Bite Me!...No, Don't!

Trying to get Jack to stop biting me has been an ongoing problem. Like I said before, I tried giving him a time out in his carrier, but he thwarted me by going in there on his own and going to sleep, to show me I could lock him in there and it wouldn't bother him in the least.

Then I tried kissing him every time he bit me. When he'd bite me, I'd pick him up, and smother him with kisses until he struggled to get away.

Finally, I took the advice of a friend, that I was hesitant to do, and I started squirting him with water. It's not something I really enjoy doing. Jack's not a dumb cat. He only tries to bite me when I'm not anywhere near the water bottle. I can't squirt him afterwards, as he might not know what I was squirting him for. The few times I've used it I've sort of threatened him with it. I'll squirt it in the air to demonstrate what the bottle does and he's squint like I squirted him and I tell him if he bites me that's what he's going to get.

The end result is nothing has worked. It doesn't matter what I do, Jack is going to try and bite me. Jack is not a licker, he's a biter. At this point I've just decided to stop trying to break Jack of it. If I love him, I have to accept him as he is. A few times I've actually put my hand out so he could bite it and he hasn't. Maybe if I stop fighting him he'll stop.

To be fair to Jack, he doesn't really bite you. He nibbles on you, which could be part of him still teething, since he's still just a baby. It's just that he has very sharp teeth and it hurts a bit when he wants to nibble on your hand.

I'm So Pretty

Maybe it's not a good thing to tell a pretty cat that's he's pretty. I'm always calling Jack "Gorgeous" and "Beautiful Baby Jack" and everyone he meets also tells him what a beautiful cat he is. I didn't realize it might be going to his head until one morning when I was taking a shower.

The first time Jack caught his own reflection in the mirror his tail fuzzed up and he took off running. I didn't want him to be afraid of his own reflection, so I picked him up and stood in front of the mirror with him in my arms so he'd realize the cat in the mirror was himself.

After that I stepped in the shower. Between a crack in the curtain I saw him jump up on the sink. Out of curiosity, I peeked out to see what he was doing and I couldn't believe my eyes. He was standing on his hind legs, his front paws were braced against the wall, his back was arched and he was admiring himself in the mirror.

I couldn't stop myself from laughing, it was just so hilarious, watching my vain little kitten admiring himself in the mirror. I could even imagine him saying to himself, "They are right. I am beautiful."

I tried to duck out of sight, but he realized I'd been watching him and the next time I peeked out of the shower, he was sitting like a perfect little gentleman on the sink facing the shower and staring at me.

To this day I've never caught him doing that again.

De-Emphasing The Cat Carrier

While I've done a lot of things wrong in regards to Jack, one of the right things I've done is try to de-emphasize the cat carrier.

For many cats, being put into a carrier is a traumatic experience. They fear the very sight of the cat carrier. Most likely because they're only put inside it when they're being taken to the vet. Going to the vet is a traumatic experience all in itself when they have to be examined by some stranger and possibly given a shot.

The first time I put Jack in a pet carrier to take him to the vet he was terrified. I think part of his terror came from the fact he was in a carrier that only had air holes around it and he couldn't see out to where he was being taken. One thing I noticed early about Jack is he's a very visual kitty. If he can't see something he starts meowing in a very bad tempered tone.

Anyway, when I bought Jack a carrier, I got him one that he could see out on all side, except for the door. When it came I told him this was for Jack. It came with sticker letters so you could even put your pets name on it. I left it on the living room floor with the door open and a nice towel folded up inside so he wouldn't just associate it with going to the vet in. A few times he's even gone in it and gone to sleep in it.

Of course, when I tried to use the carrier as a place to give him a time out, that strategy backfired on me. Jack likes to bite me, and I've tried to break him of it. One of my strategies was to give him a time-out in his carrier. He was upset about it the first time I did it. But the next day he went inside it and went to sleep in it, basically giving me the message, "Go ahead, and lock me in here. I like it in here. It doesn't bother me a bit."

After that I had to come up with new strategies to deal with his biting. I've locked Jack in his carrier when I have to put out the garbage and I don't want him running out the door and he's very relaxed inside it. It's only when I take it out to the car and start driving to the vet's he has a problem. Otherwise, the pet carrier is his friend, and one of the places he likes to take a nap in.

The Battle for the Litter Box

You know how most cats want their litter box clean or they won't use it? Well, my Jack is just the opposite. He takes offense when I clean his litter box. I think that's why every time I go into the bathroom to go to the bathroom, he follows me in there to make sure I'm not cleaning his litter box.

It began with him just watching me like a hawk and meowing in protest when I started scooping out his poop. It progressed to him slapping my hand with his paw to try to get me to leave his poop alone. The latest thing is he'll jump into the bathtub and start frantically pawing at the tub while I remove his poop from his litter box.

And he's not much happier when I give him clean litter. He watches where I dump it so he can try and get at it. One time I made the mistake of dumping it in a garbage I left on the kitchen floor, planning to dump it in the morning, and by morning he'd had it full of holes with litter falling all over the kitchen floor when I picked the bag up to throw it out.

And when it comes to filling up the litter box with fresh litter, I have to be fast, or he'll try to jump in it while I'm still pouring the litter in his box. The second the litter goes into his box, he's jumping in to pee on it to mark it as his own.

I thought if I put it up on the toilet to fill it he'd wait until it was filled and back in its spot on the floor. Nope! I was still pouring the litter in when he jumped up on the toilet and into the box. He was already peeing in it as I picked him and the box up and put it back in its spot on the floor.

And as I mentioned in a previous post, he likes knocking the clean litter out of the box and on to the bare floor so he can roll around in it on his back. Lately, he's also started knocking a piece of his poop out of the box and playing with it like it's a toy, even though he has plenty of toys.

I've been able to figure out a lot of what his behavior means, but this one has me totally stymied.

I Don't Need No Stinking Medicine!

As I mentioned previously, the vet gave me medicine to give to Jack. I wasn't looking forward to it, and was dreading the day I had to do it. It turned out I had good reason to.

I started with the worm medicine. Instead of having it in a dropper form, it was in a syringe and I had to squirt it into his mouth. I laid him on his back and preceded to squirt it down Jack's throat, and he just as quickly spit it right back out. I didn't have an extra, so I had no idea if any of it got down his throat.

Then the real fun started when I had to put stuff in his ears. They told me to clean his ears out, first, but I didn't feel comfortable sticking my finger down his ears, and I wasn't able to get any dead ear mites out. Then I had to put the drops in his ears. Which he promptly shook out. I had to call the vet because I was afraid he was going to lick the medicine off his fur and poison himself. The vet assured me it wasn't toxic.

Afterwards, Jack took off and wanted to be nowhere near me. He looked at me like I was an evil monster trying to harm him. I tried to explain to him the medicine would kill the bugs in his ears and make him stop itching.

When I took Jack back to the vet the next week he was a docile little angel as the pretty vet assistant gave him his worm medicine and cleaned out his ears and put the drops in his ears. It frankly made me sick watching it after all the trouble I had. I need to face the fact that my cat has no respect for me. I can call him by his name until I'm blue in the face and he ignores me, but if one of my neighbors called him by his name, he goes to them the first time they say his name.

The ear mites have been an on-going problem that I pray he's finally overcome. Over time I learned to be more proficient at putting the drops in his ears. He'll let me cradle him in my arms like a baby, sometimes. While I'm cradling him in my arms, he allows me to put the drops in his ears without too much trouble. It also allows the drops to get down where they can do the most good. If you notice from Jack's pictures, he has very large ears.

I Don't Want That In Here!

I was telling a co-worker who has a cat, that Jack seemed to like to drink water from my dripping bathtub faucet over drinking it from his water bowl. She suggested I leave a bowl of water filled for him in the bathroom. So I filled up a styrofoam bowl and filled it up with water.

When I got home I heard strange noises coming from the bathroom. Before I could get up to investigate, Jack came out of the bathroom carrying the styrofoam bowl in his mouth. Then he left it on the floor of my bedroom.

When I went over to investigate it, I saw that he had even bit holes in the bottom of the bowl so it couldn't be refilled with water and put back in the bathroom. His message was crystal clear. "I don't want that in here. Keep it out."

The styrofoam bowl wasn't the only thing Jack decided he didn't want in the bathroom. He likes to knock some of his clean litter out of the box and then to roll around in it on his back. Only problem is I have a bathroom rug sitting outside of the tub so I can step on it when I get out of the shower.

When I came home and found the rug sitting outside the bathroom, I didn't understand what it was doing there. I immediately replaced it, and it wasn't long before Jack came out with the rug [which was two times his size] gripped in his mouth dragging it out of the bathroom.

I, of course, put it back in, with Jack trying to stop me all the way, telling him that rug was staying in the bathroom.

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

I quickly discovered that now Jack was in my life, privacy was a thing I would only have a distant memory of. From the first morning I had to get ready for work and step in the shower, I discovered I would have to get used of someone watching me.

Whenever I go into the bathroom, he watches me go to the bathroom, to the point, lately, he'll jump on the bathroom sink so he can leap on the back of the toilet and lay down and trying to figure out what I'm doing on the toilet.

He watches me as I take off my clothes. He even tries to peek his head around the shower curtain to see what I'm doing in there.



Voyeurism Isn't A Two Way Street

While it's all right to Jack spy on me in the bathroom, if I happen to be going to the bathroom the same time as him, he'll turn his back on me so I can't watch him doing his business. I think he's even tried to synchronize his bodily functions with mine so we can go to bathroom together. Me on the toilet and him in his litter box.

One Sick Kitty

When I went to get Jack, I asked if there was anything in particular I should feed him. She just said hard stuff with wet food twice a day. What she failed to mention is that food was holistic. Which is a great thing, but since I didn't know I gave him regular food and it wasn't long before he was puking his little guts up and looking at me like I was a monster that was making him sick. He stopped coming on the bed and didn't want anything to do with me. I was at the point where I was going to take him back to where I got him, because I didn't think I could take care of him properly. Probably another thing a new mother to an infant goes through.

Being an Internet nut who goes researching online for why my poor little Jack was so sick, I found it could be a change in food, as kittens have delicate little tummies. I also found out kittens were lactose intolerant and I gave the poor baby milk, since I've always seen on TV kitten being fed milk. So in short, everything I could do wrong, I did do wrong.



The First Visit To The Vet

When I got Jack, I learned he still needed a lot of his shots, and I would need to see a vet a week after I got him so he could have another dose of worm medicine. When I tried to take Jack out of the apartment, he jumped out of my arms and tried to run back inside. I think he thought I was going to take him back to where I got him from and he didn't want me to. When I managed to get him in the carrier, the ride to the vet's office was pure hell. He meowed so loudly and it was so panicked you just had to ignore it and keep on going. He continued his caterwauling in the vet's office. You'd think I was trying to murder him. When I took him into the examining room and took him out of the carrier, it actually was reassuring when he jumped into my arms, wanting me to keep him safe. I thought, I guess he doesn't hate me, after all.

Aside from his eating problems, he also had fleas and ear mites. I was given worm medicine and ear medicine I would have to administer to him. I also had to make another appointment to schedule his rabies, distemper and feline leukemia shots. I was told since Jack will be an indoor cat, I didn't really need to get him the feline leukemia shots, but I think you should get them to be on the safe side, in case something unforeseen happens and your indoor cat manages to get outdoors.



Home Sweet Home

Jack's meowing on the way home, once he realized I didn't plan to dump him at the side of the road was of a different timbre. It was of a very demanding quality. It was like, "Get me home NOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!" When I got him home, he was happy to be back home. I even cleared off the dresser so he could have a place to look out the window, unfortunately the view is the alley, which isn't very stimulating. In the end, I gave him the kitchen table, since it's a high window and him laying on the kitchen table is the only way he can look out the window, which has a better view than my bedroom window.

I eventually managed to wean Jack off the holistic food, since the wet food only came in two flavors and he was bored silly of it. I've got him on Friskies wet food and Purina Kitten Chow. I'd hoped his tummy problems were over, but when he ran out of Kitten Chow and nowhere in town had it, I bought him some Blue Seal hard food and it wasn't long before he was throwing up and having diarrhea. Thankfully, I found a bag of Kitten Chow at the local hardware store.

Uhuru Jack

When I learned my building was allowing you to have a pet, I began my search for a kitten. But it seemed there was no kittens available. On a lark when I returned from my vacation from Springfield, Mass, I did an internet search and found a black kitten. I clicked the link and learned his name was Uhuru Jack. That "What the hell are you taking my picture for" look on this little kitten's face should have warned me he was going to be trouble. His description about being bold and adventurous and if you don't pay enough attention to him, he'll climb up your leg in a Glenn Close "I won't be ignored, Dan" type of behavior were other warning signs. Even the lady who ran the rescue seemed to think I'd change my mind about him, and even told me he'd calm down, eventually.


Black Cats Everywhere

I had some serious reservations, myself, worrying if he would be all right being left alone for eight and a half hours a day when he was such a little thing. That was one of the reasons I thought such a bold and adventurous cat could handle it. But everywhere I went I started seeing black cats everywhere, as if someone was giving me a sign I was supposed to get this little guy. I bought some used books and there was a book marker inside one of the books with a black cat on it. I was out taking a driving lesson and I saw a black cat walking. And earlier this summer this black cat I'd met while out visiting someone had taken an instant liking to me, to the point he/she let me cradle it in my arms and it looked like a twin to little Jack's mother. So despite all my qualms I went ahead and got him.

I wanted to get him when I'd have two days off to spend with him before I had to leave him alone. Unfortunately, as things worked out, I got him when I would have to go to work the next morning and leave him alone. I now know how a new mother feels leaving her baby alone for the first time. I swear I could actually hear that kitten crying forlornly because he was left all alone the next day at work. I felt like a monster for leaving him all alone.



Bringing Home Baby Jack

I just couldn't call this cute ball of fluff Uhuru, it kept making me think of Lt. Uhura on Star Trek, so I shortened his name to Jack, and I've made sure I've never mentioned the U word, again, so he could get used to the name Jack. The first time I fed him I wanted to see if he'd come to the U word and when I used it, he did, so I've made sure to call him Jack, and it's truly a name that suits the little bugger.

When I went to get him, I can't say I was too impressed by where he was being kept. It was a barn in a cage. He'd just been given a bob-job, as I call it. He was neutered, and I wasn't too thrilled about them doing that to a nine week old kitten, but they want to make sure the cat population is controlled. Jack's sisters were all huddled together looking too weak to move, while Jack was up and about, like he'd been waiting for me to come and get him. They gave me a tiny box to put him in, and keeping him in it was quite a task on the drive home. He kept pushing his head up wanting to see where he was going. He was also purring on the ride home, which I hoped was a good sign.

When I got him home to my apartment I showed him his food and his litter box, but he started meowing for his mommy. That's another thing I felt guilty about. It's kind of horrible how we take a cat's children from her. It makes me wonder how we'd feel if we had a baby and someone took it away from us and gave it away to someone you didn't know. It's one of those times it's not good that I can put myself in other people's places and try to see it from their point of view.

I quickly found out that Jack was a very vocal kitty. He made yum-yum noises when he ate, he made different noises when he pooped or when I left a room and he couldn't find me. He quickly seemed to adapt to the loss of his mother, as he jumped into my arms and promptly fell asleep. I'd gotten Jack a bed to sleep in and I tried to put him in it, but he was having none of it. He spent his first night with me sleeping in my bed on my other pillow staring at me every time I woke up.