<p>My cat trained my dog to be her personal door-opener. My house has lever door handles throughout that my dog could open. My cat HATES closed doors. The cat would stand in front of a closed door and voice a specific, loud plaintive meooooow, and the dog would coming running from wherever he was in the house to open the door for her. It was hilarious! </p>
<p>(My beloved dog has since passed, and the cat is on her own with doors, despite her attempts to train me to take the dog’s place.)</p>
<p>Thanks all! 
We got kind of a “maybe” from the VP. He said it’s a reasonable request but wants to talk it over with peers a little more before making a decision. It was a good decision but kind of seemed as though he’d already made up his mind (not in our favor.) We’ll see.</p>
<p>I haven’t gone through the whole thread, and perhaps these have been mentioned - lots of people are allergic. Make sure that you and others who would spend a lot of time at your house don’t have a problem. Our kitties are not declawed and every piece of wood in the house - furniture and door jambs have been scratched, usually much more so than the scratching posts. </p>
<p>I’m picturing you curled up with your kitty as the weather turns cooler. Hoping this will work.
Enjoy leaf season! Please take time to drive up I-70 a bit and enjoy the beauty of the fall.</p>
<p>Dragonmom, I drove to Loveland this past weekend to visit some family! It was GORGEOUS. Weather was perfect. Had just a little bit of rain and wind but not bad.</p>
<p>Happy birthday, HGFM! keep on fighting for your right to have a feline family. </p>
<p>Got woken up this morning from a deep sleep by the sound of cat puking in my bedroom.</p>
<p>Not in love at the moment, but I’ll get over it. </p>
<p>This can be an issue for cat owners. I’ve told DH not to feed her fully first thing in the morning-this is what happens. If I give her just enough to take the edge off her hunger, then feed her more later, it works better. </p>
<p>Hello cat owners : )</p>
<p>At some points in the future (not right now - right now, I wouldn’t be comfortable adding another animal), I would love to adopt a cat. I grew up with a cat and hadn’t had one since.</p>
<p>I have been curious about this question and am hoping that someone will answer. Other than my dog (who is an absolute sweetheart and doesn’t bother my other animals), all my other pets are prey animals - a bird and guinea pigs. They will obviously be with me for life, no matter what, and I love them very much, so their safety is my number one concern.</p>
<p>I know that cats have a strong prey drive. My question is, if I bring in a young kitten, and he grows up around these prey animals, would it be safe to leave him/her around them unattended, or is the prey drive so strong that there is always a possibility that it will kick in (kind of like keeping a lion and human together - dangerous, even if the lion was raised from a cub)?</p>
<p>Great question, @acollegestudent. </p>
<p>With cats, the drive to hunt is very instinctive. When they see a small object moving, they chase it. Your smaller pets would NOT be safe around a kitty, even if they are raised together.</p>
<p>My cat hunts for mice through my bed comforter. The problem is, there were no mice. Those were my toes. She does this every night.
Ouch!!!</p>
<p>Any tips how I can stop this? Cute but painful. </p>
<p>^^^^get a thicker comforter? :)</p>
<p>I might wear shoes to bed. lol</p>
<p>Thanks, calla1! That’s exactly the type of info I was looking for, especially since my little critters wouldn’t just be in cages all day. The bird would be out for flight/walk around/free range time, etc. And piggy pen, due to its large size, doesn’t have a top.</p>
<p>You would not let your smaller pets out of their enclosures when you are not there, would you? When supervised, cats can be perfectly fine around smaller animals, especially if the cat has not been taught hunting skills by his momma cat when he was a kitten. My white cat is terrified of any animal larger than a big spider - she was adopted by us when she was just weaned. Plus, she is fat and older now. I would be ok with leavng a roaming guinea pig around her. OTOH, my D’s cats, who were rescued from a dumpster in her central Asian city when they were “teens” , would not be trusted with a small animal. </p>
<p>Well, even though they are not free-roaming, guinea pigs need a lot of room, even for one or two, so the enclosure I have for my girl is over 30 sq feet with no lid, and it would not be so easy to make a cover for it, due to the size and shape. The cat could easily jump in. The other issue is that, even if there was a cover, a cat could stick a paw through very easily on the sides, and I don’t want the cat terrifying the piggy.</p>
<p>Or the piggy terrifying the cat. 
My sister had a menagerie, and the free roaming or even caged guinea pigs terrified the crap out of our cat (who was an excellent mouse hunter).
In your particular situation, I would probably wait until the piggy crosses the rainbow bridge and then get a cat. </p>
<p>I can’t have a cat, because Mr. Fang is allergic. I have to content myself with kitten cams, which are 24/7 cameras trained on litters of kittens from shelters being raised in human foster parents’ houses.</p>
<p>Ideally, the kittens are raised by the mother cat. But sometimes, mama is not available, and the kittens are hand-raised by humans. I can assure you that kittens raised by humans still have the instincts to pounce, to capture, and to bite and claw what they capture. </p>
<p>I would not suggest leaving a prey animal with a cat, even a human-raised cat. Cats are cats. They want to capture and kill small animals. If mama didn’t teach them to quickly kill what they capture, they might not be as deadly, but they’ll be deadly enough.</p>
<p>UPDATE!!!</p>
<p>So after presenting the policy to the Vice President, we heard approximately nothing for a couple of weeks.</p>
<p>I sent him an email last Monday asking for an update and heard…also nothing.</p>
<p>Today I went to talk with my Director because I’ve noticed a strong uptake in my anxiety level and am even thinking about going back to counseling. I told her I felt as if the VP was blowing me off and/or not taking my request seriously and that I was very frustrated. She heard me out and (after I got a little emotional) told me that my boss has been lobbying for me as well and asked her about it this morning. </p>
<p>Director then told me that she has an appointment with the VP on Tuesday, but will get in with him if she can earlier than that to ask him about it and push him to approve it. She said if he doesn’t, that if I bring her a note from a therapist confirming that I need the pet, she will approve an emotional service animal.</p>
<p>So I am either getting a pet or getting a pet :)</p>
<p>I highly recommend a corrrugated cardboard cat scratcher or two or three. Every cat needs one! :)</p>
<p>There are a few advantages corrugated cardboard scratchers have over cat trees.</p>
<p>1) Price! Much less expensive (~ $5). With this significantly lower investment you can pick one up at the pet store along with the cat food so you have it right away, even if you do want to deliberate on the perfect cat tree to purchase later.</p>
<p>2) It’s a solution for the doorway kitty just can’t get enough of. That’s a place you can’t put a cat tree, but a scratcher will work fine and save the carpet.</p>
<p>3) Kitty will not launch from on high and knock the thing over, lol. Yes, that happens with cat trees.</p>
<p>4) Bonus, some come with catnip to sprinkle on the scratcher, although it should be noted not every cat is interested in catnip.</p>
<p>5) In our experience, a scratcher works as well as, if not better than, a cat tree, meaning it gets used as much or more.</p>
<p>Finally, they even have fancy ones you can see online, if you’re looking for your cat to be stylin’ at all times. ;)</p>