As my (comes 100% of the time when called) cat gets older, I suspect the amount of energy he’s willing to expend when I call will change his willingness to do so, and I’m prepared for and even welcoming of that day.
“I would like to pet you” does not necessarily override his comfort once he’s old enough that coming running might make his bones ache or interrupt a particularly nice nap.
I do have a little song I sing when he’s “missing” and I’m worried, which I trained him to come to (with wet food) when he was a teensy kitty and I would worry he had gotten lost in my home or wedged under furniture. I do it every once in a while as an “emergency” song, and I give him all the treats and affection and play fetch when he answers that one.
For your entertainment reader, the lyrics, which are nonsense (first thought up in a panic):
“I wish I had my kitty man,
So I could pet my kitty man!
And if I had a kitty man,
Then I would pet that kitty man!”
He usually arrives during the beginning of the third line.
This was also helpful the one time I accidentally shut him in a closet. I guess he got shut in and just decided that was a cue for a nap, but once I started singing he started howling and pawing loudly at the door.
When I was a kid, I had a 90% success rate for getting my cat to come to me and hop up onto my lap.
Now, it would only work if my cat was in the same room, but it did work. Most of the time.
As my (comes 100% of the time when called) cat gets older, I suspect the amount of energy he’s willing to expend when I call will change his willingness to do so, and I’m prepared for and even welcoming of that day.
“I would like to pet you” does not necessarily override his comfort once he’s old enough that coming running might make his bones ache or interrupt a particularly nice nap.
I do have a little song I sing when he’s “missing” and I’m worried, which I trained him to come to (with wet food) when he was a teensy kitty and I would worry he had gotten lost in my home or wedged under furniture. I do it every once in a while as an “emergency” song, and I give him all the treats and affection and play fetch when he answers that one.
For your entertainment reader, the lyrics, which are nonsense (first thought up in a panic):
“I wish I had my kitty man,
So I could pet my kitty man!
And if I had a kitty man,
Then I would pet that kitty man!”
He usually arrives during the beginning of the third line.
This was also helpful the one time I accidentally shut him in a closet. I guess he got shut in and just decided that was a cue for a nap, but once I started singing he started howling and pawing loudly at the door.