Changes

My boyfriend used to work a job that was mainly evenings/nights which meant Toby had his company during the day when I was at work, and at night when I was home. Toby has always been a friendly cat but not a lap cat by any means. When we say that he's "cuddling" we mean that he's on the same piece of furniture as us, possibly touching us with a paw. More often than not, he'll sit a little distance away, keeping an eye on us. The other week he was spending a lot of time actually sitting against my legs purring and being within easy petting distance which I attributed to Toby knowing I needed extra comfort due to my anxiety.

This weekend Toby has been almost constantly near one of us. Sitting on our feet while we watched Monty Python and Cats 101. Curling up against my leg while I napped. Following my boyfriend to the couch and leaning against him while he was working. He did get up and move around during Bad Dog and he did insist on playing fetch for an hour, but otherwise Toby has been incredibly cuddly compared to his normal.

I'm not sure if it's because boyfriend changed jobs and is now on a schedule similar to mine so Toby hasn't had as much attention during the day as he was used to or if it's because I'm sick. Yes, the massive amounts of television watching and napping are because I'm fighting off yet another stupid nasty cold. My dad asked if Toby was avoiding me to stay healthy and I told him Toby was actually being really affectionate. Pretty sure from what I know of kitty URIs that the virus I've got likely won't infect him. I know that cats can get some versions of the flu bug though so happy I don't have that!

What do you think? Is Toby being more affectionate and cuddly because he's been lonely during the work week? Is it because he knows I'm cranky and sick? Or some combination of the two?

My first thought was that the apartment might be cold (he cuddles much more when it's cold in here!) but my boyfriend swears the temperature is normal, even to someone who isn't sick.

The cause is a mystery but I do appreciate the result of the sweet cuddly cat!


He's not 100% cuddly though, he did almost attack the tv during Bad Dog. Boyfriend suggested Toby wants to be famous.

ADHD, Anxiety, and Animals, Oh My!

You already know I have ADHD. Like most adult women with ADHD, the Hyperactive part of my ADHD expresses itself partially as anxiety. Unrelated to the ADHD I also have a condition called hyperekplexia (stiff baby syndrome for you medical folks) that results in me making little noises I call eeps that sound like a baby panda hiccuping. Technically I eep when I'm startled, but it works out to a correlation between rate and volume of eeps and my anxiety levels. However, because I have that whole ADHD-related anxiety thing, anxiety levels don't always relate to real world events for me. As I told my best friend the other day, I can rationally tell myself "Beth, that's a silly response. Everything is fine. There's no way Toby will figure out how to move the lock and escape into the hall, make it into the elevator, and run into the street in front of a car while you're at work" and yet the anxious part of my brain, fueled by ADHD hyperactivity turned inwards doesn't give two pennies for rational thought and just says "that's nice, but still, he's a smart kitty, he could!" and ignores reality.

What does any of this have to do with animals as this is a blog ostensibly about animals? Because animals are amazing for my anxiety and the mental illnesses of many people around the world. There are local and international organizations that organize visits from dogs, cats, and other pets to people who can benefit from the experience. Research has shown that petting cats helps lower people's blood pressure, which can relieve feelings of stress.

For me there's definitely the physiological benefit of petting Toby being calming and soothing. A lot of it for me is that even if the things I'm worrying about happen (aside from any involving Toby hurting himself), Toby will still love me. Even when the crazy part of my brain can't listen to the rational side that says my fears are baseless, it can still recognize that Toby's love is in no way dependent on those things being untrue. Even if I wake up 40lbs heavier and get fired all in one day, Toby will still love me. I can believe in him, even when I can't believe in logic.

Last night when I was feeling particularly anxious (it's been a bit high the past week) he came over and curled against my leg while I watched Monty Python. The night before when I woke up from a nightmare, he climbed onto the bed and curled up next to me. He's not always the most cuddly cat, but he knows when I need extra affection and he makes it clear that he loves me. Toby, like all pets, has a lot to teach us about unconditional love. This evening he licked my hand when I went to pet him.

Even though I might bribe him into cuddles this evening with treats while I read, I'll still know he loves me. Even if he'd rather stay on the comfy nest of clothes he's created for himself.

I did warn that Clean All the Things (named for Allie Bosch's amazing Hyperbole and a Half strip) didn't quite work this weekend...


Note: My inclusion of the personal here was partially because we often think of mental illness without thinking of the people they affect and so hold stereotypes that anxious people are irrational cowards (I am quite logical and have had people consider me brave) or that ADHD people are irresponsible (Many people have found me to be quite responsible). More importantly for me, "coming out" like this on the internet where it might be seen by someone feeling alone with her mental illness is my tribute to a beloved friend who passed away two weeks ago. He was incredibly open and honest about having been on medication for depression since he was in high school and advocated for acceptance while breaking stereotypes about those with mental illnesses. His openness helped me a great deal in coming to terms with my own mental state and if my openness can help one person the way he helped so many, it will be a fitting tribute. He also loved animals and Monty Python.

Another Toby Photo

Why I'm slow at cleaning

Aside from being easily distracted/overwhelmed by clutter due to my ADHD brain, Toby always gets extra cute and affectionate when I clean. So many flank rubs today!


Plus, he figured out how to bat open the doors to our dvd storage!

I keep trying to tell him that fetch will be more fun once I declutter and he has more room to run around, but I think he just sees me opening up spaces for him to explore and sitting on the ground as invitations to flank rub and head butt.

Cuteness is the way to start the new year

In the midst of my massive cleaning for the new year, Toby has decided to supervise.

Yes, that is a shoebox top that he's managed to climb into. Apparently Toby wants to be sure I don't clear too much from the apartment!

Best part of working at home

The heat is broken at my office today so I'm working from home. I was just starting to get annoyed with an excel sheet (I love the program, but often have to check formatting formulas) when I heard a commotion to my left.

I turned and there was Toby.

Ignore the mass of gray fur that collected along the baseboard. I swear, I vacuum. That's just his favorite spot to roll and rub off his shedding fur.

Hope your Friday is just as full of joy as a cat in a bag playing with his favorite rattle ball.

Cute Cat Calms

In case anyone else today is having a hard time with his or her temper when people say things that are factually untrue.

Here is Toby.
Leaping from the shelves on top of my fridge.
Yes, my fridge is that cluttered.

Weight Loss

On the left: Toby as a svelte young cat. On the right: My beautiful currently tubby Toby.
My cat and I are both trying to lose weight. Well, to be more accurate I am trying to lose weight and Toby is really confused at the smaller amount of food showing up in his bowl and me making him actually MOVE for said food as a result of me trying to help him lose weight.

This dual project has me thinking about the similarities and differences between helping a cat lose weight and helping yourself lose weight. Both involve a lot of self-control, common sense, exercise, and some innovation.

Self-Control
For me, it's not buying the Ruffle Cheddar potato chips that sing a siren song from the vending machine at 3pm every afternoon. For Toby, it's not giving into his sad looks and plaintive meows.

To avoid the chips, I tried buying mini rice cakes. Verdict--not buying again. At first, I loved them and thought they were awesome, then realized I had eaten over half the multiple serving bag and had this weird chemical taste in my mouth. To boot, I was craving Ruffles even more than before. I've recently tried oatmeal. Microwaved with a bit of milk and a small amount of heavenly dark brown sugar seems to help get me past the hump.

To deal with Toby's meows...reminding myself, and him in a perky voice, that he is NOT a starving kitty. And then throwing some toys or petting him until he gives up.

Common Sense:
For both of us: smaller portions, more movement. It's so basic, I hate to say it, but it needs to be said. I also checked with his vet about how much to decrease the food.

Exercise:
Bribery and conscious argument with myself works. I know I need to exercise and only need to argue with my lazy bookworm brain in order to get off the cushions and lifting weights.

With Toby...sometimes tossing toys or danging his toy sticks work. Other times he just yawns. So I'm getting sneaky. Some days I toss his food a kibble down the mini foyer of my studio, making a noise when it lands, and he runs for it, then I toss one down the kitchen so he runs in there, "hunting" his food.

I also use most of his meal times as training times. I know it's not a lot of movement to go from standing to sitting, to high fiving, to sitting pretty, but it's some movement and it means I'm not neglecting his training while we're currently swearing off treats.

Innovation:
For me? Not a whole lot. It's all ideas I've read elsewhere or simply finding ways to put different workouts together so I work everything without getting too grumpy (I'm seriously perky at the end, but halfway through I just want to whine and stop).

For Toby this meant finding a way to deal with his habit of eating cardboard and plastic when he wanted food without rewarding him for eating the cardboard and plastic. During the day I can keep an eye out and my timing is good enough to distract him before he's made contact with the cardboard. At night...I wake up about an hour before I need to and he's trying to get to cardboard or paper. It's better than it used to be. At first, he would wake me up at 3am with this. I realized I needed to feed him right before bed and then cover the box with a blanket to make it less appetizing. To deal...I have premeasured baggies of food so I can stumble out of bed, distract Toby, toss some kibbles in his bowl, and stumble back to bed without having fully regained consciousness. Is it perfect? No. Is it the best I can do in a studio where I have foster kittens who would otherwise eat any food I left out overnight and find and devour any interactive toy I left out with food? Yes. So much better than 3am or actually measuring at 6am. I consider this an innovative improvement.

So far we're both making progress. Toby feels lighter and I feel healthier. That's what it's all about, both of us being healthier and better able to play and enjoy our days. That's worth a little effort and self-control.

LeCat is a Lap Cat

I picked up my new foster cat, LeCat, last night and he is a cuddler! I'm keeping him in the bathroom for the quaruntine period and he is already trying to break free.

I have a routine when introducing a new cat to my home where I bring the carrier into the bathroom, close the door on curious Toby, and sit on the floor with the carrier open. I prefer to let the cat decide when to come out of the carrier and when to say hi to me. LeCat quickly climbed out of the carrier and began exploring. He found his litter box, drank some water, sniffed the garbage (thankfully didn't tear it apart because it's full of allergy tissues), and then proceeded to explore the new human who was sitting and watching him. I had my back to the door and my legs curled up to take up as little space as possible (it's a tiny bathroom) and he started sniffing next to me and trying to push behind the small of my back. Within a few moments he had climbed into my lap and was head butting for pets with a noticible happy purr. LeCat's eyes were half closed and his body relaxed. I stayed in there for about 30 minutes and was reluctant to leave when I did but my dinner was knocking on my door and I knew Toby needed to see me. Toby had meowed at the door a little in confusion.

I went back to visit with LeCat a few times before I turned in and he was delightfully cuddly every time. Surprisingly so when I sat down to brush my hair and he jumped into my lap! I'll need to give him some good brushings because he's still shedding a lot from shelter nerves, but his coat is lovely and soft. He's mostly a grey and white tabby but the fur is tinged with dark brown on the tips and the stripes on his tail are almost black instead of white. A good pile of his fur is now in my garbage and more scattered around the bathroom tile. Once he calms down he won't shed as much, but last night hair was coming up with almost every pat.

When I left the shelter with LeCat, our coordinator said thank you and joked that I'm their "Pathetic Cat Lady." She then stopped, realized how it could be misconstrued, and started explaining "Not that you're pathetic, you just do so well with the more pathetic cats." I laughed and assured her that I'd understood. The thing is, yes, Nikolai's story was sad and pathetic, and having a 14 year old cat end up in a shelter is awful. But these are the cats who need love and patience to show their incredible natures. LeCat seems like he'll be pretty easy once I get Toby not to be jealous (he had his jealous stance last night every time I came out of the bathroom). For a 14 year old, he's still beautiful and quite affectionate. I don't understand how he came to be in the shelter, but I'm so happy I can share my home with him until his forever home arrives.

Let me know if you're interested and please, pass the word to any friends who want an easy going, super affectionate little cat. I'll try to post a photo by the week's end. I thought about it last night when he was being cute, but figured a flash photograph on his first night might be a bit much.

Friday Pick Me Up

I do not advocate animals as replacements for people. However, I do think animals are a blessing and help us deal when we miss people, the same way human friends can help us.

Well, before my boyfriend flew off to spend six months teaching in the Holy Lands, there was a day I was having a bad time at work--nothing was going well and I was so frustrated and upset. Jarrod's response was to go over to my apartment (he lived in the other side of my building and had a key for feeding Toby) and take a video of Toby being well, Tobycute. That is the video I believe I uploaded. He actually took two but would kill me if I showed the other one where you hear him encouraging Toby to "talk" to me and meow for the camera.

The videos made me smile and I saved them to my computer because everyone needs a pick me up every now and then.

Well, today I was feeling tired and I missed my boyfriend more than usual. I had read upsetting news on Bad Rap about a man in MI pushing for pit bulls to be banned and made the mistake of reading the comments on the newspaper articles (both about the Michigan man and another about an awesome rescued pittie who had just passed away in the Bay area). Comments on newspaper articles always depress me. When Cleveland helped out feral cats (which totally does help resident people, too) all sorts of ignorant and nasty comments were posted in response to the article. Same thing here. On the one about the great pit bull, people wrote in with the same awful bull about pitties. I'm a bleeding-heart sort of girl and not even having the person I wanted most around to give me a hug when I felt down just sucked.

Then I remembered this video. I went, watched, and smiled. I'm headed to the shelter tonight to walk and hug the pitties there. The video reminds me that while I don't do a lot, I do provide a loving home for the kitties I can and also, importantly, that other people are doing what they can to improve the world and make it a happier place. Even if that's just videotaping their girlfriend's cat when she's having a bad day. It's little, but it's something nice that one person did for another. Humanity has a lot of faults but if we all keep trying to do little nice things when we can, those will build up and we won't have awful comments bogging down newspaper articles and ignorant people calling for the destruction of a breed.

So if you need a smile, watch the video, see my cute Tobias, and go do something nice for someone else. No matter how small the acts, they matter and they do add up.

Attempt at a photo shoot

After a bad shin splint forced me to cancel hitting Dupont with my friends, I was inspired by the photo of a lovely shelter dog (who has since been adopted) and me in my mom's article "Help Wanted: Dogs" (about working dogs) in the March/April issue of Yes Mag, the Science Magazine for Adventurous Minds (Canadian, hence the spelling). Unfortunately the results weren't what I was hoping for!

I was hoping for a really great recent photo of Toby and me to go in the sidebar. I got a photo where Toby looks cute but I'm far too vain regarding my own self to put it in the sidebar. It's at the top for those of you who want to see the reject photo. If I cropped it to just Toby's cute expression, it'd actually be pretty good (in my nonphotographer opinion).

I did get a photo where I'm holding Nikolai who cuddles much more than Toby. However, in the photo where I got the light correct, Nik ended up moving and looks a bit like a furry blur. He's a cute furry blur though, so I'm using that as my photo for now because, well, I am vain :)

I should have learned my lesson with the magazine photos. A professional photographer friend (who is also a vet tech and awesome with animals) and another shelter volunteer both helped me try to get a good photo with one of the shelter dogs. My mom was writing her article and the editor (who seems incredibly sweet and who my mom always loves to write for) had suggested a photo of her daughter with a shelter dog since my mom doesn't play with them herself (this has been explained elsewhere in this blog). I am in awe of animal photographers. We tried two different dogs both inside and outside. We ended up getting a cute photo of Nya and me where she's looking away but still adorable.

I've since learned that patience, treats, a friend, and lucky timing are the key to great human/animal photos. Animals on their own are always cute. It's just more difficult with a person involved!

We humans always mess up a good thing with our vanity.

The downside of catsitting

After falling for a beautiful squeaky kitty 1/3 Toby's size, you have to give her back to her mom and watch your cat look in all her hiding spots wondering where the little one went. He spent the past few days trying to play with Bella while she ran away (she was a little shy with other kitties) but was a fluffy cuddle cat.

Toby Gets Nipped!

Narcissistic Kitty

Yes, the caption on the book does say "Parlez-vous Doggish?" I guess Toby was trying to educate himself when he got distracted by the handsome kitty in the mirror.

Let's hope this ends better than the myth...

Faceoff

Toby met the roomba. Not his favorite cleaning apparatus. He seemed less scared when above it, but still kept a watchful eye the entire time it was cleaning. Maybe someday he'll be one of those cats who tries to ride the roomba.

Daily Dose of Cute

I have no idea why he was lying in the sink. Normally he just hangs out in the tub when it's dry and sits on the toliet seat when the tub is in use. By the way, expect to see Toby fairly regularly. He's cute, even if he is trying to eat my Rome dvds as I type this. I think he just wants more episodes set in Egypt.

Five Confessions

I have a few confessions:

1. I used to be scared of cats. My friend Ted remembers me asking why his cat was making a weird noise and sounding like a motor. He had to explain that she was purring.

2. As a result of #1, I used to be in favor of declawing. In my defense, I didn't know anything about it. I was ignorant. I still feel guilt and shame when I remember actually saying out loud that I didn't understand why Toby and his "sister" weren't declawed. In my defense, I had never lived with one cat, let alone two (yes, I got Toby from an old roommate when she didn't want him). Thankfully I never actively tried to get any cats declawed. It still makes me turn red.

3. Until I met Missy, I bought into pitbull's bad PR.

4. After bruising my tailbone and hitting the back of my head, I became terrified of large horses for awhile. Admittedly, I still have to remind myself not to tense up when the horse is particularly tall.

5. I'm not good with reptiles and bugs really just freak me out.

Why did I post these? Partially to show that even an "animal lover" can have anti-animal characteristics. More importantly, because it's proof, albeit anecdotal, that information and experience can change a person's mind. Living with Toby started my journey toward being a "cat lady," volunteering at the shelter taught me about declawing and all the ways to help a destructive cat without maiming him for life, and meeting Missy made me fall in love with pit bulls. I now adore cats, hate declawing, and consider pit bulls my favorite breed of dog.

Maybe in the future I'll get to know a snake up close and personal and he'll change my mind.

Daily Dose of Cute

"But it's cold out there!"

Meet my Toby. He burrowed himself into the sheets while I was watching tv and I had to grab my camera to take a photo of him. I promise one of his full glory soon.