Inkie, Target and Tic Tac love their heated sofa. — Photos: ELLEN WHYTE
Target looks fabulous. His fur is shiny, his eyes are bright and his meow is loud.In the morning, after he’s eaten his breakfast tuna, he nips Tic Tac on the bum, and the two of them play happy paws and wrestle.
Target is a bit stiff as he plays and Tic Tac takes it easy, nipping him carefully on the neck and not throwing him on his back the way she does when she battles Inkie. This is because Target is now 18 years old, which makes him in his 80s in human years.
While our old orange is in good shape, he is rather stiff. We expected this, but frankly, we thought he might have front paw issues, considering he dislocated his front paw 14 years ago.
Happily enough, that paw is perfectly okay. It’s his back paws and hips that are a little stiff.
When Target turned 15, I rearranged my office so he had a clear path up to my desk. When we moved house, he retired from his senior executive snoopervisor work.
Today Target lives a life of luxury. He sleeps with me, toddles downstairs for breakfast tuna, plays and then retires back to bed for a morning nap.
He visits the office for a chat mid-morning, naps in his purple plushie basket and at lunchtime goes downstairs where Tom serves him sofa tuna. The sofa is heated with an electric blanket, and Target stays parked there for the rest of the day.
Target enjoys senior naps in bed.
A comfortable life
It’s a wonderful life and Target purrs all day long. However, last October we noticed he was a little hesitant about jumping in and out of bed. I cleared away everything from my bedside table and that fixed it.
But one afternoon he missed the sofa. Clearly we had an emergency on our hands.
I hit the Internet, paid for express delivery and 12 hours later, a pet step arrived.
It’s a light affair made up of plastic parts that slot together. After quarrelling over which bit had to be attached first and assembling it backwards, we had it set up. The steps were broad, solid and covered in an attractive blue plush material patterned with cat paws.
Given the cats have never ever liked anything made for them, with the exception of the sisal covered cat poles, we were nervous that Target would reject it.
The second we put the steps in front of the sofa, Tic Tac rushed over. Super excited about anything new, our princess sniffed, purring excitedly. To our joy, she put a paw on the bottom step.
Encouraged by our bated breath, she posed and then lightly ran up the steps.
Target looked and sneered. Ears back, he treated the pet steps as an obstacle. He walked around them, past them and struggled to jump up to the sofa.
For days, we hovered, hoping to encourage him to try. We tapped them, put treats on them and begged Target to just try.Just when we were about to give up, Target set a paw on the bottom step. When it didn’t collapse, he hesitantly put another paw on it. Then, to our delight, he walked up.
We praised him, petted him and made a giant fuss. Tic Tac ran up them again, and so did Inkie.
Like fools, we thought we had it nailed. Goodness knows we’re ever the optimists, right?
We soon realised that Target would walk up the pet steps but not down them. We were flabbergasted. We talked to him, put down treats again, begged him, lectured him, but Target was determined: the steps are for going up only.
At this time, I noticed he was having trouble jumping up onto the bedside table too. I hit the Internet again and got a second set of steps. Putting them at the side of the bed, I hoped it would encourage him to see them as two way.
But no. Target walked up and jumped down. Arthritically. Landing and wincing a little.
Target is now enthusiastic about his pet step,
Animals of habit
Now cats are creatures of habit. If they do it twice, it becomes a tradition. So, we put our minds to work, hoping to outthink him. As I said, we’re eternal optimists.
Except this time, we came up with a good idea.
As Target walked up the steps into bed, walked over me and exited on the other side, jumping down and wincing, we bought a third set of steps.
We set them on the other side of the bed, leading down from the other bedside table.
It worked! Target walked up one set of steps and down the other.
We hoped it would sink in that steps go both ways but downstairs, Target continued to walk up the steps and to jump down from the sofa.
Until last week.
On Tuesday, Tom called upstairs excitedly because our silly old orange finally walked down the sofa steps. He immediately reverted to jumping down again but we were hopeful he’d have another go.
Thankfully, the habit has increased. Yesterday he only jumped down once; the rest of the time he walked up and down the steps.
As for upstairs, Target remains convinced that the left steps are for up and the right steps are for down. If I happen to be in the way, he stomps all over me.
I’m okay with that. As long as he’s happy, it’s all good.
