, she is fine.
i don't know how i can squirt her with water when
i'm on the other side of the door. i could try
to squirt her from under the door... but the door
comes almost completely down to the floor... and
the carpetting meets the rest. it would be quite
a job to squirt her if i were on the other side.

[Tard]

Mikey is (I guess) the same way. He's the big B&W lumbering 6-toed hunter of the house. Other than his toilet-voyeurism, think he might have a small abandonment-issue or two. (He followed me into the computer-room, and plopped-down for a nap right behind me, so I can't roll this chair away from the 'puter without squashing a paw, or his tail.

[SHATOUSHKA]

yeah... matty is the same way. she likes to be
in some area where you are in constant view...
though occasionally she will follow binx upstairs
for a nice nap under the bed or for other play.

i haven't had matty long... hmmmm... maybe a few
months... so i'm hoping that, in time, she will
get over the damn scratching when she realizes
i'm not leaving her (or at very least, she's
not being abandoned).

i dunno. maybe she will be like that for the
extent of her life. hopefully not.

she wasn't very receptive to binx when matty
first came here... but now they are friends
(and team-up against the dog).

heh heh

[zelazny]

Pets kick ass

[Hannibal]

Great,... just when I'm thinkin my "learning and behavior" class was utter senslessness.
*which... it being taught by who it was... actually WAS crap*
but anyways...
You have to offer the cat something else, when it doesn't claw.
you must reinforce when it doesn't claw, or does something else less destructive.
*i know you probably know this*
Punishment is effective.. i.e. the water... however that gets the engagement in the action to stop only when you are around to enforce... and it MAY actually *studies have shown* cause an increase in a the action when you are gone, to make up for the lessening, when you are arounnd.
So... punishment, isn't exactly the best way, however a positive reinforcer every time she does something OTHER than scratch might be the way to go...
I'm not sure exactly, what... or say... how to go about this... but i'll figure it out..
PERHAPS...
if you go on the other side of the door, when the cat approaches..... you slide a peice of food under the door.
The cat will wonder what this is about, eat the food, and perhaps think for a moment.
that moment it's thinking *and not scratching* you slide another peice of food under the door...
now if it scratches, you refrain from food....
but in the initial approach, to try and get it not to scratch, you could try that.t..
*shrugs*
I'm sure there are other ways, but I'm waiting on Jason to wake up right now...
[img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]wink.gif[/img]
maybe i'll go jump in bed with him?
I think i should [img]graemlins/devil.gif[/img]

[SHATOUSHKA]

ummm.... its a cat. [img]confused.gif[/img]