Some pics of me munckins

A few more pics of me munchkins, Bob is doing super well with his new behaviour plan, I am a proud mummy.

Molly

Molly is once again gate crashing Bob and Bettys blog :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMvvBfGBIRs

Bobs new plan

Bob has a bran spanking new behaviour plan, his behaviour got out of hand again, he was pooing and peeing where he felt like, was making himself bold around his eye through scratching, waking me up at 5 am, whining constantly, all of this behaviour was attention seeking behaviour. He has this deep desire to gain my attention at all times and it makes him anxious, he feels he needs to be near me all of the time and it is getting out of hand, so his behaviour team decided enough was enough, he needs to learn to be able to cope without me.

This is his new plan:

 Change Bob’s interactions with you using the ‘Attention Control’ programme

Bob highly values your attention and has consequently learnt many different ways of getting attention from you! Your attention is so important because he needs you for reassurance when he is anxious and also for stimulation. He has learnt that in order to achieve attention from you he can do a number of things such as flick your eye lids, scratch his skin, vocalise at you, put his paw on you etc. Bob is so very reliant on your attention that he spends most of his time thinking up ways to get it! Every time that you give him attention whilst he is attention seeking or seeking reassurance, you inadvertently reinforce that behaviour and his emotional state. It is natural human thing to do to reassure or to give attention to a cat that wants it, but unfortunately it does not help our pets behaviour! 

In order to help him become a more confident cat and less reliant, you can use your attention to reward him for showing calm and confident behaviour, if you give him lots of praise when he is relaxed and confident (And NOT attention seeking) he will learn to show this behaviour more. At the same time as rewarding these behaviours it is important to ignore attention seeking or worried behaviour, this will teach him that these behaviours no longer work to get what he wants – you! Bob will at first get frustrated when you start this programme because the attention seeking behaviours that usually work will no longer be working and thus he might try harder to get your attention or he may try new behaviours to see if they work to get your attention. Once he has learnt that these behaviours definitely don’t work any more they will cease. We want you to give Bob as much attention as you do now but make sure you are always the one that initiates interaction with him rather than the other way around. Always call him over to you rather than let him approach for cuddles. This will mean that you need to predict his behaviour – try and invite him over when he would usually come to seek you out but before he starts his attention seeking behaviours.

This programme is especially important for Bob because it has become more and more apparent that he is so tuned in to how you are feeling that any small change in your behaviour also causes a change in his behaviour. It could be that he can alter his toileting behaviour in order to gain attention – we are not sure that this is the case but if it is, then we will need to make him more independent so that he will toilet without any problems. If you do this programme with him it will also mean that if you are upset for any reason, he is much less likely to be reactive to your emotional state and therefore his behaviour will be less likely to go downhill.

We understand that this is going to be hard for you to do because you love giving your cats attention, but it is important to remember that you can give Bob as much attention as you want but just not when he is asking for it! So initially it is going to be hard as Bob gets frustrated that you are not responding to his usual attention seeking behaviour, but in the long term it will be much better for both of you!

I think it would be a good idea for you to write down all the ways that Bob seeks attention from you so that you have a list of behaviours that you want to ignore. When you have done this you will need to think about how you can ignore these behaviours if they get worse. So for instance you can ignore his attention seeking at 5.15 in the morning but you are going to need to prepare yourself and make sure you are protected from flicking claws – have something that you can put over your face or roll up and make sure there isn’t anyway that Bob can wriggle under the covers. Bob will try very hard to wake you up but once you have endured a couple of nights of ignoring him trying to wake you – he will learn to give up and wait and a minute or so after he gives up you can get up and give him attention.

You make find that Bob’s toileting at night gets worse when you start this change in interaction – he might try pooping on your bed in order to get you up – I really hope he won’t do this but it is a possibility so do make sure your duvet is protected with a throw or something similar. Also remember that this is short term he is not going to try attention seeking behaviours for long, because he will learn that these behaviours no longer work as long as you are consistent.   

Remember the golden rules are:

• You start and finish all interactions with your cat
• You ignore all attempts at attention seeking
• You give your cat more attention than previously, but only when he or she is calm and relaxed and not seeking attention.
• The most important thing is to NOT give in to any attention seeking behaviour because you will just teach Bob to try more extreme attention seeking behaviours!

So how is it going I hear you ask? Well bloody well, SO FAR!!!!

Bob has regressed

In a matter of days Bob has regressed right to the beginning and I have no idea why. His behaviour is normally linked in with my mood cycles, I would say I am quite stable at the moment, but for what ever reason Bob has lost the plot. The other night he did a wee on me, then a few hours later followed it with a poo, he has pood on the carpet, weed on a cat bed twice, just everywhere really. But yesterday was even worse as he did the opposite and held it in all day, he didn't go to the toilet at all, so at bed time I had to take him to the toilet, as other wise I new full well he would do it once I was asleep on me. The problem is he has done the same today, he has once again held it in all day and I have had to take him to the toilet at bed time. This is no good for two reasons, reason one him holding it in all day would be unhealthy for any cat, but for Bob it is really dangerous as he has Urinary Tract Disease, holding it in like this will make it flare up and is likely to cause an infection, which will end in him getting blocked and needing a catheter, which is what caused the behaviour problems when he was a kitten. Reason two is that with the behaviour team we have worked hard to reduce Bobs dependence on me especially with regards toileting. He should be able to go to the toilet on his own and in the past he became dependant on me to take him and sit with him whilst he went. We do not want this dependence to reform.

It is just scary how quickly he appears to have gone so far backwards. For any of you that don't no why Bob has these problems or think this is all silly you have to remember Bob was so ill and nearly died due to Urinary Track Disease, he suffered some really invasive treatment which traumatised him and made him think that going to the toilet is going to hurt. It was my choice to keep him alive, so I have to deal with the consequences. He is worth every bit of the trouble we go through. He and Betty are two very special cats and I would put up with anything as long as they are ok.