Alleged Local Policeman wrote:A few months before Baron and me got married, the crushing weight of trying to work long hours at a stressful, high level job, organising a wedding and planning a move to the US had me on my knees with crippling anxiety teetering on the cusp of depression. I took three months off work, and for about two weeks of that time I was either a rigid stick or a foetal shaking ball moving from bed to the sofa. Of my two cats, Sam, who I had had from a kitten, changed his behaviour for the entire time that I was sick. I got his stepsister when she was an adult, but Sam and I had bonded from a very young age and he has always responded to me differently. I see this from dealing with kittens where I volunteer - early handling of orphaned kittens means they blend with you and "hang out" with you - they're not just "in the same room". One baby kitten we fostered a few years ago used to sit on Baron's shoulders as he cooked - he was we and we was he.
When I was sick, Sam stopped all his demanding, feed me behaviour. Not that he has ever been very bad, but he stopped meowing for food, or yowling to go out, or anything that it seemed would give me great effort to undertake. He just ate when I could get it together to feed him, and then when he finished, he would come and lay back next to me and spoon round my back or front and sometimes put his paws on my chin. Sometimes when I was laid crying, or anxious, he would bury right into my skin and purr and knead my belly. Or just wander round my head rubbing his chin on my face. Then when I stopped crying, he would lie down and go to sleep. He was my most important friend at that time. He sensed every mood change and when I started to get better, he retreated bit by bit back to the normal routine of yowl, feed me and so on, but it was a measurable, gradual process. I had him to the vets last week and a vet I didn't care for tried it on with him - he is normally Mr. Placid, but he was in pain and unhappy and he sunk his teeth into her arm - a proper bite - the first time I have ever seen him do that. He then hunkered down on my lap with my arms round him and I would have bitten her myself if she came anywhere near him again. He's not just a cat, he's my friend. I protect him and he protects me. He knows what's going down in my life and vice versa. We're family.
Can cats be capable of this kind of thing? Of course they fucking can.
Sam sounds like a lovely cat. Agnes behaved in almost the exact same way whenever B or I was ill or just under the weather - she wouldn't demand to go for a walk, and would be content to just go out in to the backyard to do her business - but she always seemed more like a cat in a (giant) dog's body.