Pattern games are a simple set of exercises that provide a predictable and secure structure for animals in order to help them normalize changes in their environment (potential “triggers” for reactive cats). Patterns are safe, predictable, repetitive, voluntary and normalizing!
Pattern games were created by Leslie McDevitt for use with reactive dogs, but there is nothing stopping us for using these tools with our cats!
This video details how to best utilize the foraging toys made here at Fundamentally Feline. We offer toys for beginners all the way to the master forager. Our toys also nicely compliment commercially available food puzzles and this video will show you how to do just that! Our toys can be purchased at https://www.fundamentallyfeline.com/s…
Kodiak was brought into the practice where I was employed at the time. His original name was Issac. He had been abandoned outside of an apartment complex and brought in by a local cat rescue. He was a stunning cat, but Kodiak had some baggage. He was all four-paw declawed (AND LEFT OUTSIDE!) We performed our usual intake protocol getting him ready for adoption, but in doing so we discovered how mutilated his little feet were. Nonetheless, we put him in our adoption room in hopes of finding him a new family. He was marveled at and inquired about daily; he was super handsome after all.
We learned quite quickly that Kodiak was a biter, likely why he was left outside where he was defenseless having no claws. We began warning people not to touch or pet him too much. It is a bit challenging to adopt out a cat when you have to tell people not to interact with him. He was so soliciting of affection and good looking making him a bit hard to resist. Finally, we had a taker. A cat savvy parent that understood he was a bite risk but wanted to take on the challenge anyway. We adopted Kodiak to her with specific instructions on managing the behavior. Fingers crossed off he went to home number two.
A few weeks later Kodiak was returned for biting. It happened a few too many times and a bit too hard, so the family decided it was not the right fit. So, does declawing keep cats in their homes? The answer is vehemently no.
We decided to look a little further into Kodiak’s aggression by x-raying his feet and discovered he had some bone remnants from his declaw. Since the cells for the nail come from the bone, if the entire P3 bone is not completely removed, you get regrowth of nail under the skin. We decided to do surgery to “fix” this, which basically involved re-declawing him. We did not offer declawing at this feline only practice so it was my first experience with the procedure. I was horrified and sobbing upon his bloody recovery from anesthesia. I will liken it to slaughtering your own cow for a steak dinner. For the majority of people, if they had to kill it to eat it, probably wouldn’t. If clients could watch a video of a declaw surgery and the cat’s recovery post op before electing to do it to their beloved cat, they wouldn’t. Sheltering clients from the gruesome facts is an enormous part of the “cover up” that is happening in veterinary medicine.
Kodiak could no longer be trusted in the adoption room. He was a liability, so he lived in the back of the hospital where I became extremely attached to and empathetic for him. I’ll never forget the day I saw him scratch on one of the posts at the clinic, it made me choked up that he knew just what to do, remember cats also scratch to scent mark so even without claws the behavior is performed. So I took him home and Jake and I became home number three that I know of, and this would be his last stop because we do not give up on animals, no matter what. The baggage was still there, and we learned to recognize and work with him but you ALWAYS had to watch yourself around Kody Bears. He proceeded to have more re-growths on different toes at different stages of his life. Kodiak was declawed initially and then re-declawed 3 subsequent times. We know more now and we know better; we should have opened up all four feet and just corrected his botched declaw from the start, perhaps two feet at a time, but hindsight is 20/20. Kodiak developed one last regrowth in his senior years but I couldn’t do it to him again. I chose to medically manage him and treat him for chronic pain instead.
Kody had another good friend at the clinic, Charcoal. Honestly, I was having a hard time choosing between which of the two I would adopt. One Saturday when I was off from work, I got a call from one of the other techs asking me to choose because a family was interested in both of them but only wanted one cat. I was in tears, I couldn’t! I know I picked one, I think it was Charcoal, but I honestly cannot remember. I was nauseous when I arrived that next Monday morning wondering who was going to still be there waiting for me. They were both there! We adopted them as a pair. You will meet the stunning Charcoal next month.
Kodias Bears! So many nicknames for this one, OMG! Bears was also quite the chef, he assisted Jake in the kitchen nightly and ate most everything offered that was of course non-toxic. We used to call him “Italiano Bears!” His dream was to go to Italy and have bruschetta, boy oh boy did he love cheese. No matter what we called him, his name always ended on the plural and that carried over to pretty much everybody, we don’t know why, it’s just what we do! He also enjoyed sparkly puff balls and regularly did the “calling” behavior that I so adore.
This cat remained unmanageable at the vet for the rest of his life. I would bring him up for his annual visits and we would examine and vaccinate him in the car. The vet’s office was associated with horrific pain. Another result of these procedures is that cats often miss out on veterinary care due their temperament, or they must be sedated for appointments due to their increased aggression.
One morning I woke up and found him deceased in the red room/extra bedroom. I yelled to Jake who came running out of bed, he and Jake were super tight. It was ok, for Bears this was the best way for him to leave us. I hate not being able to say goodbye, I much prefer to nurse and spoil them. I know everyone is different, but I personally loathe it when they are ripped away from me, but for Bears this was for the best. He hated the vet and the last thing I would’ve wanted was a struggle at the time of euthanasia.
If you must alter a species to the extent of a 10-toe amputation (or worse, all 18 toes) just to be able to live with them, then I ask, why have you chosen this species with which to share your home? Scratching is an innate feline behavior; it would be like asking a dog not to bark or a bird not to fly.
I leave you with a quote from Jeremy Bentham, “The question is not “Can they reason?” nor, “Can they talk?” but, “Can they suffer?“
The answer? Yes, indeed cats can suffer and they do so at the hands of their doctors every day in this country. It is time to end the suffering. I hope this story has moved you to join the crusade to end declawing in the United States. Please consider joining or donating to the Paw Project and help us end this madness.
On behalf of the memory of Kodiak Bears please stop the suffering.
Freyja was honestly one of the kittens that drew the urge to keep the whole litter, I just thought she was so scrumptious. She grew up to be, what I think, was our most beautiful cat we have ever had. She lived up the goddess’s name we bestowed her. Our best friends nicknamed her Sasquatch! They would pet sit for us and leave us notes (remember, she was around before smartphones) or send texts that they had a “Sasquatch sighting!” I always thought this was hilarious but also tells you how elusive she was. She had no shortage of nicknames that is for sure. One that stuck the most, was “Bloomies” or “Bloomers”. You see, I have a thing for calling everyone some variation of “pants”, Leftypants, tortiepants, you name it. Freyja was too classy for pants, she wore bloomers! She also shopped at Bloomingdales (she told me), “Bloomingdale Blooms” was not a rare thing to hear me shouting around the house! I do realize that I am mildly insane, but hey, it’s fun to have nicknames!
Our dear Freyja. Her name means the goddess of love and beauty in Norse mythology. If you have not gathered by now, I’m of Swedish and Norwegian heritage so we have a bit of Scandinavian flare with some of the names we have chosen over the years. Freyja is the last kitten to feature in the “Mammas and her babies” category. I am sharing everyone in the order that we adopted them!
Freyja was a shy kitten and remained a shy cat for most of her life. This is a good life lesson for all of us. You cannot necessarily make a cat be who you want them to be. I adopted these kittens at barely 4 weeks old and they were all so different, every single one of them! Loads of commonality too, so much so that I do think there was only one father, plus the color patterns makes sense, and lead to just the one dad. Still, so much personality variation and I raised them all the same, offering the same experiences. I think it is important to learn to love your cats for who they are and the unique qualities each one offers.
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She was a screamer like her siblings, the whole family was so vocal. I can recall all of the typical young cat naughtiness she embraced like getting in the fireplace, shy, skittish, super fun to bathe! If you even made eye contact with her downstairs she would bolt, you definitely could not bend over and pet her or pick her up! No way! However, she did always seem to know that when you were on the toilet, fresh out of the shower or horizontal in bed and that meant you were safe. She would get on our chests and embrace shoulder scratches and drool little drool drops right into our mouths if we weren’t careful! Such a wonderful purr and cooing, it was a special gift. I was the only one who could medicate her and trim her nails her whole life!
It was as a senior that we really got to know and appreciate her. She gradually started to lose her hearing and it was actually a good thing! We had a new cat! She was far less noise phobic, she started to come downstairs to “meds time” wondering what all the fuss was about, she started to allow us to handle her and once in a while she would grace us with her presence of the sofa. If Freyja came to see you , you did not dare to breathe or move a muscle, it was a special gift and you embraced it! I even trained her to a leash and harness at 18 years of age and she enjoyed our “supervised yard fun” time. It was amazing!
She lived almost exclusively upstairs at the top of the “treehouse” (the vertical space treehouse we built in our master bedroom) until she lost her hearing. Then she decided she needed a change of scenery and decided to join the family. It was awesome. She pretty much set up shop on a cat condo right in-between the kitchen and living room, she was in the heart of the action for her last 4-5 years of life. She would bark orders at us from the top of the condo, it was glorious! She demanded a lot of room service and we obliged, we were a very dedicated staff. This also led to us missing her more than we ever thought because she blossomed into such a big personality!
This cat played with interactive wand toys and foraged for food up until a few weeks before she died. She was also a fierce hunter of sparkly puff balls and “called” while carrying through the house. This is a behavior that we sorely miss and loved the sound of her “calling” us to a meal with her prey. She also truly loved our dogs, groomed them, and even herded them! It was pretty hilarious to watch 20 year old, 7# Freyja, tell 100# Sebastian that he needs to move, “no, over here, never mind go over there!” And he would go! She had a lot of opinions! Her quality of life was outstanding. Even at 21 years of age, the top of a six-foot-tall cat condo (complete with heating pad) was where she lived. Needless to say, I start joint support very early in life, she started around age 12, and never showed a single symptom of arthritis or stiffness.
Freyja blooms knew every single animal that I have cared for in my adult life. She was strong, survived so much, including our housefire, and had great quality of life well into her geriatric years. She is dearly missed, but we hold no regrets with this one. Others have left us feeling robbed and heartbroken. Some we did so much for and still lost them so young. Twenty-one years, 5 months and 10 days is a pretty good run that we can accept. She will always be our beautiful goddess.
Tartarian honeysuckle is a scent that some cats respond to in the same euphoric way they do catnip. Not all cats respond to all scents so it is worthwhile to try them all.
Wiccas was another one of Asia’s beautiful kittens. We were so lucky to not only get cats loaded with personality, super smart, chatty talkers but they were all stunning too! Well, they are cats, so hard for them to not be beautiful, I suppose. We named her Wick because of the little orange flame on her nose, but since clearly we like to pluralize everyone’s name and another syllable was more fun, we called her Wiccas. We used to say she was a little junior witch and attended “witchcraft scouts” instead of girl scouts! Wicca witchcraft scout! We are pretty insane with the morphing of nicknames. In fact, some of you know that I also end a lot of their names with “pants,” well, Wiccas was the originator of the pants! Lefty took it and ran with it, but she started the trend. If you look closely, you will see that she has “tortie-pants” as most of her tortoiseshell markings are on the back half of her body. “Little Miss Tortie-pants” was born and tragically spread to others! Haha!
Wiccas was an opinionated little lately and was never afraid to speak up. The whole family was super vocal, and I loved every minute of it. She was the first cat I ever taught to “hi-five”. When training, it is ideal to start with behaviors that the cats naturally offer, and she was grabby during meds time, so it quickly morphed into an asked behavior of hi-five! This cat could not get enough Hill’s a/d and she is the star of some of my medicating videos. She was such a cooperative girl and her help has allowed me to teach others! I am grateful for what each of them have offered, they have been great teachers.
As you will see in the photos, even though she adored us and was super affectionate, she was a cat’s cat. She was often curled up with one of her blood relatives but could just as easily be seen cuddling up with the one of our many other cats as well. It would be so sad for a cat like her to not have a house full of friends! Adopt family members, it’s the best, for you, for them, for everyone!
One funny little trait she had was her fantastic mane. Every spring, it was as if she would molt, not just shed, and she lost it all. We called her "little pea head" because she still had her fluffy pants but lost her plume of a mane and looked so different! It was so much more dramatic than any other long- haired cats we have had.
It was awesome how super outgoing she was, and the kitchen counter is definitely empty without her up there screaming at us as we walk by and greeting our guests. That girl made herself known, that is for sure!
Wiccas lived to be about 17 years old, she was the second of the five of them to leave us. Her passing was one of the more traumatic loses I have experienced so I will spare you the details. Hold them close, you just never quite know when it will be their time. We love you Schnicklefritz Wiccas! Yup, another nickname, or just Schnickles, that worked too!
