It’s easy to remember how many days Riley has been with us. We lured her into the house on 1st December.
But the process of domesticating Riley has been quite challenging.
Until today, which is already 2 weeks, Riley still prefers to be upstairs.
Ginger urinated on her TV two days ago and she migrated to our bedroom but chose to sit under our bed next to the wall and there she was, for two whole days, only coming out back to her room to use the bathroom and to eat. She has full access to everywhere in the house but she just wanted to stay under the bed.
But I can get her out of there. So now she is out and I’ve closed our bedroom door as I do not want her to hide under the bed anymore.
She has gone back to her room and seems quite happy there.
One good progress is that this evening, Riley ate a 100% raw meal of Coco&Joe’s! She actually hasn’t been eating as much as she used to when she was a street kitten coming to eat at our porch. Those days, she could finish two cans of food at one go each time, and that was about three times per day. Maybe she needed more energy when she was a street kitten.
At this point, we are still not certain what’s best for Riley. Is she happy being indoors?
We know she is definitely SAFER being indoors, but is she happy? Does she want the life of an indoor pet or would she prefer to freedom of being a CNRM-cat?
In any case, I’m giving her another week because I need to take her to the vet for a booster vaccination. Hopefully by then, Riley will show us more signs of the life that she prefers. There is really no point in keeping her indoors if she isn’t happy.
Currently Riley’s room is one of the back rooms so she does get some sun at certain periods of the day. She has her very own private bathroom too. And total freedom to go in and out of the room with full access to the whole house except for Bunny’s Place and the catio.
And she gets to eat three times a day too.
Her private bathroom, her private litter box without any need to share, and the room door is always open.
Hey Riley, don’t you want to live indoors? Free from the thunderstorms, free from the rain?
I remember the day when Riley stood outside our gate in the pouring rain, waiting for food. I tried to get her to come into the porch to eat, but she was too scared. At that time, I was still feeding her outside our gate. I finally had to go out with an umbrella and leave the food as close as possible to her but sheltered from the rain.
If you live indoors, Riley, that will never happen again. You will never have to worry where or when to get your next meal.
We always tend to anthropomorphise when it comes to animals, thinking what we think is best is the best for them. We think what makes us happy will also make them happy.
But sometimes we are so wrong.
This is one time when I hope I am not wrong.
The classic Golden Rule is: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But the new Platinum Rule is: Do unto others as they would want to be done unto them. There is a big difference here. It requires empathy, understanding and knowing that we might not be right all the time.
The classic example that I always use is this: A husband buys his wife a power drill set for her birthday! That’s what he wants and that would be a gift that would certainly make him happy, but that’s not what she wants.
So it’s the Golden Rule vs the Platinum Rule. I think nowadays, there is no room for the Golden Rule anymore. It has to be the Platinum Rule and this requires more work, more research, more empathy.