I love my cat. She’s skittish, introverted, and does not like strangers. In fact, sometimes she doesn’t like the humans who live in the house with her. If she’s in her “safe place” (generally on top of the headboard of our bed), you can’t touch her. 

Lately, however, she’s taken to cuddling with my husband while he works from home—she tends to prefer males—or she’ll sit on the corner of my desk and make me move my keyboard as far to the right as I can so she has room to stretch. She also enjoys laying by my feet while I sleep. Her version of cuddly. She’s adorable.

This week, we replaced the bathroom counter and cabinet. The problem is, her litter box, food, and water are all in the bathroom. She didn’t know what to do about the change. Every time she walked into the bathroom, she has to look where the cabinet was, and she hesitated to go past it.

To make matters worse, we give her kitty treats on the counter so they don’t get stepped on, kicked, or scattered. She’s addicted to them. She’ll come to us several times a day and either put her paws on our leg or head butt us to get us to give her one of her little kitty treats. Because I don’t want them kicked, stepped on, or scattered all over, I put them on the counter in the bathroom. They’re little, basically the size of her dry cat food, so one spot on the side of the counter works just fine. Until it’s missing.

Even when we set her treats on the floor by her food, she wasn’t sure what to do. She’d look at them and leave. When she’d beg for a treat, she’d go sit on the lid of the toilet and watch us, but not get her treats because (we think) she didn’t see them.

I started putting them next to the bathtub on the floor, and it was marginally successful. 

Monday morning, the cabinet was put in. Without a counter or sink. The new cabinet looked and smelled different. Once, she tried to jump onto the counter…and it wasn’t there. 

For the next three days, she would sit on the lid of the toilet and look at the counter, not liking this new reality.

When the counter was installed, I wanted to give my cat a treat to introduce her to the new counter. Kiki was curious. She smelled everything. She’d take a step, sniff around, look at the floor, sniff again, take another step. The sink was larger and the cabinet smaller than before, so there was less counter space for her. She tried to walk across the lip of the sink…and fell off. My poor, graceful cat had to leave the bathroom to regain her dignity.

It took six tries for her to not only recognize her treats on the counter, but to eat two or three of them. 

She hasn’t quite learned, but we’re getting there. At least she’s more familiar with it. The sink is now hers. It’s wider and flatter, and she just fits inside. My son has threatened to turn on the water while she is laying in her new cool place. I hope he doesn’t. She may refuse to go onto the counter at all and I do want her to get her treats there so I don’t have them all over the floor.

Cats. I talk of training her to get back on the counter, but I know she’s training me to her new routine. I just need to figure out what it is.