The Dilemma

Last week we decided to spend a few days at the beach.  We were in a dilemma over what to do with our three cats. In the past when we had four cats, we locked two, Ed and Boo, upstairs in their room and let the other two, Phantom and Cadence, roam the rest of the house.

Now that Boo has died, we can't lock Ed upstairs all alone, but we have to keep him separated from Phantom.  The last time we went to the beach for a few days, we let Ed and Cadence have free roam of the house and locked Phantom downstairs in the Boy's area by himself.

He didn't like it one bit.

I just couldn't do it again so we decided to take Phantom with us to the beach this time and left Ed and Cadence home with a sitter coming a few times while we were gone to check on things.

 I guess you could say we rewarded Phantom's bad behavior by taking him with us where he would get soft food and snacks daily (while the other two only got them a couple of times) and Phantom would receive 100% of our attention, while the other two were left lonely, cold, and abandoned.  (Well, maybe not THAT abandoned.)

What we quickly came to realize was that Phantom LOVES being an only cat.  His entire behavior changed.  He even became more "kittenish" and wanted to play.  After all, he did have more time on his hands, um I mean paws, since he didn't have to guard the food and the litter box from the other two cats.

I can just imagine the other two cats after they realized Phantom was gone.  They would've high fived it if they could.

And Phantom was beyond joy.  He was all like "Woo Hoo!!  I'm on vacation!"

After rubbing all over everything and marking everything with his scent, he became very mellow.  He enjoyed the Boy's brief visit even though the Boy took over his bedroom.  Phantom just moved to our bed for a while.  No problem.

Now we are back home and things are back to "normal" for the cats.

Which means Phantom is already in time out for going after Ed.