telophase | HOW COULD YOU BETRAY ME LIKE THIS I DON'T EVEN

One of Sora's nemeses is the white shag rug in my office. He won't set foot on it willingly unless it's for very good reason, such as a bunch of catnip placed on it just out of his reach, and he remains unhappy about having to do so. (He won't set foot on bathmats, either. I don't know what he's got against fluffy flooring.)

Today--I'm working from home as I got crap for sleep and will keel over at some point and nap to stave off a migraine--I'm standing in my office looking for my grey sweatshirt to pull on as it's cold in the house, and Sora jumps onto the table next to me. I pick him up and give him a quick snuggle, then acting on impulse place him down on the floor, directly in the center of the white shag rug.

This deactivates the cat. At least for a short time. Sora remained frozen, looking around for escape, only to be confronted with an endless sea of white shag surrounding him. (Note that the rug is 4' x 6' so that at the worst, Sora is separated from laminate flooring by only 3 feet, and his shortest route to the floor is about 18".)

Sora begins backing up slowly, holding his right paw off the floor as if the rug were lava, and reverses off the rug, into Nefer, who is not impressed with this and croaks at him (Nefer has quite a repertoire of squeaks and croaks), but his terror of the rug is stronger than his terror of Nefer so he continues backing into her until all four paws are off the rug. At which point Sora cowers, shoots me a look of HOW COULD YOU BETRAY ME LIKE THIS I TRUSTED YOU and slinks out of the room.

He has only just now come back into my office, and is skulking about the edge of the rug fearfully in case it leaps up and devours him.

(Next time, I'll get this on video!)

ETA: If you read the blow-by-blow in the comments over on LJ, you can see Sora overcoming his fear due to catnip. And here is is, voluntarily sitting on the rug!

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Next time? If it stresses the cat so much, please please don't do it again.

First: comedic exaggeration.

Second: Sora is scared of everything--and I'll point out that we do not try to traumatize him. And when I say "everything," I mean that. I will occasionally do things like this in an attempt to desensitize him because he should not spend his days in fear. He needs to feel comfortable and secure in his own home, and if it takes occasionally asking him to confront his fear and to see that nothing bad will happen, than that's what I do. He gets lots of snuggling and petting afterwards. (and I let him alone for a couple of minutes after I posted this, and then went to pet him, which he was happy for me to do.) (And by 'occasionally' I mean like 'once or twice a month'.)

This is also not his extreme fear reaction, though--this is comparatively mild. I've seen him frozen and shivering in fear (putting him into the carrier to go to the vet) and he's fouled himself in fear also (at the vet). This is one of the reasons why I'd like to desensitize him to smaller things, in the hopes that the larger things won't provoke such an extreme reaction, because I really really do not want him to have a heart attack and die at the vet's, like happened to a coworker's cat.

We have no idea where this came from. I've had him since he was 2 months old, and the vet's examined him and her opinion is that some cats are just like that.

How food motivated is he? Maybe clicker training some counter conditioning to things like the rug would help?

He's only food motivated to a small extent, but he's very catnip motivated! (He just tumped a container over on the rug!)

(pause for a few minutes)

I managed to lure him into the middle of the rug with a bag of catnip (we've got several containers!), and let him sniff and play with it, while petting him. And as I was typing this, he volu tarily walked alittle farther over the rug to sniff my shoes, which were on the other side. He's getting petted now!

And he just went back onto the rug for the catnip bag (yes I'm live-blogging this).

And now he went over to the edge where he tumped the plastic container over and is rolling in it.

The one thing I'm concerned about is reassuring him while he's fearful: I know that dogs will often, if reassured at the time, get the message "It's OK to feel and act this way," but I don't know if cats have the same response. I do not want to reinforce the frightened feelings.

It sounds like the catnip is a good positive reinforcer for the rug. You are exactly right to not want to reinforce the fear -- the thing about counter conditioning that a lot of people miss is that the positive reinforcement needs to happen *before* the animal becomes reactive.

Ooh, he just walked across the rug to the door, then turned around and (cautiously) walked back across the rug voluntarily! I'd put the catnip up, so he didn't see the bag. He went back to my shoes to sniff them.

Yay, Sora!

He just did it again--still cautiously, but this time has proved to me that it wasn't just Nefer blocking his way around the rug, he'd actually gotten over a bit of his fear, as she's left the room.

And then he went back on it over to my shoes and sniffed again (Mama scent is apparently a motivator also) and went back, slightly less cautiously (his tail wasn't thrashing as much), and now he's on his side attempting to disembowel a corner of the rug where there's spilled catnip.

ETA (because you want to know what's going on minute-by-minute, I'm sure)--he walked around the edge of the rug to the other side, but when I put my hand down and twiddled my fingers in the "I want to scratch you" sign, he trotted across the rug (a bit cautiously, but about his usual cautiously-wandering-the-house level) to me for a cheek rub. And is currently invesitigating the pile of stuff I need to put up that's on this side of the rug.

Edited 2012-10-30 16:04 (UTC)

JUst updated the post with a photo of Sora voluntarily sitting on the rug!

Er, forgot to add that what we're doing is giving him catnip on the rug as well, so he associates it with good things. ETA: nd he just walked in, and is happily rolling in catnip on the rug. Er, he just tumped the container over as I'm writing this.

Edited 2012-10-30 15:38 (UTC)

Ded of LOL. Ded, I say.

HOW COULD YOU BETRAY ME LIKE THIS I DON'T EVEN

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