My wife has her cat certified as a service animal for her anxiety. She's 3 or 4, most likely some sort of bombay mix. Beautiful girl, and very smart.
My wife from here on will be SO and her cat will be N for Nyx.
Going off the idea that N's 4 (I'm pretty sure that's what she is), she spent the first 3 years of her life falling asleep on SO's desk, nestled sweetly between SO's chest and one of SO's arms. N would press her forehead to SO's wrist and just sleep there, perfectly content.
Then N got really, really fat due to some travel and SO's father not being the best caretaker. SO and I currently live in different countries, so we travel back and forth to see each other. Now, SO brings N with her to avoid coming back to her cat being rotund again.
Due to N being with SO while SO's with me, N and I have now been around each other for around 6 straight months. Over this time, I took over her litterbox (easier for me to get to than it is for SO) and feeding her (same as before -- both are low to the ground, and I'm much shorter than SO). For a while, we didn't think anything of this change. We were focused on making sure N lost weight to get back down to a healthy size, not necessarily who was feeding her but what she was eating.
Over time, N has stopped being so affectionate with SO. She rarely falls asleep with her, runs when SO tries to pet her, ignores SO when she talks to her, and kicks when picked up until put down. However, N has become increasingly affectionate towards me. She'll let me hold her for good whiles, will let me just hug her wherever she's sitting for almost 20 to 30 minutes, will sit when I ask her to (SO taught her some commands). I can pet her whenever I want, and she listens to me when I call for her (usually).
N is almost back down to a healthy weight, and we finally noticed the behavioural changes. SO is downtrodden about the situation -- she's glad N loves me and I love N, but she's really sad that her emotional support animal and best friend seems to be pulling away from her so hard. We shifted to sharing things like feeding N, to try and see if food was the motivator for the shift, but it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference.
I know this may seem silly, but is there anything I can do (besides neglect/ignore N of course) to sorta encourage her to make SO her favourite again?
[link] [comments]
from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/dxm0ro/cat_preference_changing_advice_wanted/
No comments:
Post a Comment