Misbehaving, determined cat, Wybie, Part 2

[divinedi]

Background - Danielle, my 23 year old daughter, has been taking a 1 yr. Vet Admin. course and will be moving home today. She came home a night early, as she has a working interview this morning, the initial interview was last weekend. Her 9 month old Siamese cat :cat:, Wybie, will be moving in with her, and gets into and on top of everything :nono:, despite numerous attempts to remove him from the situations and unfortunately, is very clumsy to boot, not the stealth cats I'm used to!!!

Well, she is up early this morning to get ready, I get up to wish her well and help out a little if I can. She also has fish, two of which she brought home and are in a small tank :fishbowl:on the dining room table(small open concept dining/living/kitchen areas).....you can already guess where this is going right :). Now the interesting part, is that Danielle is actually deathly afraid of fish, and yes, she has two tanks of them, the other still at her old residence. Wybie, fascinated of course with these fish, and at such close range, and who has already been taken off the table many times, gets back on :eat:, we're not paying any attention as we are busy, and ack! there they go!! The cat goes flying in fright, Danielle is hopping around in the dining room crying "Oh No, oh no, oh no" but making no attempt to retreive the fish, as she's scared of them:scared:!

So as the fish are flopping around on the floor, gasping for air, I attempt to pick them up, first asking if they bite(they are leopard looking puffer fish), and sure enough these darlings have teeth! So I'm trying to grab their tails, Danielle is freaking out behind me, there's water everywhere......I get a hold of one of them and it literally starts nashing it's teeth as I pick it up, weirdest noise I have EVER heard, and I almost drop it! Finally get them back in what's left of the water in the fish bowl.....they have special slightly salted water, so no way to fill it up anymore at this moment......get the floor mopped up:mop:, and the fish are now residing in the cupboard under the sink until we can get their proper fishtank today!!

And that was all before 8 am!!! How's your day going?? :D

[Jeri Lynn]

Oh boy, sounds like Wybie needs a playmate...other than fish!!!

Sounds like you could write a childrens book...The Adventures of Wybie!!

[divinedi]

Thanks Jeri Lynn, I'm no writer, but I've certainly been thinking about it, he's an adventure for sure!!

Wybie actually has a playmate here, my youngest pup Logan, who's the same size and a year old, they love to play, but fish are really hard to resist!! lol

Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit more restful!

[MNNHFLTX]

What a story! You know, I think Wybie is starting to grow on you, despite his mischevious ways. He certainly brings excitement to your life!

A suggestion for the fish tank. If it doesn't already have a cover, you can get wire mesh covers at stores that sell aquarium supplies. They are easy to secure to the fish tank and will keep unwanted cats out!

[divinedi]

Yeah, we love him, most of the time....;)

I'll let Danielle know about the wire mesh, Beth, thank you!

[pianobabe]

Just think, this is only the beginning of your adventure.

[DVC2004]

I enjoyed your story- however I am a cat lover!

[DisneyDog]

That is way too funny...although I wouldn't think it was funny if I was the one being bitten! But, glad you can laugh about it after the fact. Pets are always an adventure!

[TheDuckRocks]

If you promise not to tell Frank The Cat if you should ever meet him I'll tell you my secret for getting him to mind.:secret:
I love my little fur baby but I came very close to taking him back to the pound where he came from when he was just about Wybie's age. He bit people to the point of drawing blood. Learned how to turn on the TV, change the channel and turn the volume up, which he loved doing at 3 in the morning and right in the good part of anything you were watching. Would get up on every table and proceed to throw anything on them on the floor. Figured out how to grab the edge of the mat under his food and water bowls and flip them over. There is not a door in the house that he can not open and close. He would sit and chew on anything fabic. And much, much more.
There was not a single day that went by that he would do something or another repeatedly that would have me in tears. Literally.:bang:
Then I saw someone on Oprah's one day that had the answer. I have learned to never, ever yell at him, to calmly lower my voice to a deeper register while looking him in the eye. All the screaming, chasing, putting him in time out in the laundry room, squirting him with water, hitting him with a newspaper and tears got him exactly what he wanted - attention, negetive, yes but attention.
Now here's the secret part - I learned this from The Dog Whisperer.:funny:

[divinedi]

The Dog Whisperer huh, cute!!! I won't tell Frank the cat for sure, but what exactly do you 'say' to him, just get down and stuff? And what do you figure is working, the deep voice or that you're no longer chasing him etc.?

Thanks, any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

[TheDuckRocks]

I honestly think the non-reaction is what is working the most. He actually will turn and see if I'm watching and if I am and am not doing anything he sort of huffs and walks off to take a nap. I think the deeper reister of the voice is also something that makes him have to listen more closely to hear me and when he finds out it's not going to be a rant his interest shifts from the awful thing he was about to do to coming over for a scratch under the chin or behind the ears. All I know is that it has work for us.

[Jeri Lynn]

Just checking back to see what kind of mischief Wybie has been into this week....:blush:

[mixelate]

I just saw this post today! haha. I enjoyed the story about my fish...

Fortunately Wybie has not been up to much lately, been pretty mellow in his new place! hopefully this keeps up. :) He managed to sneak outside when I came back in the house the other day, but did not make it far thankfully!

My fish are happy in their regular big tank, no more table top spills for them!

Glad everyone is enjoying my mom's stories of my crazy cat!

[divinedi]

Hello! Just read your post Jeri-Lynn, and actually he's not been too bad, well at least not 'terrible' things anyway, lol, just regular cat mischief. Unfortunately he is far too smart for his own good, and has figured out when bedtime is....and as a result, some nights it takes 3 of us trying to catch him to get him in his 'room', which is still the bathroom. I've started picking him up a short time before we head to bed and putting him to bed then, but I'm sure he'll figure that out before long too. He has escaped the house a couple of times, we live on a highway so that is very dangerous, but he really doesn't like the grass, so he tends not to move once he gets on the grass!:) We think that now that he has our young pup to play with, he's tired much quicker and doesn't seem to need the outlet of getting into trouble!! We do occasionally hear him meowing loudly, and look to find Logan, the aforementioned pup, pulling him along the floor by his ear (they are approx. the same size) but we figure that it is payback for the torture Wybie puts Logan through ;), and we know the cat can get away if he REALLY wants to!!

[Jeri Lynn]

I am glad for you that Wybie is settling down but will miss the stories of his shenanigans!!