basketcase

I was nervous to come back from my vacation to a cat who was angry and neglected.  I had no idea I should expect her to be a complete nutjob.  On the one hand, she has continued to sleep on my bed - a fact aided, I think, by the addition of my old comforter.  It's been cold here at night, and I've dragged out an old, fluffier comforter for the bed.  She's perfectly content snuggling up to that at night, and I'm perfectly happy to take whatever I can get!

On the other hand, she's displaying some anxiety problems.  The last time she displayed significant signs of anxiety was right after Princess (my roommates cat) was put to sleep, and those symptoms re-emerged shortly thereafter, when our entire apartment was packed up and Stacey had moved out.  At that time Mia sulked around and hid intently under Stacey's bed, for hours and hours at a time.  I remember that Stacey kind of gave up and just started talking to Mia and telling her that it was going to be ok, that Princess had been sick and she was much happier now.  Stacey told Mia that Princess hadn't done anything wrong, and that nothing was going to happen to Mia.  It was then that Mia came out from under Stacey's bed.  

For about a week Mia has been covering her food bowl with her blanket when she walks away from it.  I noticed this habit slowly, sometimes I thought that the blanket ended up there accidentally, it is usually on the floor near where the food bowl goes.  But, one day I watched it happen.  Mia eats in shifts.  She nibbles, takes a break, comes back for more.  The entire process can take the entire evening for her to eat about 3 oz. of food.  She had just finished her first little nosh-fest and she walked over to the blanket, pawed at it a few times, gripped it in her paw, and dragged it on top of her food dish.  At first, I was just amazed...WHAT?!  So A bit later I pulled it off, and she came back for more food after that.  When I looked back next, the dish was again covered.  So this cycle continued, and I kept removing the blanket, placing it further and further away from the dish each time.  And she continually covered up the dish when she was done eating.  I, of course, made fun of her and took pictures, but after 2 days of this I began to get concerned.  I decided to take the blanket into another room for a while.  And then, I broke out Stacey's style of therapy, and I began talking to her.  We had a heart-to-heart (or so I think), and since then, the blanket has been returned and has remained off the dish.  We're out of the woods....

...for now.