Love Nips

 If someone had told me that this sweet little four month old kitten that I held in my arms at the shelter last December...the one that looked up at me with those big green eyes and licked the tip of my nose...the one that melted my heart...was going to be a part-time demon kitty, I would have laughed in their face. She is still a very sweet kitten, like a slinky when you hold her, completely trusting and not a tense bone in her velvety soft body. She will lay on your lap, on top of you, or beside you when you're lying down for hours, just wanting to be near.

She's generally in one of her favorite places of lying on my lap when I'm on the computer, which makes it difficult to type, but I manage! When she reaches play mode, or attack mode with ears glued back to her head, watch out! Everything and anything is a toy to her...like I always say, "To a cat the world is a toy".

I used to have a cat named Missy that loved to fetch. She was a beautiful cat with thick long white fur. She just started fetching on her own one day. I was amazed. I've had cats pretty much all my life, and she was the only one that ever fetched. I decided I was going to teach Holly to fetch. I bought these little toy "rings" in different shapes at the local pet store. I would repeatedly toss it across the room, short distances at first, and retrieve it myself, to show Holly how to play the game. She couldn't be any less interested. She'd run across the room and attack it, bat it around a bit, but then just saunter off. After several attempts of trying to teach her, I pretty much figured...oh well, at least I tried! Then one morning I was lying in bed and attempting to wake up, and lo and behold Holly jumped up on the bed with, what we now call "her toy", in her mouth. I tossed it and she flew across the bed, snatched it in her mouth, and brought it back to me. So I tossed it again, and she retrieved it...over and over and over again. I would praise her each and every time! So Holly is a fetching cat, is many ways!

I've had quite a dilemma when it comes to her feeding time. She'd cry a lot and was pretty demanding wanting fed. She had developed this "getting attention trait" of taking her paw and knocking over some of my knick knacks, most of them falling to the floor....she did this whenever she wanted to get our attention, not just when she wanted fed. Strangely it'd always be the same few items, and she never deviated from them...a couple of my decorative birds, a bird's nest, my eyeglasses, ink pens, remote controls...even some acorns that I keep in an old toolbox on the coffee table (I'd find them on the floor, or hear her batting and playing with them on the floor). It is rather amusing to watch her doing this...when I'm not annoyed with her that is. A few weeks ago, my sweet husband Brian and I decided to buy a timed feeder. Hindsight is 20-20....I should have purchased one of them "immediately" upon signs of this behavior pattern, her making us think she was starving to death. It is set to automatically feed her at 5 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. She is better, though at times she'll sit right in front of my face and paw at me, or cry, but not nearly as demanding as she once was. Holly is quite comical, much like a cartoon, when she hears the feeder dispensing her food. No matter where she's at, she'll race at full speed to get to her feeding destination! I can't wait to get our hardwood floors laid, I'm sure she'll frequently wipe out!

She's a nipper too. Right off the bat she'd get close to me, all mushy like, purring and looking up at me again with those green eyes half closed...and she'd first lick me and then nibble on the end of my nose, my cheek or even my finger or hand. I'd try numerous techniques to break her of this habit. I even asked my veterinarian what to do, and he advised me that when she gets in my face, and even starts to lick me, to blow in her face...that cats hate that. I did that, she hated it, and I'll still do it if she gets bad, but it doesn't work. I have decided that it's not her intentions to hurt me. I have just accepted it as being one of her ways of letting me know she loves me. I'm the only ones she nips, so it must be! She's giving me "love nips".