The Scottish Fold.

Yesterday I had to go to the store.  I didn’t need anything, Stanley did.  He was out of moist cat food.  (Mind you, it wouldn’t really be the end of the earth if he went without for a day or two, but a routine is a routine.)

While I was at his store, I recalled that he was getting low on his snack food.

Every evening before bed (and when he can otherwise con me into offering him two or three snack tidbits), I break his daily dose of the soft healthy joint morsel in half and place them on the nightstand where he is sitting, waiting for his snack.  Once he eats the two halves (his preference for eating ease), he knows I will pop the top off a medium sized, metal bamboo-shaped canister that sits on the nightstand next to my glass bamboo-shaped pencil holder and my night time water carafe.  After that comes the joy of the bedtime snack for Stanley:  two or three tidbits made up of treats advertised as being healthy for oral care.

After Stanley is all set, I hop into bed expecting a companion to soon curl up next to me in his usual spot.  Occasionally, Stanley will not hop on over from nightstand to settle in cozy as a bug in a rug.  Instead, he will reach over and gently tap my shoulder.  If I decline his request, he will usually tap my cheek and include an insistent low, quick mew.  He is relentless, with the will of steel.  Only occasionally will he actually give up when I’ve said, “no more, come get cozy.”  He will give that resigned huge sigh (I can almost see him rolling his eyes) and hop on over to take his customary place next to me.  Even after being denied repeatedly, while his taps become more persistent, he never exposes a claw or subjects me to a scratch. 

Anyway, back to yesterday.  I remembered that bamboo-shaped canister was getting low and the back up supply was gone.  So I checked out of the store with the four different kinds of oral health, crunchy, salmon flavored treats, the tiny cans of moist food and a fresh bunch of growing rye grass.  (I usually grow grass for my two house companions myself, but this looked particularly fresh and I hadn’t yet started growing the new batch).

Once home, I started to mix the treats to fill the canister when I remembered I had some dry Fancy Feast salmon flavored mix in the pantry, too, and I hadn’t added Fancy Feast to the snack mixture in a long time, so in it went.  I know all of this isn’t exactly the healthiest thing to add to a Scottish Fold’s diet, but eight years of habit is difficult to break.

Come bedtime, after the healthy joint “treat” was devoured, out came the few tidbits for his snack, which included a couple Fancy Feast tidbits (they were small, after all).  Stanley did a double-take and simply inhaled his snack.  I was surprised at how quickly it was gone.  Just as I was settled in bed, there came a “tap, tap” on my cheek.  He had bypassed the shoulder altogether.  I looked over and his tiny “mew” lifted him up and off his front legs as he threw his head back over his shoulder, looking straight at the canister.

I didn’t even try to argue.  I got back out of bed, he snapped around, eagerly awaiting the seconds on his snack.  As I lifted the top off the canister, he was hovering like Snoopy on his dog house roof being an eagle.  I grabbed just a couple tidbits and, as I moved my hand away from the canister to place those tidbits on the nightstand, Stanley dove for the canister.  He was determined to grab the amount HE wanted as his head went for canister contents.   (I have to say at this point, that this is uncharacteristic of Stanley.  Normally, he posed himself at the anticipated spot the snack would be deposited.)

Of course, shocked but amused, I “wrestled” him away, (actually I gently but persistently pushed his soft, soft white chest back) and pointed to the tiny pile I’d placed on the nightstand.  His sigh was short because he had Fancy Feast snacks awaiting to quench his Pavlovian response.

As I settled into bed, I chuckled.  I’d forgotten just how much my Scottish Fold loves having Fancy Feast tidbits added to his evening snack.

January 8, 2012