Chronicles of Finnegan

 It’s been a little while since we’ve given an update on our handsome young cat Finnegan. He passed his first birthday recently and we continue to revel in his substantial purring and penchant for collapsing bodily on top of you when he wants a cuddle.
Finn has always been an active fellow, running around the house like a madman for his evening zoomies or pouncing on our other cats from behind the corner of the sofa. As he got older and larger his activity started to become challenging. He would often wake us up to play at four in the morning. His pouncing behavior started to impact my older cats negatively and they would sleep in corners so he couldn’t sneak up on them. One of our cats has heart disease so we were particularly worried that Finn’s enthusiasm might stress his health.
Annoying levels of activity are a common problem in homes with young cats, so we had an arsenal of things to try in an effort to tire Finn out and get some sleep. Finn retrieves, so a rousing game of fetch was tried before dinner. This helped a bit but not as substantially as we had hoped. We made Finn toys with paper bags that he could tear apart which we would line with snacks. This did not tire him out much and backfired to some extent because Finn now imagines that all bags have snacks in them.
Finally, we decided to do what we most frequently advise our clients with active young cats. We got Finn his own kitten. We did evaluate first that we had the financial resources to support another cat for 15 to 20 years and the space for another litter box. The plan has worked beautifully. Our new kitten Willow loves playing with Finn and Finn is pretty tired by their romps. The older cats promptly started spending more time with us since they don’t have to fear being pounced on so frequently. And we have the fortune of adding a sweet girl cat to our house who enjoys riding on shoulders. What a gift she is to us!
Please call Copper Hill Animal Clinic at 661-296-8848 to schedule an appointment.