My fiance's cat has moved into my apartment. I don't know too much of the history but I'll do my best.
Her cat is a male cat.
Age: 3ish?
I don't know breeds other than here's a there's a cat to begin with. But it's not a Maine coon or Siamese cat that are easily identified.
She adopted him from a shelter as an adult. Which of course makes it even more difficult to diagnose.
Her descriptions of the cat are:
The cat will play with toys with males only. He won't play with toys with her. Her cat washes his paws in his water dish. Females are for snuggling and males are not for cuddling. He only takes treats from the fingers of the outstretched arm, if the treat is in the palm of a hand, her cat will not take it. The cat needs a cat toy in each room, including the bathroom.
I have observed the paw washing and the treats in the palm stuff. We set up his move with toys in each room. I don't think that there are toys in each room currently.
Background before the move into my apartment:
She adopted him when she moved into an apartment by herself. Things seemed fine. There were toys in every room including on top of her refrigerator and bathroom. Her ex-boyfriend would be able to play using toys with her cat. He was there for a couple of months before moving in with her ex-boyfriend for another couple of months.
After their break-up, she moved back in with her parents. Her house has 3 dogs and sometimes a foster dog. So her cat stayed in her room and played by himself. He seemed emotionally fine. He purred a bunch and might have been trying to nurse while living in her room. He stayed there for 2.5 years or so.
He came over to my apartment a couple months back. He seems adjusted and happy. Every time he gets purring though he wants to nurse on fingers or anything he can press against his left cheek. He doesn't bite when he's doing this. It's merely the amount of times that he wants to nurse.
He is playing with me with a cat toy that has a string. Every time that he catches the toy at the end of the string and the string is under tension from me trying to free the toy he nurses on the string.
The nursing has been going on since he moved in.
He has tried nursing on a cardboard box, his catnip toy, the string toy, fingers, and the corners of objects.
I understand that stress or weened off nursing too early could be options.
I would guess that he was weened too early. Or is expressing how happy he is.
The cat lays in the sun most of the sunny days, he's eating and drinking normally. He gets a bunch of attention. Which he is very picky about.
The cat will meow for attention, you go to give him attention, he runs away. You finally call him over and he only wants fingertips petting him. He will take full petting while I'm laying in bed and he wanders around the bed every few minutes. He will stand being held but wants to escape. And during all this he is only after nursing.
It's getting slightly on my nerves and I don't know exactly how or what to distract him enough in order to break the nursing.
Another cat I have had would bite a blanket and start nursing and kneading the blanket when that cat purred so maybe this is similar?
I am looking to see if this behavior is healthy and how to go about distracting him from nursing on things.
Submitted January 11, 2016 at 10:20AM by ThatBondGuy007 http://ift.tt/1kZb9iU AskVet
