The Attack that Required an Apology

Yesterday after work I was making my bed. Now Thimble was trying to help me, but he doesn't yet understand that he's not supposed to pounce on the sheets as I move them. So he got squirted with the water because he wouldn't quit even after being shown the water container.

He got upset. He doesn't like being told he's not supposed to do something. He often gets bratty about it and goes and takes it out on Colby. Well, being the same age and up for a mock battle pretty much any time, Colby usually doesn't mind.

Unfortunately, Colby wasn't handy. Apricot was. Apricot was sitting out in the hallway where he could watch me make the bed through the doorway. Sometimes he comes in and sometimes he doesn't. He's not scared of the bed-making procedure like he used to be, but when I'm moving around the bed rather rapidly, he thinks it might be best to stay out from underfoot. (He's correct about that.)

Thus when Thimble got upset that he got punished, and ran out the door, the first cat he encountered was Apricot. I didn't see what actually happened. I heard a high-pitched yip from someone. I think now it was Apricot, but at the time I couldn't tell. All three of them, oddly enough, have the same pitch and tone to their voices. I expect they will differentiate in time.

Apricot then disappeared and I found him later under the couch when I went looking after I finished the bed. There was no storm coming. Why would he be under the couch? That's when I realized that "yipe" comment had been from him, and whatever Thimble did had scared him so bad he went and hid.

I told Thimble how disappointed I was in him and that he needs to be nicer to Apricot. I didn't raise my voice or otherwise get demonstrative. The event was over and it's not like I know how much Thimble can connect English words to something that happens in the past. But I wasn't happy that Apricot had disappeared and I let Thimble know that, just talking.

Then we (Thimble and I) took a bath, with Thimble getting his usual amount of slightly damp. That's a good half hour. Apricot was still disappeared when we came out.

Apricot emerged later that night. I was on the settee and he was lying down next to the half-wall that provides a little corridor from the living room into the kitchen. (It's full from the floor to the ceiling; it's only a bit over six feet long and sticks out seemingly randomly from the edge of the kitchen door into the living room. It has one of the vents in it and that's why Apricot likes to lie there because he gets a cool breeze.)

Thimble walked over to him and I thought, oh, no, can't you leave him alone? But I didn't say anything. I only intervene when I think things have gone way, way too far.

Thimble leaned his head down and gave Apricot's forehead a few licks with his tongue. Normally when Thimble wants to wash one of his brothers, it's several minutes before he's done, and I was very apprehensive about how Apricot would handle Thimble being (literally) in his face for that long.

But I was wrong. Thimble only gave him a few washes and then backed away a step and looked at him, with kind of a "oops" look. Apricot gazed back; I couldn't see his face as he was at the edge of the wall.

And then Thimble went on his way, and the rest of the night they were good together; their normal selves with the occasional shoulder-rub in passing and so on and so forth.

I think Thimble apologized. I believe that whole quick wash head hung down look was Thimble saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize I scared you that much."

He's such a sweetie ... when he remembers to be!

Apricot and Thimble

My table, thank you very much.

Apricot and Thimble appear to have a jovial, but very real, rivalry going on. Mostly for my attention, and they are trying to one-up each other by imitating the other one!

For example: Apricot learned that if he came over to me, I would stop, lean down or crouch down, and pet him. No matter what I was doing. He is rather irritated, actually, that the exception to this is when I'm holding another cat and walking with them. (I simply can't kneel down without tipping over slightly, which overbalances the cat in my arms and makes them feel like I'm going to drop them, which makes them want to leave and possibly leave suddenly, and the entire situation goes south from there.

Well, Apricot is still doing the come over and ask for pets, even more than ever.

Now Thimble is learning to do it too. As of right now, he's simply imitating Apricot. If he sees Apricot get up and come over, he'll duplicate the action. Luckily, I have two hands, and Colby's not getting participating, so two hands are sufficient. But I anticipate Thimble's going to start doing it independently of Apricot eventually.

I really have to watch where I'm going these days when I walk through the house!

Well, that's Thimble imitating Apricot.

Thimble in sleepy abandon on my lap
(Yes, I have a blanket on my lap in May)

But Apricot's imitating Thimble, too. He sees Thimble take such great pleasure in leaping onto the kitchen stool and from there to my shoulder. And he thinks, hm.

No, he doesn't want to jump to my shoulder. He's a compact floor cat. But he's jumping to the stool height and asking for kisses like Colby does. (This leaves Colby without a kitchen stool ... perhaps I should get another one.)

So I have been giving him kisses there. He's even done the thing where he sits there as I prepare supper and he's discovered I give random kisses as I move around the kitchen, much to his delight.

However, he's still giving me that look that means "that's not quite what I wanted although it's very nice and please don't stop." I am coming to the conclusion that he wants a ride. He wants me to pick him up, carry him through the house like I do Thimble, and then put him down. This from a cat who has been adamant about his fear of being carried.

I've tried the ride idea a few times now. It seems to really be what he wants. For a short distance (not the entire house) he even purrs the whole time. For the length of the house, he doesn't purr, but he doesn't tense up and get all afraid, either.

I like this kind of cat rivalry. They're learning all good things from each other, even if they are doing it because they're vying for my attention.

And in the middle of all this, I have to remember to make sure I give Colby attention, too, since he's not being front and center about demanding it!

Colby Poses in the Window

Colby doesn't usually sit here. This is Thimble's preferred spot, and Thimble has learned how to navigate the curtain, which here is pulled back. Colby, however, saw or heard something at the window that he wanted to check out. I don't remember where Thimble was at the time, but obviously not close or he would have been up there too.

I pulled the curtain back for Colby since it was frustrating him as he tried to get behind it but wasn't succeeding (not having Thimble's practice with it). And then realized that if I could only get the shot, this was a most excellent picture.

Unlike the majority of the time when I realize this, this time I succeeded!

Thimble Learns to Let Me Go Back to Sleep

At the beginning of last week, something finally clicked inside Thimble's head and he started letting me go back to sleep when I woke in the middle of the night. Thus it was that he was in the bedroom when I woke up in the morning.

And that's when we discovered that Apricot, Colby, and I share an approach to the morning which involves slow, careful waking up, sneaking up on the day as if it might get us if we give it half a chance. Colby, who used to be bouncy immediately in the morning, had learned that he preferred our way of waking up (Apricot and I) while Thimble was being stubborn and locked in the pink room every morning.

Thimble, on the other hand, has had metaphoric caffeine dripped into his veins and greets the day with boundless enthusiasm and much bounding, pouncing, and otherwise dreadfully energetic behavior. He was driving us all up the wall in the morning, including Colby.

Quite honestly, it takes a lot to aggravate Colby. He's a placid cat who would rather simply move aside than get into an issue about something, or go along with whatever was proposed (ie, an enthusiastic morning battle) rather than argue. So for Thimble to be annoying Colby was rather an accomplishment and also let me know I had to do something.

My poor breeder Ginger got another desperate email for help. Can I leave him in the carrier all night?

Well, of course, she said, adding that this was the preferred way of teaching a cat to sleep through the night when they weren't quite getting the concept.

So Tuesday night I set up the carrier in the pink room. Half an hour before I actually physically climb into bed, they get their food allotment for the next 24 hours. (They free-feed but they like it fresh, so they only get enough for one day. If there's food left the next night, I cut back a little; if the bowls are scoured clean, I add more.) At that point I put a little food and a little water in the food/water container that slides into the carrier door, and shut the door to the carrier.

Thimble seemed a little upset with this and repeatedly beat on the top of the door, trying to get into it!

Right before I climb into bed, I give everybody goodnight kisses. This entails kisses on the head for Colby and Apricot and hugs for Thimble, who doesn't like kisses on the head and so I'm trying to accommodate him (since I don't want to be washed by him and that's as instinctive for him to do as it is for me to head-kiss-bump cats). I gave him his goodnight hug last of the three cats, scooped him up, and carried him to the carrier where I put him inside and then shut the door to the room.

I got him out the next morning. He came out just fine, no complaining, no rushing. He stretched and yawned and headed for the bathroom to pee, and then came back for some hugs. I wanted him to know that this wasn't punishment for anything, just ... his own bedroom.

The next night, when I went to hug him goodnight, he walked away before I could reach him and led me into the pink room, where he paused while I opened the carrier door (having pre-loaded the food and water as before) and then he walked in of his own accord.

Since then, he's wanted "a ride" back to the pink room, but this isn't because he doesn't want to go there. It's because he likes to take advantage of any situation where he can leap onto my shoulder by invitation and get a ride to the other end of the house! He goes in the carrier by himself once I open the door for him, and tucks his own tail in so I don't shut the door on it--not that I would, of course.

I think that he likes the enforced quiet time. I think that it's a little tiring to be watching out for everybody all the time, and since that's a self-appointed task for him, it's difficult-to-impossible for him to let it go by himself. But once in the carrier he can't look out for everybody else's welfare, so he gets a break. Plus, I also think he's like the little kids who, while yawning and stumbling over their own feet, insist that they aren't tired and don't want to go to bed. Get them in a bed and have them close their eyes for a minute, and off they go to slumberland.

So he's fine with the situation.

As for the rest of us? That first morning, both Colby and Apricot came to me (separately) while I was in-bed-waking-up and expressed what I can only term as "thank you" to me. Colby has been most cuddly during this morning time for the past week, and Apricot occasionally makes an appearance to say hello and then disappears again. (He does not stay on the bed unless I'm not in it, due to an unfortunate situation where he tried to sleep on the bed with me when he first was getting used to being with me in the house, and I accidentally kicked him out of bed in my sleep.)

I guess for the foreseeable future, this is how it's going to be. Probably until Thimble shows signs of calming down ... which may be awhile.

In Search of Sleep, or The New Carrier

So, Thimble is still being a pain when I wake up in the middle of the night. Looking at it from his perspective, it makes sense. After all, he doesn't sleep for eight hours straight. Even if he gave me a longer sleep allowance for my larger size, (as he is sleeping longer at a time now that he is bigger), it still makes sense, to him, for me to wake up after about four to six hours.

Unfortunately, without at least eight hours of sleep a night, I don't do so well. I'd like to keep my job, for one thing, and I can't do that if I'm so sleepy I can't pay attention at work. (I'm a chemist. I work with chemicals and glassware and data. It's important not to drop or inadvertantly combine these things, you know?)

Well, Ginger had recommended putting him in the carrier at night whenever I woke up and he behaved in such a way as to keep me from getting back to sleep. One thing he'd do is "dig" in the covers. I am still not sure if he was trying to get underneath them, or if he was trying to bury a toy. It might have been both. Sometimes I wake up and roll over onto my back, and have this momentary puzzlement of "why do I have a huge knot in the middle of my back?" before I realize what it must be and reach underneath to pull out whichever toy they brought to bed that night.

Thimble carrying an old feather toy.

I am not used to cats who walk around with toys in their mouths, carrying the toy to where they want to play with it this time. And sometimes Colby brings a toy to bed so we can play with it in the morning, but more about that development later.

My original carrier is a soft-sided one, and after one night in that, Thimble had chewed his way almost through the mesh of the front door. So I asked Ginger what carrier she used, since I figured she'd have decided on a nice sturdy one that accommodated Maine Coon size, and I'd need a new carrier once they reached full size anyway. (I was tossing Thimble in the nursery room by himself and closing the door, but I wanted something to make him sleep the night through as well, not just have fun with the cat trees and the windows.)

Colby tries out the carrier the day I put it together.

When I got it, I was really surprised at how flimsy it seemed. It was hard to put together, but once I had it together, the whole was much sturdier than the parts. Apparently it's like an arch, where the keystone makes the structure be supportive, but if it's not all together, it just falls apart. The carrier is also nicely balanced so that the clear plastic door is heavier than the rest of it combined, which means when you've got a cat in it, the carrier doesn't tilt forward or backward. Kind of cool. (It's not going to be balanced well enough for a Maine Coon's final weight, but at a normal adult cat weight, which is what they are now, it works quite perfectly.)

Apricot makes sure Thimble is still okay
after Thimble voluntarily climbed into the carrier.

Colby and Thimble were instantly thrilled with it, and their enthusiasm got Apricot to like it too. In fact, the first night when I put the carrier in my room with the front door open, so as not to have to maneuver the door in the middle of the night twice ... Something made me check inside before I stuffed Thimble into it.

Colby was sleeping in it! So Thimble got put in the nursery without the carrier that night.

Okay, technically speaking that was the second night. The first night I put it in my room with the top open, and discovered I have to wake up too much to close the top. I managed it, and Thimble-in-carrier went into the nursery room with the door shut, but I tried leaving the front door of it open the second night and that's when Colby decided he wanted to sleep in the little "den" I'd provided.

I'm going to have to get a second carrier.

At one point, early on, before the carrier came, I had been getting up and letting Thimble out and then going back to bed for my half-hour wake up play-with-my-phone time. Thimble managed, one morning, to shut the door to the nursery again, only this time with himself and Apricot inside. Apricot did not appreciate being shut in one (relatively small) room with a very enthusiastic playful Thimble. He was shook up when I let them out, (a half hour later), and he was still shook up at the end of the day when I got home. This, too, was part of the reason I decided to get the carrier and use that approach. That way if I accidentally shut the two of them in the nursery together, at least Thimble would be locked in the carrier.

(Note from the future: Apricot made very sure he never was in a position to get shut in the room with Thimble in the middle of the night again!)

Well, things have settled into a pattern. I put the carrier in the open closet in my bedroom with the carrier door shut. I wake up in the middle of the night. Thimble refuses to settle down. I gather him up and put him in the carrier (after opening the door, of course), close the carrier door being careful to scoop his tail inside with him, and then put the carrier in the nursery room and shut that door, too.

(If I leave the carrier out in my bedroom, Colby sits on top of it and taunts Thimble. He did this with the soft-sided carrier and it subsided under his weight, squishing Thimble as well as taunting him. I haven't given him a chance to do it with the hard-sided new carrier.)

Then I go back to bed and back to sleep, and when I wake up in the morning to my alarm clock brightening the room, I have Colby in bed with me. Colby and I then spend a half hour together with no other cats, just the two of us. Colby quite likes this.

Cuddling Colby 

Sometimes he cuddles up with me, and sometimes he brings a toy to play with, and sometimes he brings a toy for me to play fetch with. This is how I learned, to my astonishment, that Colby knows how to play fetch very well thank you. He just won't do it with Thimble around.

I like spending time with Colby, too. He's so reticent that it's hard to spend time with him when the others are demanding I pay attention to them first. I don't really mind putting Thimble in the carrier in the middle of the night. It doesn't wake me up any more than going to the bathroom does, and I'm used to doing that and going back to sleep.

Thus I'm not sure I even want Thimble to learn how to sleep through the night with me.

Apricot Asserts Himself

So the only way Apricot had previously interacted with cats physically larger than he was, was to do anything they told him to and mostly try to stay out of the way. As the kittens have been growing, he's been giving them occasional uneasy looks, as if wondering when they're going to start bullying him around.

For their part, they still think he's the bigger cat, and the adult cat, so their behavior hasn't changed. This is a bit confusing for Apricot because they're still trying to play with him as though they aren't bigger than he is, which means they are unintentionally throwing their weight around, quite literally.

I have been observing this, a little worried. But yesterday something happened that reassured me. And I think it reassured Apricot, too.

Now you see, Thimble and Colby are normally good about sharing their toys. However, they each have favorite toys, and they are less willing to share them. Colby, like Apricot, prefers to avoid direct conflict, so he'll mostly just back off and let the other cat play with the toy, but occasionally he'll try to protect the toy and keep it to himself. Mostly by picking it up in his mouth and running off with it.

Thimble, on the other hand, gets a little more aggressive about his favorite toys. He has two types, and for each he will hide them so no one can play with them (he's fond of hiding them in my bed while I sleep, which means I roll over onto the toy in the morning and wonder momentarily why there's a huge knot in my back) (he also hides them underneath the rugs and I find them when I vacuum).

But if he wants to play with them, he will growl at Colby to keep his distance. Colby will subside back and watch longingly as Thimble tosses the toy rattle mouse in the air and bats it around. Apricot usually observes this from across the room. Sometimes if he walks past too close, Thimble will growl a warning at him, too.

I saw Apricot heading toward Thimble yesterday during one of Thimble's possessive moments. I figured Apricot would simply keep going, ignoring Thimble with dignity, the way he usually does, and I looked back at my book.

When next I glanced up, Apricot had the toy and was playing with it! And Thimble and Colby were both in the sitting quietly and gazing longingly at the cat with the toy. This went on for several minutes as I watched with my jaw on the floor, and then Apricot lost interest in the mouse and left to get a drink from the fountain. Even then, Thimble approached the toy cautiously, keeping an eye on Apricot to make sure it was okay to take it back.

I guess I don't have to worry so much about Apricot keeping himself from being bullied!