Geoff’s cat is a pervert

And other fun family secrets…

One of the joys of combining households is seeing how the animals react to each other.  We combined households back in December of 2008 when Geoff got a job up here in Boston and was finally able to move here.  Geoff had been adopted by Scratch shortly before that and we were able to get Scratch neutered right before the trip up here.

For those of you who don’t know, introducing an unneutered male kitten into a household with neutered male cats, especially when there is a HUGE age difference and the household is a *very* small apartment, is a recipe for disaster.  Add in the fact that Scratch is, well, Scratch, and we had to make sure he’d had The Big Snip before he got here.

It was still not the easiest transition ever.  Scratch has taken a LONG time growing up.  He’s the most kittenish adult cat I’ve ever seen and only in the last couple months has finally filled out and started acting like he’s an adult even a little bit.  For the record, he’s 3 now.  Kitten time is long since over for him.

Here’s the thing, Scratch has developed a masturbation problem.  And it’s getting worse.  When he was younger he would do it every so often, on a blanket, and only in front of me.  I’d tell Geoff that Scratch was having his way with a blanket and the moment Geoff walked into the room Scratch would hightail it over into a corner or into another room and hide.  It took me having my phone handy and catching it on video before Geoff saw proof that Scratch was, indeed, masturbating on the blankets on our couch.

At first I didn’t think anything of it.  My parents got a cat when I was in high school who passed away not along ago.  He had a nightly ritual in his later years of masturbating on one of his favorite toys.  Once we figured out what he was doing it was just understood that he did that before he went to bed at night.  Therefore, as soon as I saw what Scratch was doing, I knew exactly what it was.  To be honest, I didn’t think much of it.  At first.

The problem is, he hasn’t stopped with blankets.  Or, at least, blankets with nothing under them.  Ahem.

Whereas at first he was hesitant to have his blanket loving sessions in front of Geoff at all, eventually he abandoned that restraint and just started humping away no matter who was in the room.  Eventually this morphed into humping whatever blanket was comfy even if it was near us while we were on the computer or watching TV.  He then started actively pursuing the blankets near us on the couch.  You can see where this is going, right?

The first time I caught him humping the blankets in my bed, when I wasn’t in bed, I thought he was just up to his old tricks.  I was wrong.  Not long ago I woke up to him humping ME under said blankets in the early morning hours.  He was latched on to my shoulder very tightly and just going to town.  I instinctively threw him off of me and yelled at him and went back to sleep.

It then turned into a nightly ritual.  I get into bed, he shows up at some point, tries to hump my feet, knees, thigh, toes, or other lower extremity.  He’ll stop eventually if I throw him off the bed enough, spray him with water enough, spray him with air enough, or if he gets tired of the “game.”  It’s only a matter of time before he moves on to Geoff.

Yeah, Scratch is a little pervert.  If he was a human he’d be the guy on the subway in the trench coat and black socks.

We’re going to ask the vet if there’s anything we can do about this other than aversion therapy.  To be honest, it’s more than a little disconcerting to have a, 11lb furry thing latched on to your body and shaking for all the wrong reasons.  Especially when you’re soundly asleep.  I did a little reading online and one of the websites suggested that we get an opposite sex cat to solve the problem.  Yeah, no.  There are so many things wrong with that idea I’m not even going to start discussing them.

To be honest, I wouldn’t have a problem with him doing this if he confined himself to inanimate objects.  It’s the humping me thing that is really disconcerting.

The scientist part of my brain wishes there was a way to put this to good use.  Like finding a way to convert it to energy to power the lights or something.  Alas, I don’t think that’s possible.  Then again, that might just be the part of my brain that has been traumatized by an 11lb pervert cat and wishing that something positive could come out of this?  I don’t know.

From the trenches…

~Kelly