There is an uneasy truce in the house between the two dogs and three cats – a truce broken when either Thunder or Max encroaches on the personal space of the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Getting to this point has been pretty stressful for Thunder(cat) and he\u2019s lost some weight – likely too because he\u2019s not used to sharing his dry food. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To get his weight back up, I\u2019ve been giving him wet food – he can\u2019t resist the seafood shreds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, there\u2019s a problem. If I just leave the wet food out, one of two things will happen. Either he\u2019ll eat his fill for the sitting and then wander off – and the other cats will finish it for him. Or, he\u2019ll overeat to make sure they don\u2019t get it – and then find a nice quiet corner to vomit it right back up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, a few times through the day, I\u2019ve been taking the can of cat food to the basement to feed him a reasonable portion. And while this works, it created a new problem. Whenever I move anywhere in the house, if my vector looks even slightly basement-ward, Thunder assumes that I\u2019m going to feed him. If I don\u2019t and I\u2019m doing something else, he gets irritated and takes it out on the dogs. Or will deliberately not use his litter box in some ill-conceived performance art in the basement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To better regulate his behavior and expectations, I\u2019ve decided to try and train my cat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let that sink in a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, when I go to feed him, I will call his name (even if he\u2019s right next to me) and ring a bell before heading downstairs with him. Shades of Pavlov, you see. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, this also alerts the other cats and they follow us to stake out positions in some kind of \u201ctriangle of barely concealed menace\u201d. So, I have to wait with Thunder until he\u2019s done to keep the peace and prevent any intra-species conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is it working?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, he\u2019s gaining some weight. And seems less annoyed when I don\u2019t fall to his every feeding whim and desire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have noticed that he gets calmly interested in me and somewhat affectionate right before it\u2019s a regular feeding time. This increases until it\u2019s annoying for me and I go ahead and feed him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which I think means that he\u2019s really training me instead. At least he can\u2019t ring the bell on his own – we\u2019d never get a moment\u2019s peace. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is an uneasy truce in the house between the two dogs and three cats – a truce broken when either Thunder or Max encroaches on the personal space of the other. Getting to this point has been pretty stressful for Thunder(cat) and he\u2019s lost some weight – likely too because he\u2019s not used to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2578,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2577\/revisions\/2578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}