I ran over the tip of his tail with the wheelchair this morning.
My poor Sasha. He's a sixteen year old chocolate point Siamese who is, now, my only cat. I adore him, he's the sweetest boy, but he's got a very bad habit. He likes to get behind the wheelchair when I'm backing up.
Although the Pyoderma gangrenosum on the leg has been in remission (I prefer "gone for good") for a long time, and I'm now walking with the help of walker and crutches again after more than six long months, I don't get on my feet till after I've had a chance to put the ace bandages on the leg to support the weak new veins. Mornings are hectic here -- I am up at five-forty-five, and out there getting my daughter up, feeding animals, and doing a half-dozen "first thing in the morning" chores. I usually don't have time to wrap up till after the urgent-item checklist is cleared. I use the wheelchair for the earliest activities, wrap up as soon as I have time, and then get up on my feet for the day.
Sasha has developed a very bad habit of moving behind the chair as I'm backing up. He appears to think that wheelchairs only go forward, and by sitting behind the chair as it starts to move, he'll be safe. This morning, I was filling his and Kai's bowls at the cupboard, which is in one corner of the kitchen, and had to back out of there to finish preparing their breakfast. I looked down as I was closing the cupboard and Sasha was sitting off to my side under the edge of the kitchen table. I picked up the dishes, pushed backward with my feet--
--and Sasha screamed.
In that few seconds between checking his position and actually moving, he'd ducked, once again, behind the chair, and sat. I ran over his tail. My heart in my throat, I scooped him up and checked it over. I don't think it's broken, though we left a few clumps of dark brown hair on the floor and it was puffed out at the end. I ran my hands over it a few times, squeezed gently around the spot where the hair was messed up, and he didn't cry or act as if he was in any pain.
I cried, though, and am all teary-eyed again just writing about it.
As anyone who's read my words in all this time that I've been posting them online knows, I adore my animals. They are my family -- not my "fur kids" as so many see their pets, but my very special, unique, other-species friends and companions, respected and loved for who and what they are. They are confidantes, teachers, and my charges, for whom I care with the best of my ability. When one is hurt or ill, it affects me right to the core. When that hurt is due to my own carelessness....
My husband tried to tell me that it wasn't my fault, that I'd checked as always before moving, and Sasha's new bad habit is what got him into trouble. But Sasha's a kitty. He doesn't know the workings of a wheelchair, and in his mind, getting behind the moving vehicle makes sense. Backing up isn't a concept tuned in to cat-logic, apparently. It's not up to Sasha to live and learn -- that is my responsibility.
So often, the things we expect of our animal companions are things that are simply foreign to their natures. By asking our pets to adapt to our lifestyles, we are frequently actually asking them to not be dogs, or cats, or horses, or guinea pigs, or.... We ask a cat to confine its leavings in one designated space, when wild cats spread their markings all over their territory by instinct. We ask a dog not to bark at the neighbors walking by the house when it's natural behavior for a dog to protect its family (whether that family is a wild pack or a human one isn't material). We ask a horse to stand quietly while strange and scary potential-predator objects are rushing by when it's a horse's instinct to flee from danger. We don't actually ask a lot of our guinea pigs ... I'll have to ruminate on that one a bit. But you catch my drift.
To ask a cat to understand "backing up", when Mom's eyes are facing in the other direction, and moving usually means going in the direction the eyes are looking -- it's just foreign to their nature.
Animal behavior
is a fascinating field of study, one that I believe every pet owner should strive to examine, to at least begin to understand why our pets do the things they do.
I know two things I'm going to do. From now on, if in the chair, my eyes will always face in the direction I'm moving, even if it gives me a "crick in the neck". And I'm going to stow that blasted wheelchair at the earliest possible opportunity.
My poor Sasha. He's a sixteen year old chocolate point Siamese who is, now, my only cat. I adore him, he's the sweetest boy, but he's got a very bad habit. He likes to get behind the wheelchair when I'm backing up.
Although the Pyoderma gangrenosum on the leg has been in remission (I prefer "gone for good") for a long time, and I'm now walking with the help of walker and crutches again after more than six long months, I don't get on my feet till after I've had a chance to put the ace bandages on the leg to support the weak new veins. Mornings are hectic here -- I am up at five-forty-five, and out there getting my daughter up, feeding animals, and doing a half-dozen "first thing in the morning" chores. I usually don't have time to wrap up till after the urgent-item checklist is cleared. I use the wheelchair for the earliest activities, wrap up as soon as I have time, and then get up on my feet for the day.
Sasha has developed a very bad habit of moving behind the chair as I'm backing up. He appears to think that wheelchairs only go forward, and by sitting behind the chair as it starts to move, he'll be safe. This morning, I was filling his and Kai's bowls at the cupboard, which is in one corner of the kitchen, and had to back out of there to finish preparing their breakfast. I looked down as I was closing the cupboard and Sasha was sitting off to my side under the edge of the kitchen table. I picked up the dishes, pushed backward with my feet--
--and Sasha screamed.
In that few seconds between checking his position and actually moving, he'd ducked, once again, behind the chair, and sat. I ran over his tail. My heart in my throat, I scooped him up and checked it over. I don't think it's broken, though we left a few clumps of dark brown hair on the floor and it was puffed out at the end. I ran my hands over it a few times, squeezed gently around the spot where the hair was messed up, and he didn't cry or act as if he was in any pain.
I cried, though, and am all teary-eyed again just writing about it.
As anyone who's read my words in all this time that I've been posting them online knows, I adore my animals. They are my family -- not my "fur kids" as so many see their pets, but my very special, unique, other-species friends and companions, respected and loved for who and what they are. They are confidantes, teachers, and my charges, for whom I care with the best of my ability. When one is hurt or ill, it affects me right to the core. When that hurt is due to my own carelessness....
My husband tried to tell me that it wasn't my fault, that I'd checked as always before moving, and Sasha's new bad habit is what got him into trouble. But Sasha's a kitty. He doesn't know the workings of a wheelchair, and in his mind, getting behind the moving vehicle makes sense. Backing up isn't a concept tuned in to cat-logic, apparently. It's not up to Sasha to live and learn -- that is my responsibility.
So often, the things we expect of our animal companions are things that are simply foreign to their natures. By asking our pets to adapt to our lifestyles, we are frequently actually asking them to not be dogs, or cats, or horses, or guinea pigs, or.... We ask a cat to confine its leavings in one designated space, when wild cats spread their markings all over their territory by instinct. We ask a dog not to bark at the neighbors walking by the house when it's natural behavior for a dog to protect its family (whether that family is a wild pack or a human one isn't material). We ask a horse to stand quietly while strange and scary potential-predator objects are rushing by when it's a horse's instinct to flee from danger. We don't actually ask a lot of our guinea pigs ... I'll have to ruminate on that one a bit. But you catch my drift.
To ask a cat to understand "backing up", when Mom's eyes are facing in the other direction, and moving usually means going in the direction the eyes are looking -- it's just foreign to their nature.
Animal behavior
is a fascinating field of study, one that I believe every pet owner should strive to examine, to at least begin to understand why our pets do the things they do.I know two things I'm going to do. From now on, if in the chair, my eyes will always face in the direction I'm moving, even if it gives me a "crick in the neck". And I'm going to stow that blasted wheelchair at the earliest possible opportunity.
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