I've recently taken on my elderly mother's (equally elderly! he was born in 1991) cat, Buster, following Mum's hospitalisation. It's likely Mum will be in hospital for weeks (possibly months) to come, and may not even be able to return to her home. She admitted that she has been having difficulty caring for Buster in recent months, as she says he is quite demanding! For the first week or two my sister would pop in and feed him every day (morning and night on the way to and from work) but we became concerned that he wasn't getting any meaningful attention or company, so about three weeks ago my husand and I brought Buster to live with us. Hubby and I both work full time so there is no-one at home during the day until our teenage son gets home from school mid-afternoon...
We've noticed that Buster does seem to like a lot of close attention, and when I say close, I mean I sometimes get the feeling that if he could crawl inside my skin he would!!! He will come and sit on my chest (or my mums or my sisters - anyone in the family who gives him the slightest encouragement, really - he used to sit on my dad's chest when he was alive, too!) and get as close to my face as he can, staring at me all the while (but in a sort of indirect way; he seems to avoid looking at my eyes - and I've just this evening learned from a website that staring at a cat -as I have been doing because he stares at me and I'm trying to understand what he's communicating!- is seen as threatening behaviour by the cat, so I shall try not to do that in future!) and he will sniff at my mouth sometimes, rub me with his nose and forehead and -this is the oddest thing, that I've never seen another cat do- he will poke at my face with his paws! Unfortunately he's not very good at keeping his claws sheathed so if I want to avoid multiple scratches on my face, I have to sheild my face or put him down, which I dislike doing as I feel it must be a request for attention and fussing! I should add that he is almost always purring whilst he's "in my face"! I am sure he's been stressed to some measure by the move - and perhaps when I've come from seeing Mum in hospital, maybe he can smell her on me and is confused as to why she isn't here? - so I try to give him as much cuddling as he wants, and some nights he will have a cuddle for a while and then will settle down on my lap for a snooze, which is nice for both of us! But other nights (tonight for instance) he was relentless and obviously in need of much cuddling! (He did have a swearing match with a neighbour's cat in the front garden, from which i rescused him as the other cat is younger and a lot bigger - did i do the right thing? So maybe he needed some comfort after that?!) We do wonder if sometimes he is simply asking for the chair - he didn't have his own bed at Mum's and used to sleep all over the place, giving all the chairs equal attention, and he seems to do the same here. Should we get him his own cat bed?
We don't object to him using our furniture but if he would be happier with his own bed (especially at night time), we'll make him one - we shut our bedroom doors at night because otherwise he comes in at the crack of dawn and wakes us up! I remember Mum saying that he would get her up at all hours of the night - in fact she used to give in to his every whim, so he probably thinks we are right meanies! The first couple of nights we didn't, but after he poked my husband in the eye one night, we felt we had to. He used to share a double bed with Mum - now he often sleeps on the landing outside our door, which of course makes me feel very mean for shutting him out!!! He has no trouble using his litter tray, which is in our downstairs loo (as it was at Mum's), which is a relief. Mum got the tray so that she wouldn't have to keep letting him out at night - although he still used to wake her up anyway!
Since he is an elderly cat and may not be with us for too much longer (earlier this year the vet diagnosed tumours in his abdomen which he was reluctant to try and remove because of the position and number of them and because of Busters' age) I'd like to make sure he is as stress-free and comfortable as possible, so is there anything I'm not doing that I should be, or that I am doing that I shouldn't be?!
We've noticed that Buster does seem to like a lot of close attention, and when I say close, I mean I sometimes get the feeling that if he could crawl inside my skin he would!!! He will come and sit on my chest (or my mums or my sisters - anyone in the family who gives him the slightest encouragement, really - he used to sit on my dad's chest when he was alive, too!) and get as close to my face as he can, staring at me all the while (but in a sort of indirect way; he seems to avoid looking at my eyes - and I've just this evening learned from a website that staring at a cat -as I have been doing because he stares at me and I'm trying to understand what he's communicating!- is seen as threatening behaviour by the cat, so I shall try not to do that in future!) and he will sniff at my mouth sometimes, rub me with his nose and forehead and -this is the oddest thing, that I've never seen another cat do- he will poke at my face with his paws! Unfortunately he's not very good at keeping his claws sheathed so if I want to avoid multiple scratches on my face, I have to sheild my face or put him down, which I dislike doing as I feel it must be a request for attention and fussing! I should add that he is almost always purring whilst he's "in my face"! I am sure he's been stressed to some measure by the move - and perhaps when I've come from seeing Mum in hospital, maybe he can smell her on me and is confused as to why she isn't here? - so I try to give him as much cuddling as he wants, and some nights he will have a cuddle for a while and then will settle down on my lap for a snooze, which is nice for both of us! But other nights (tonight for instance) he was relentless and obviously in need of much cuddling! (He did have a swearing match with a neighbour's cat in the front garden, from which i rescused him as the other cat is younger and a lot bigger - did i do the right thing? So maybe he needed some comfort after that?!) We do wonder if sometimes he is simply asking for the chair - he didn't have his own bed at Mum's and used to sleep all over the place, giving all the chairs equal attention, and he seems to do the same here. Should we get him his own cat bed?
We don't object to him using our furniture but if he would be happier with his own bed (especially at night time), we'll make him one - we shut our bedroom doors at night because otherwise he comes in at the crack of dawn and wakes us up! I remember Mum saying that he would get her up at all hours of the night - in fact she used to give in to his every whim, so he probably thinks we are right meanies! The first couple of nights we didn't, but after he poked my husband in the eye one night, we felt we had to. He used to share a double bed with Mum - now he often sleeps on the landing outside our door, which of course makes me feel very mean for shutting him out!!! He has no trouble using his litter tray, which is in our downstairs loo (as it was at Mum's), which is a relief. Mum got the tray so that she wouldn't have to keep letting him out at night - although he still used to wake her up anyway!
Since he is an elderly cat and may not be with us for too much longer (earlier this year the vet diagnosed tumours in his abdomen which he was reluctant to try and remove because of the position and number of them and because of Busters' age) I'd like to make sure he is as stress-free and comfortable as possible, so is there anything I'm not doing that I should be, or that I am doing that I shouldn't be?!
