Cats advice wanted again - long!
Oct. 24th, 2007 01:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I'm feeling mildly anxious about the creeping outbreak of territorial warfare between my mogs. Having been together all their 3 yrs of life and being sisters, I thought they were fine together. But since I moved to Soton, it's been more and more obvious that (a) Cookie is bullying Java (cuffing her, hissing at her etc ) and (b) this is mostly about who gets to be near me , and colonise which parts of the house.
Basically Java gets upstairs and sleeps on my bed. Cookie gets downstairs and will just about tolerate Java being in the living room sprawled on opposite sofa, ie, not the one I am on. Cookie used to want to slep in the bedroom with me too, so I installed her in her own basket under the dressing table. in the last few days however she's abandoned sleeping with me for the first time in her life and is sleeping in the study next door.
I know this sounds really trivial but (a) I worry that Java is almost trapped upstairs when I'm out and the house is empty which isn't good anyway for her general sessile fat-cat character :) and (b) Cookie is increasingly feral - growling, scratching - when i try to stop her being bad to Java.
And they used to be so sweet when they were kids - sleeping in the same basket, licking each other's fur. Sigh!
I've tried Felaway in the past and not foud it made a huge difference before everyone mentions it, btw..
OH and while I'm at it.. the other ongoing worry is that both cats, having been on the Science Diet dry food since birth, seem to have taken agin it. THis is more or less my fault because when I had flu I ran out of food and fed them pure tuna for 3 or 4 days and now that's all they want!!
Somehow I feel a diet entirely of tuna is not ideal yet I also don't want them to be so fed up with what I feed them, they run away!! I'm currently encouraging them to eat the dry stuff by mixing some tuna in, but it's a bit of a faff and I think they're not really fooled. I don't actually know how to give them a balanced diet that isn't 100% Science Diet - they've always had the dry stuff quite happily till now - they don't like raw meat, and I can't bear the smell of wet cat food. Other things they will grudgingly eat include cooked ham (salty again, hmm) and chicken but not much else!!! Advice?? My Puritan nature also feels I shouldn't really be buying human food for cats!
(And why are cats so fond of fish anyway.. it's not as if they're natural swimmers!! you don't see cats wading into the tweed to catch salmon! so like huh???)