Overprotective of pets

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There isn't really a lot you have to do to your house before you get a cat. It's not like a kid who can open bleach bottles under the sink or something. Just get a litter box and put it where the cat can get to it, remove breakables from tables and shelves that it will knock off before it's trained not to, and get something for it to scratch on so it doesn't tear up your furniture. Also, you can train a cat to stay away from things (like breakables and scratching furniture) by squirting it with a Windex bottle washed out and filled up with tap water. They don't like it and will soon associate the act with the squirting and will never do it again.

Also, try and keep the litter box off carpet. They scratch the litter out onto the carpet and ruin it. It's best kept in the bathroom with the door left open when you aren't in there using it. A word about litter, you do not have to get the most expensive kind out there and fill the box up with it 3 or 4 inches deep like my mother does. Get the cheap dollar store kind and put enough to cover the bottom about a half inch deep. Every morning dump out the old, clean out the box with Windex and paper towels, and put in fresh litter. It won't smell that way.

I have a Hedgehog and a Ferret and im caring for my sisters ferret and i am CRAZY for them, i would do anything for them

Definitely. I actually feel this way about all living things under my care...like, I'm constantly worried about all of the potted plants in my house and almost always end up over watering them. As far as my cat, I'm always rinsing out her water bowl and refilling it with properly cold water and all other family members accuse me of spoiling her excessively with attention and treats. I even feel kind of weird when a friend or more distant relative pets her. Any sound or screeching in the night and I have to get up and have a look around to make sure she's all right. Thankfully, she repays the love 10 fold and I often wake up to her sleeping right next to me, half under the covers. Aw, kitties! How can you not love 'em?!

This is really long, but it's about the need to monitor yourself and watch that you don't go too far in being overprotective and pampering and what can happen if you do. Overprotective, pampering, spoiling, etc is within the realm of normal. There is nothing wrong with it. Sometimes people go too far though and it effects them in ways that they didn't even think of.

If you know already that you are predisposed to being overprotective of animals you need to be kind of on the lookout for going too far with it. My mother goes way too far, not only has she let that cat destroy her belongings but she's even got it so fat that it's sure to not live as long as it normally would. Her vet has even told her to stop this but she won't. This is what she does and what you should not do;

First off she buys cat food based on price and labels, but not the way most people buy things based on price, she buys the most expensive because "it must be the best". So, she gets three kinds of dry cat food and several kinds of canned cat food, and several bags of cat treats in all the flavors. The minute she gets up, before her coffee even, she dumps out the cat bowl still FULL of dry cat food she put out the evening before and fills it up with the morning kind she gets. She gets a regular cat size bowl, the plastic ones from Wal Mart, probably about eight inches across and three or four inches deep and fills it to the brim with dry food. That's about six times what that cat can possibly eat during a 24 hour period. She throws an almost full bowl of it in the garbage and fills it up to the brim again with different dry food, three times a day. Breakfast, lunch and supper. She wastes about ten times more cat food than what it eats. I've asked her why she does this and suggested that she only put out what it will eat but she says she wants it to have a bowl full just in case.

After dumping the dry food and filling up the bowl with more useless dry food (the cat eats some of it but couldn't possibly even eat half of it) she fills up a small bowl from the good china that my grandmother left to me when she died because my mother had no interest in it with one of the cans of cat food. She then sits in a chair at the table and watches the cat eat. If it doesn't eat the whole can of food, she will put it in her lap and scoop up the food with her fingers and let the cat lick it off them. Then, after feeding it the canned food and coaxing it to eat just a little more of the dry food she gets up and gets the little pack of cat treats and feeds about 15 or so of them to that cat by hand. She does this whole ordeal around dinnertime and suppertime too. Before bed she also feeds some more treats.

The cat is huge. So fat it's not even funny. Plus, she feeds it on the kitchen table! Where she eats her meals, and preps food to cook on the stove. I've seen her sitting there chopping onions or peppers or potatoes, etc with the cat sitting on the table, not two feet away, by it's food. It wouldn't be so nasty if that cat didn't eat so messy and get cat food all over the wall (the table is up against a wall and the cat food is right there next to the wall) and all over the table in that area even though she's put one of the nice placemats shes bought for that purpose under it. And she doesn't clean it off because "Oh Frances, it's not nasty! You exaggerate everything, that's just where Lulu's been eating, how would you like it if people thought you eating at the table was nasty?" I told her I don't get my food all over everything and I also don't sit beside my plate and lick my butt either.

She also will not give the cat tap water, she only gives it bottled water. Not even the regular normal priced bottled water she drinks but she actually buys some more expensive brand just for the cat.

Then she goes in the bathroom where the litter box is and scoops out the poop and pours more litter in there. She only gets the poop she can see so there is always still some in there. She has one of those deep litter boxes and she keeps it full. When I say full, I mean very full. She only pours out the litter and refills it about twice a month and she gets (again) the most expensive kind that supposedly controls odor but doesn't so her house smells like a litter box constantly. The cat scratches it out all over the bathroom floor because it's so full and she never cleans that up either. She is physically able to do these things, she just doesn't do them.

Before she had it declawed (her apartment manager made her because after it had shredded the arms and sides of her furniture the damn thing started scratching the carpet up and there were big ruined spots on the floor and my mother wouldn't dare squirt water on it or run it off from that spot when it was scratching it. She said "Lulu needs to scratch so her claws won't hurt her." then she would look at the cat and go "That's right baby, you scratch if you need to, don't let nobody bother you about it!" Now really. So, since it's been declawed whats left of the furniture is safe but she can't have anything sitting out because the cat knocks it off. If she had squirted it with water when it first started doing that, after a few days it wouldn't do that anymore and she could have things without them being broken. Things of my grandmothers that she had out got broken and ruined because of that cat and my mothers lack of discipline. It's pulled down curtains, towels, shower curtains, pooped and peed on her down comforter, peed on the couch and chair, knocked over the garbage can, knocks over ashtrays, and even knocks over these lightweight tables she keeps in her livingroom. It's also chewed all the buttons off the remote.

All that could have been prevented if she had just taught it differently when she first got it. A few days of vigilance and squirting with a little water, clapping her hands or stomping a foot, saying PPPPSSSSSSTTTT or popping it on the nose or read end and saying NO! loudly and firmly would have prevented it. Along with of course positive reinforcement when the cat was entertaining itself in nondestructive ways. It wasn't the fact that she didn't want to get up and do those things or be busy with doing that for several days, she didn't do it because she thought it was mean to the cat. She is still in her right mind, and was then too, but literally told me that she thinks the cats pleasure (not even the cats life, just it's freaking temporary pleasure comes before antiques, expensive furniture, and peace of mind knowing that she won't get kicked out of her apt because of the cat ruining stuff.

This is the kind of thing you want to be aware of that could happen so you don't fall into the same trap. She's always been very overprotective of her pets and treats them like a fragile little baby that is the sole heir to the throne of some kingdom that rules the world somewhere or something like that. Loving them, protecting and taking care of them, providing for them, sometimes sacrificing something of your own for the animals well being, all that is normal and healthy, but after normal and healthy comes obsessive and overprotective and then after that, sometimes without noticing it, people cross the line and people end up in the next stage which is disorder, delusion and being completely unreasonable. You don't want to be in that last category.

She will be 80 years old this year and is on a fixed income. She has spent money she can't afford to spend on the cat. She does not get much money at all and has to scrimp and stretch her money to get by and she has to do without lots of things during the last half of the month. She has many health problems and is on many different meds and needs to see the doctor monthly, and she has a home health nurse that comes once or twice a week as well. She has medicare, like all people her age in the US, but no other insurance so she has a co-pay at the dr and pharmacy. She will skip her own doctor appointment to pay for her cats vet appointment. Not a vet appointment where it's sick or needs something for it's health but for grooming. She has gone without her meds to make sure her cat has that once a month flea stuff. It got out once and she was hysterical for the whole day and ended up not being able to breathe and going to the ER in an ambulance. That cat had not gone off the porch. I understand the being very upset over it being out because I get really upset when mine get out but my neighbors have said they will shoot my dogs, nobody wants to shoot a cat. Also, it's doubtful the cat would even go over near the main road, but dogs who are running will.

One more little tidbit of insanity on her part and then I'll end the post, but I wanted you to know how far the obsession can go so you know to really watch for it. That cat not only ruined her furniture scratching with its claws, but it would scratch her shins and ankles. She wore socks because her feet were cold (PVD) and the cat would claw on them. She tried off and on to get it to stop, a couple of times even kicking her leg by reflex when it really got her but she felt horrible about that afterwards, and it didn't stop. She ended up in the hospital for quite a while with a severe infection. She didn't mind one bit and said it wasn't the cats fault. It wasn't the cats fault as in the cat having intent, she also didn't have intent to allow herself to get a serious medical problem from it, but her fear of disciplining the cat or setting boundries or rules caused it. I'm glad the apartments made her declaw it because theres no telling how many more times that would have happened. Her doctor said get rid of it but she wouldn't, which she didn't need to do I don't think, just teach it what "no" means.

So, that's the end of my long winded post. I wrote all this so you and anybody else who is really overly protective and such of their pets can have an idea where it can lead to so ya'll can watch out for that and keep it at the level that you're at now. Theres nothing wrong with going overboard for your pets if you have the time and money to do so, but I think it's important to be very aware of what it can grow into as time passes, and it can do that without you even noticing. I'm very careful that I don't end up like her and it worries me because of how I am about the dogs getting out, but it's reasonable to be that way considering the neighbors want to shoot them (wolf hybrids, they are afraid of them but they don't bite people) and we are close to a busy road where one got out and killed before. I just try not to be too shrill and urgent sounding when I remind people to watch the door or watch out for the dogs.

It's not just this cat with her either. She still has a keepsake box with the dog she had that died about 6 years ago's fur in a baggie (that's normal) tons of pictures of him (that's normal too) his leftover medicine from the vets because he was still on it when he died (not quite so normal but could go either way) and a jar of the kidney stones he passed (completely over the line and nuts). So, if you are predisposed to it, it is very easy for it to happen.

I didn't even go into the story about the lady that would rescue and give away cats in Bham,, this rich old lady who spent every last dime on stray cats and even had her house remodeled to accommodate them because that's what she wanted to do, so ok, but my husband was doing some electrical work for her and he accidentally let one of the cats out. The lady was in bed sick, and very old too, but had a nurse with her. My husband told her he let the cat out accidentally and she had such a fit that she had a stroke and died. I kid you not. Mindsigh will know who she was. So, my husband accidentally killed the cat lady in a round about way. I'm also pretty sure the stray came back. There were like 50 something more cats there too. Don't let yourself get to the point where something like that can cause you to have a stroke and die. I watch myself very carefully because going overboard with things is something I tend to do. Decide where your own line is for something like this and don't let yourself cross it. Maybe let a friend know that you are overprotective and ask them to tell you when you get too overprotective. Someone whose judgment you trust.

You're a really nice neighbor to that kid... I'd have answered him by pulling my shirt off and walking up to him, and telling him I had an ear infection, and he needs to repeat that question a little closer so I can her him better!

Charles

I used to dread taking my dog for a walk incase another dog ran up and ate him =[

I'd say that I worry alot but I can push myself to stop being so worried and be realistic.

All I can say is people better think twice before hurting my animal companions.

[While I wouldn't go so far as to say NTs don't love their pets, I have noticed that most of them are more likely to say "well it's just a dog/cat/bird" etc, whereas we tend to recognise them as living beings practically equal to us.[/quote]

That is so true. They have an equal right to be on the planet, even if it's the wrong planet. We don't have an innate superiority as a human species, a moral or spiritual god-given right to exploit, oppress and extinguish other species. The belief that we do is far more dominant in NTs than aspies, I think, a lot of aspies find that anthrocenticity repugnant (which it is).

That is so true. They have an equal right to be on the planet, even if it's the wrong planet. We don't have an innate superiority as a human species, a moral or spiritual god-given right to exploit, oppress and extinguish other species. The belief that we do is far more dominant in NTs than aspies, I think, a lot of aspies find that anthrocenticity repugnant (which it is).[/quote]

Those groups like PETA are full of NT's. When I worked at the health food store NT's would come in all the time all vegan and if I mentioned that I eat meat I would get a lecture about how cows are our friend, etc. I don't know for a fact that all these people are NT, but they sure seemed like it.

I was very much into animal rights and felt that pets were equal to humans until I had my first baby. After that I got a different perspective. While many people who are into animal rights have children, I doubt any of them would feel that their dog or cat or any animal is equal to their baby.

Since we are getting a bit off the track of what the OP asked, and this is a good subject to discuss, I'm going to start a thread in PPR asking opinions on animal rights.

I'm pretty over protective of my dog.
I spoil her, too.
I never understood that "just a dog" attitude.

I'd save a pet over a human any day what use are humans to aspie ? grief, annoyance, anxiety, what else ?

Yes, I don't even let my cat in my room, or do much around him (unless I am drunk lol), because I am so OCD about hurting him. It really sucks. I doubt when I move out of my brother's place, I will have a pet for that reason. I'm also afraid I'd forget to feed them or lose them.