What Have Biscuit and Waffles Been Up To?

Hello!

Been a long time, right? Phil (who’s been doing a great job — let’s hear it for Phil!) thought you folks might be interested in hearing how things are going with Uni Watch mascots emeritus Waffles (short, wide white stripe on nose) and Biscuit (long, thin white stripe on nose).

They’re now a little over 18 months old. As you can see in the “Beast with Two Heads” photo shown above, they’re still super-duper cute and still buddies. Here are some additional recent pics of them, all from the past month or two:

As you can see in some of those pics, I recently got them one of those “donut” thingies, which they love. Here are two quick video clips from the day it arrived:

 

In short: two healthy, happy cats — mostly.

I added that qualifier because there’s been a bit of drama lately involving Waffles. He’s always been the bolder of the pair — very sociable, fearless, curious, no boundaries. Some cats are just like that, of course. Like, if you try to play a game of Scrabble, you accept the fact that it might end up like this:

But since around mid-December, Waffles has become much more of a chaos agent . He’s not aggressive or nasty, but he’ll do this thing where he emits a very particular dissatisfied-sounding meow, followed by knocking something over — a plant, a bowl, a book, another plant, a clock, maybe another plant, or pretty much whatever’s available. I realize some of you may be thinking, “Dude, that’s just what cats do!” But I’ve had cats for my entire adult life, so believe me when I say that Waffles has been taking things to another level. A few weeks ago he added a new routine to his repertoire: jumping up at things hanging from the walls of my apartment, on one occasion managing to rip down a valuable vintage lithograph! (Fortunately, I was able to repair it.)

He only (mis)behaves this way when I’m home. Like, if I go out for a few hours or spend the night at my girlfriend’s house, I don’t find things tipped over or destroyed when I return home. So these antics are clearly directed at me and are his way of getting my attention.

But what does he want? At first I thought it was about food, so I increased the size and frequency of their feedings. But then he’d go back to the destructive behavior within an hour of having been fed, so I don’t think food is the answer. I play with him a lot, plus I’ve tried everything else I can think of — toys, treats, catnip, laser pointer, cuddling, you name it — but he goes right back to being destructive. Worst of all, he’s annoyingly smart and knows exactly how to push my buttons.

I wondered if there might be an underlying medical reason for his behavior, so on Monday I took him to the vet. A few days and $450 later, his lab work came back as normal. So this is just who he is.

I’ve joined a bunch of cat behavior forums on Reddit and Facebook, trying to find an answer. The most intriguing suggestion I’ve gotten is to put him on a leash and take him outdoors, so he can expend some energy outside and get the chaos out of his system. I like that idea, and he’s probably young enough to be leash-trainable, so we’re going to try that once the weather gets a bit warmer. We can start just by hanging out on my front porch and then do a little more exploring if the porch sessions go well.

Meanwhile, I’ve had to Waffles-proof the house. No more plants on shelves, for starters (I’ve converted everything to hanging plants), plus I’ve had to create physical deterrents — mostly these clear plastic spikes — to keep him away from places where he was doing the most damage, like so:

———

These physical barriers have helped, but I don’t like turning my home into a fortress. Also, I can tell when Waffles is still looking for trouble (he makes that particular meow and sort of paces in a restless way), and I worry about what he might try next. If it sounds like I’ve developed a siege mentality, that’s not too far from the truth. This situation has taken over my life to a certain degree. But that all comes with the territory once you accept the responsibility of adopting an animal, even if it happens to be a problem child.

I should add here that Waffles is still very sweet, affectionate, playful, and a joy to be around most of the time, and I still love him very, very much. But these chaos episodes have become really stressful, for all of us! I’m hoping he’ll grow out of them, and/or that the leash experiment helps. If not, the vet says we might have to try kitty Prozac, which I’d really like to avoid.

Like I said, I’ve already solicited advice on various internet forums. But if anyone has any other suggestions, I’m all ears. Thanks in advance!

As for Biscuit, she’s an angel. If only a little bit of her could rub off on her brother.

In other news: My Substack project, Inconspicuous Consumption, has been going full steam ahead. If you haven’t checked it out lately, here’s the home page. Enjoy.