House cats/Feral cats: Equal sense of entitlement

10Aug17

There’s an old joke. A dog thinks: oh, this human feeds me, pets me, and takes good care of me – he must be God. A cat thinks, oh, this human feeds me, pets me, and takes good care of me – I must be God.

Once I had four house cats. Every morning I set the alarm for work, and every morning the cats would insist on being fed first. Eventually, when the alarm went off, I would automatically stumble out of bed, go downstairs and feed them before doing anything else. Naturally, the cats thought I set the alarm to feed them. One time the alarm went off on a non-work day, and I shut off the alarm and remained in bed. Hawthorne gave me a couple of taps on my nose with his little paw. I pulled the covers up and rolled over. He gave me a couple more pats but put a little claw into in this time. Oh yes, I set the alarm as a reminder to feed the cats.

These feral cats think the only reason I come down the stairs is to feed them. They may have just been fed by me less than an hour ago, and they see me coming and expect more food. Like I have nothing else to do with my time/life except come downstairs and feed them. And they insist on it too. Those plaintive mews make me feel so guilty if I don’t dish out some food. I’m such a pushover, usually I succumb to their demands. Like this evening when I made the mistake of going out for an errand, there they were expecting food. The last thing I need to be doing is starting to feed them in the evenings too. As outside cats, they need to not rely on me as their sole source of food.