A Therapy Cat
How to go about picking my therapy cat. Should I choose a shelter cat or a kitten and train it. My husband had had a shelter cat as his service cat. Lukas was a three-year-old solid black cat. He was set in his ways when we got him. He learned that he got fed first thing in the morning by me. It took my husband a while to get Lukas to realize that he got treats when he would come when Nick took his meds. Lukas took about two months before he realized that every twelve hours he would get treats. He loved the hard cat treats so he looked forward to them.
Lukas loved to play with me and always knew when it was time to wake me to feed him, He wasn't so picky about his food. As long as his dish had food in it he was happy. Lukas realized that after a while that when Nick wasn't awake Lukas would wake Nick up to remind him. The only thing Lukas couldn't seem to understand is when the time changed. He was on Nick padding his little feet but Nick said it was too early by an hour. About a week later Lukas got back on schedule.
When we moved and couldn't take Lukas with us we made sure that his training was his good points. He was given to a family that needed a kitty to make sure a little boy was given his meds. He worked out very well as we kept in touch for the first two weeks.
When we found another place to live we had to get paperwork for me to have a therapy cat. The landlord was hard to get the point across too. I went to my counselor and told her that I needed a letter to have a cat to help me deal with the stress of life. She wrote a letter and my landlord turned it down because it was from a counselor and not a doctor. Well called my counselor and we got that taken care of and I got my therapy cat. I wanted another black cat as they are so loving. Well, a friend of ours had a friend who had just had a litter of kittens. At two months for the kittens, she brought Nick and me a beautiful solid black long-haired kitten. Fuzzy Butt turned out to be his name. He had the biggest front paws for his age. He was hard to train for his age. He knew that Nick or myself, his first month, would give him soft cat food at least twice a day. He doubled in size and he was doing his work in a weird way because we had to get up and feed and water him. After his first month, he decided he wanted hard cat food. He didn't need his baby food anymore. He was growing in size so fast. He was also growing in love in our hearts as well. Strange as it was my husband could calm him down and he always wanted to play and rough house with me. At month four we tried to start his training to get us to take our meds. I have depression meds and blood pressure meds as well. Fuzzy would come when we took our meds but wanted nothing to do with the treats as they were soft. We figured he thought they were for a baby. He always came when meds or bottles were rattled and we offered treats but no treats. We decided to just reward him with love. At the start of month five Fuzzy realized the treats were not for babies. He decided to start taking them. He was getting to the point of knowing when twelve hours were so he would wake up Nick for his meds and he would curl up with me if he felt that I was sad. He is a very smart cat.
Fuzzy always knew when I wanted to rough house with him. He would try playing nice and I wouldn't pay any attention and then he would play bite me and he knew I would take his bait and we would play for half an hour to an hour whenever he pooped out. He and I have been through a lot of stuff including moving once more and adding another therapy cat we are holding for a friend. Trust me a sixteen year old female learns fast.
Fuzzy is just ten months old and is still growing like a weed. He is loving. If we had to get rid of him for any reason I know that he would make a perfect therapy kitty. Understand that all doctors think that having an animal is good for a person. They are good for the elderly because they have to take the dog for a walk at least a few times a day.
