Monday, April 07, 2008

Day in the life with Lucille

My day usually starts around 6am. That's when Lucille comes looking for breakfast. With a little mew, she'll jump up on the bed. If I happen to be facing in her direction, she'll start purring. Then comes the nuzzling and the licking of my hands and fingers. It's an interesting way to wake up. If I happen to be facing the other way, she'll cry a bit before clambering over to the other side. Either way, there's a good bit of purring and nuzzling involved.

She'll generally keep it up for a few minutes until I either wake up or until I pet her. Depending on how hungry she is, she may give up and go play for a few minutes before coming back, or she may stack around and keep licking me until I get up. It's a behavior that I don't mind reinforcing, because she's close enough to pet. If she was out in the hallway, wailing away, it would be more difficult to deal with.

When it looks like I'm getting up, she'll run to the end of the bed by the door. She's learned to stop and look back to see whether I was really getting up. Once I'm up and moving, the race to the kitchen has started. I'll put the kettle on, and pop her food into the microwave (if it's leftovers from the previous evening); then go clean the litterbox. Once the microwaved dish (only 10 seconds) has cooled, I'll put it down and then fix my breakfast.

(She generally eats about 1/2 of a 3.0 oz can at a go right now. And I'll usually put another 1/4 can down about 30 minutes later if she eats the first 1/2 can. If I'm going into the office, then I put the last 1/4 down before leaving. Still feeding her kitten food for another few weeks. At least she's now willing to eat the canned food without my having to grind up the dry food and mix it in.)

...

She loves to be brushed now. I have a wire brush (with the large flat head with bent thin wire bristles) and a flea comb (metal with close together straight tines). If I'm standing by the cat tree in my office, and scratch along the wire bristles, she'll generally come running to the top of the tree for brushing. That's a handy behavior to have if I ever have to give her medication down the road.

I generally try to brush long enough to fill the bristle brush once with loose hair. Usually that's a bundle about the size of a ping pong ball. By doing that a few times per week (as often as I feel the need for a short stress break), I'm greatly reducing the chance that she'll have to cough up a hairball.

So I think we're well past the point where she's afraid to be touched. She'll even put up with petting of her belly, but I don't push my luck. Very rarely, she'll put her teeth on my hand as a warning. Usually, it's because she's become over stimulated rather then out of fear.

But I still take every chance while she's up on the tree, where she's happy, to touch her legs, look in her ears, look at her claws (including holding the paws) and generally manipulate her body a bit. She'll let me hold the rear paws quite a bit and we're still getting better about the front paws (not there yet).

(Lucille's weight is still around 7.8 lbs.)

Labels: 2008, Lucille

posted by Wuphon's at 5:23 PM