Diverting Apricot

Sunday, Nov 23, 2014

My scared little kitty is currently hiding under the bed. So I checked the weather forecast and sure enough it has "storm" lightning through the raining clouds. Even though there isn't any storm outside, just rain. He's never been wrong before ...

So when there isn't weather about, he is becoming bolder and wanting to explore more. This started with asking to be up on the bathroom counter. I don't mind him on the bathroom counter and I told him so, but he still wasn't sure.

He looked up at the counter top and back at me, up at the counter top and back at me. Repeat until I finish what I'm doing and can get up. (We are in the bathroom, after all.) I asked him if he wanted some help, and he looked up at the counter top and back at me. He knows what I mean by that (help = pick him up), and I shrugged inside and figured, okay, we'll try it.

I slowly scooped him up and put him on the counter. He barely even gave the fact that I was carrying him for a moment a passing consideration and began exploring his new realm. I was quite pleased. He's learning that being picked up can get him to interesting places that he wants to be, not just scary places like the vet's office counters.

He has jumped up there on his own, once that I saw. But he doesn't like to. I think due to the bathroom configuration there isn't enough room for him to get a running leap at it, and he doesn't like to launch to that height from a standing start. It's rather interesting, because Pippin was the same way, only in Pippin's case it was because he couldn't see the place he was going to land, and I'm really not sure what it is in Apricot's case. I'm just speculating about the amount of energy required to jump to that height being objectionable to him. I mean, I've met a cat who liked to jump (from the floor) to the top of an open door. That cat had to not only reach the top of the door, but he had to go higher and come down onto the door edge, otherwise he'd just push the hinged door away from himself.

Yesterday Apricot decided that if the bathroom counter was interesting, the kitchen counter would be even better.

I don't want him on the kitchen counter and I told him so, calmly, while he looked longingly at it from the floor. He even put his paws up on the cabinet doors, trying to get tall enough to look over the edge. I offered no help, just stood there and kept saying that he wasn't allowed up there.

After a while I decided to put into practice a lesson I learned from the Way of Cats blog. If your cat is doing something you don't want him to (or in this case, contemplating it) you distract them. Especially young cats, like Apricot, have a short attention span, and distracting him will often work to put the entire concept out of his head.

There's generally a toy within reach no matter where in the house I am, and the kitchen is no exception. I gathered up a puffball string toy and distracted Apricot from the counters quite successfully.

However, he'd been really interested. Another thing I learned from Way of Cats is expanding their territory. He wanted to expand his territory up onto the counters. I didn't want him to do that, but I could let him expand his territory into a different area. Way of Cats suggested opening closets that are normally closed, but the opportunity came yesterday with a drawer I was putting clothes into.

My bed is extremely high in part because it has drawers underneath. Since I do laundry on Saturdays, I was putting some clothes into one of the drawers. Apricot came in and expressed interest instead of turning around and leaving. (He often leaves because the drawers make noise when they slide in and out.)

I certainly don't mind him being in drawers (there's cat hair on my clothes just from wearing them; there's very little point in trying to keep cat hair off of them while they're in closets or drawers). So I asked if he would like to be in.

He allowed as to how he might want to explore it.

 The drawers have a bed skirt that cover them, and when I open the drawers I have to lift up the bed skirt. The bed frame itself has a little lip that I can hook the bed skirt into, which is how it's being held off the drawer here.

This is fun!

Even let me get a close-up picture.

He hasn't expressed an interest in the kitchen counters since. Perhaps this whole diversion tactic and expanding territory thing really does work? Or I'll have to do it periodically ... 

He didn't stay in the drawer for too long, which is nice, because I wanted to have it closed eventually and if I walk off and leave it open, I have a tendency to forget I've done so and then end up tripping over it. Trust me. Drawers and cabinet doors have it in for my shins!