CAT TALES

PCD Judy Conlin

I have noticed that by the time the new year rolls around, the cats have lost their impish joyfulness. I have never paid much attention to this. After all , I also have a huge letdown after making it through the major hubbub of the season. This year seems different. However, the cats, especially Beebe, seem downright depressed. Naturally I, being the caring cat mother that I am, immediately become excessively nurturing. I will bring them out of their snit by sheer force of will. I try to play with them, dragging out all their new Christmas toys. I will throw a catnip mouse. They both ignore me. Occasionally, Momau will make a feeble effort to retrieve it, but immediately loses interest, I swung the fishpole around with the same results. I wiggle my fingers beneath a fabric cover ( a sure fired trick that gets them attacking wildly) but they don’t respond. I do more thinking. Maybe they had too many treats over the holiday and have tummy trouble. I withhold treats. This they don’t ignore. It just translates into long mournful yowls. I pet them, brush them, hug and kiss them all to no avail. They just wallow in their bad moods Maybe they need a change of scenery. I get out their carriers and try to place them inside. They fight me with teeth and claws, but that is usual. They always do that. I put them in the car and ride them up and down Tallavana Trail. They claw at their door zippers, yowling and hissing. At least I’ve gotten some action from them rather than just sullen lassitude, but this is not the result I am trying for. I just want them to be their normal mischievous selves. If it’s not boredom, lack of attention or food problems, I am perplexed as to what their problem is. Since there was company coming and going during the holidays maybe, they are missing new people. I invite people over. The cats go hiding until they leave. Maybe it’s not personal at all. Maybe it’s the weather. It has been so cold lately. I get out their cuddly beds which they usually won’t have anything to do with. I line them with little kitty heaters. Made for outside cats. They won’t go near them. I resort to carrying them to beds and tucking them in. They leap out so quickly they nearly knock me over hiding in a corner as if I was trying to electrocute them. I am clearly getting nowhere. I can only think of 2 alternatives. I can just wait a while and see if things improve or I could call Nurse Judy, who fancies herself a cat whisperer and get her opinion. You all know how I hate involving Nurse Judy, who holds it over me for months, so I decide to wait. I wait and I wait and I wait and the cats still are driving me crazy. They are apathetic, morose, and no fun at all. I am going to have to use my dreaded alter ego and her whispering approach, but first I must approach her, I figure I’ll just play it real casually, like it is more for her benefit than mine. I say to her, “Nurse Judy, the cats seem to have PCD (post-Christmas depression).Since you are so interested in cat behavior research , I thought you might be interested in studying them and possibly doing a paper on PCD in cats.” I didn’t fool her for an instant. “SO, the cats are depressed, and you can’t figure it out. Now you come to me, as usual, to find out what is going on?” she says with her supercilious smirk. I scowl at her but leave her with the cats. When I go back, she is sitting on the floor petting 2 happy cats with a very smug look on her face. “Well?” I ask curtly. “It was easy peasy,” she says with her superior smile.“You were way off track,” she tells me. “What bothers the cat about News Year is the number of years it adds to their age.” “What do you mean? It just adds a year to all of us.’ “Not for cats,” she says. Their 1 st year adds 25, their 2 nd year 10, and 4 every year after that. That depressed them until I talked to them>” “What did you tell them?” I was curious. “I told them not to worry. You are so old already that they’ll never catch up with you no matter how many new years they live through. That perked them right up.” I was relieved to see the cats back to normal, but I suddenly felt a little sad. Even aging only 1 year at a time, I was still far older than Bebe at 73 and Momau at 29. I now have that to add to my PCD.

More later,Judy and the cats www.nursejudyinfo,com

CAT TALES

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