Happy Caturday: my cats need to see a cat therapist.

The sky was bright blue with warm sunshine while the banana trees looked very green. My orange cats were very happy to see me around the house as it meant they could sleep on their table by the east window. The diet program for the cats had failed completely, they put on more weight! Joan suddenly looks very big like a puppy, he’s almost six kilos. The smaller cat, Kwan, also put on one kilo at least. So, I was quite puzzled as to what had gone wrong. Their eating behaviour have changed a lot; they competed in gobbling up food without chewing or breathing. Their calmness was gone; so I need a cat therapist to help me with my cats!

After two days of observing my cats’ changing behaviours, I realised that my gardener’ s way of feeding the cats was the cause of the problem. She fed the cats only once in the morning with fifty percent less food. After several days of feeling hungry in the evening, my cats have started to gobble down as much food as possible in the morning without even chewing properly. That’s probably why their bellies have ballooned during the day. My gardener also found their vomit of unchewed food in the garden.

So, I changed their feeding routine back to twice a day but with twenty percent food reduction. I gave them separate bowls so that they didn’t feel they had to compete for food. I even gave them some snack when they came asking for their usual teatime break. That had calmed them down a lot and their fear of hunger started to fade and they lost a little weight in three days. So, I had to explain my new way of feeding cats to the gardener. This gardener had only four years of schooling as a kid and spent most of her youth looking after her family’s buffaloes. She’s a hard working person with a strong sense of honesty with occasional emotional swings. She came to me one day asking for a job; now she’s one of my family. It’s strange how fate threw very different personalities together so that we could learn from each other.

I was so glad that the bigger cat, Joan, became friendly with my gardener and let her touch him too. But the little sister cat, Kwan, is still very timid and shy of strangers. Since last month, I had noticed that my cats started to sit under my chair and I almost stepped on them twice! This was the first time my cats tried to be close to me physically. I did try to put them on my bed but they would just jumped off straightaway. It was good in a way that my cats maintained their independence so that I would feel less burdened by my responsibility. Emotional dependence is something I am quite wary of as it could lead to pain and emotional troubles.

During my evening walking meditation and praying, orange cats would be nearby watching me walking in a big oval procession. Whenever I started to send out ‘mettha’ or lovingkindness at the end on my session, the cats would come to sit on my foot. Perhaps they could see or feel the vibes and just wanted to get a shower of healing energy. This has been my secret weapon when encountering aggressive dogs along the river. I could always tell them to go back to their own places. My gardener was often surprised that I was not afraid of some neighbour’s big European guard dogs. I chased three of them running back home while my cats ran upstairs to hide.

So, the program to get my cats to look thinner and healthier has to continue as they could not climb trees any more. They need to be agile, flexible and healthy to survive a sudden intrusion of big stray dogs. There was one brown stray dog who made a hole in the bush to get into the garden last week! Luckily I caught him in the middle of the lawn and chased him out straightaway. Life could be quite exciting in a self-sufficiency garden along the quiet river. Let’s hope my orange cats don’t need to see a cat therapist!

Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.