Whenever I go downstairs to the [still unfinished, thanks for asking, but quite usable] work/office to put in some time on my editing project, Sundance comes down and begins to whine. She prowls around, muttering and meowing despite my efforts to quiet her. I thought maybe she just wanted company, so I put a cushion down on the rug for her and tried to get her to settle down on it. No dice. Instead, she hops up onto my chair behind my back and rubs against me or jumps up on the table and tries to walk across the keyboard. She is a very vocal and distracting companion.
Tom tells me that ever since he set up the shop in the basement -- in its previous iteration -- the cats come down and complain when he is working in "their" basement. We don't know why they are convinced this is theirs and only to be invaded when I come and do necessary cat-related chores, like cleaning the litter box.
Any suggestions?
Tom says he would sometimes run the electric saw until they ran away. I am thinking of getting a small vacuum cleaner to turn on to get the same effect.
3 comments:
Did the cats benefit in any other way when Tom was in the basement - did they get a treat to shut-up or a little play time, etc. If the cats are not satisfied after being petted, it most likely means they are not asking to be petted but for something else that they associate when being in that space with a human. I feed my cats dry food 7 days a week, but give them a special can of wet food on Saturday when I am home the whole day. If, however, I stay home on a weekday, the cats do not know what day it is and assume that it is the day when they get wet food. They will incessantly come up to me and whine, and petting them doesn't solve the problem, since what they are really asking for is the can food they anticipate on such days. I simply tell them a few times "no food," and they go over and nibble on the dry as a last resort.
Thanks, Joseph, for your input. Sundance used to act the same way when I was sitting silently doing my morning meditation. I eventually discovered that if I could ignore her, she would eventually crawl up onto the bed and doze off. This afternoon I tried a similar tactic when she came down to harangue me in the basement. After a while I thought she had disappeared, but when I got up to go back upstairs, she was sitting on the other side of the basement. When I headed up, she decided to go with me, but at least she did so quietly.
I have a male and female cat. The female cat especially is like a lady in waiting. She'll follow me from room to room, and even escort me when she anticipates where I am going (such as to bed at the end of the night) and she sleeps at the side of the bed. I think she thinks I'm her husband of sorts. So, if it's your female cat your talking about, it may be something like this - she just wants to be in the same room. I also heard it said that if bith males and females tend to follow you and want to be in the same room (which my male does, too), then they are also considering you as "mother" cat (like they used to follow as kittens), in contrast to dogs who are simply following the alpha-dog in the pack.
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