Outrageous ways your cats demand to be spoiled

[OTheHugeManatee]

Our cats are outrageously spoiled. Here are some ways:

Girlcat has her own special ramekin of (filtered) water on DH's bedside table, and demands that the sitting room curtains be drawn for her every morning so she can watch the garden in comfort from her personal piano stool with a sheepskin on it. She also waits by the fridge at lunchtime every day until you give her a slice of the processed chicken we buy specially for her (it goes on the shopping list as 'Cat chicken'). She's even trained our cleaner to give her lunch like this when we're not around

Boy cat demands to be accompanied on a patrol of the garden at 9.15pm every night. If you don't patrol for long enough he will follow you round the house scratching at the carpet and miaowing piteously until you go back out and finish the patrol.

I can think of many more but please tell me the outrageous ways your cats expect to be ministered to so I don't feel quite so much like a butler

Hah! I am a butler. (And a very well trained one at that. )

DH enables Dcat by refusing to install a cat flap. Dcat, naturally, thinks we exist to cater to her every whim. I have literally just spent ten minutes standing on my crutches holding the front door open whilst Dcat sat sniffing the air to decide whether she could be arsed going out. She refused and went back upstairs with me. Five minutes later she ran back downstairs as though there was an emergency and miaowed until I came to let her out. No doubt in a few minutes she will be scratching the back door until I let her back in.

If I tell you I am waiting for a stairlift to be installed, you can see how much hard work she is. I adore her though. I won't even start on her dietary requirements.

Mine comes in the front door and then immediately asks to go out of the back door with no obvious reason except presumably as a short cut to save him walking all the way round.

Girlcat also expects that the door to the towel cupboard be left ajar so she can sleep on the bottom shelf. The cupboard is deliberately arranged so that only beach towels, which only come out a few times a year, are on the bottom shelf for her personal comfort and convenience. The look she gives you if you have the temerity to close the cupboard is like this all rolled into one.

Mine have a ramekin of water in the bedroom, another in the conservatory, a bowl in the kitchen and a pint glass outside They also want two food bowls in two separate rooms which must BOTH be full before they will eat from either.

They line up for a Dreamie before bed...one of them shouts if you don't get up quickly enough to let another one in at the door...I contort myself wildly to get out of bed without disturbing them...the usual

There's a stairgate blocking off our back hall, back door, and bathroom, to keep the small person away from the loo and the cat litter. The little cat refuses to jump it. I assume she manages it perfectly well when I'm out and she needs the litter tray, but if I'm there, she'll just sit by it, eyes boring into me as she attempts mind control, occasionally meowing piteously until I open the gate for her.

The neurotic cat, just to be awkward, gets annoyed if I open the gate for her!

Oh yes mummypig, the short cut through the house

When Dcat is not sleeping on my legs, she likes to sleep on the sofa, but only where DH usually sits. If he has the temerity to be sitting in her spot, she will sit in front of him and pat his leg until he moves. If he doesn't move quickly enough, she will miow at the back door to be let out, then when he gets up to let her out, she jumps onto the sofa where he was sitting. He falls for it every time. Maybe that says more about DH than the cat

Oh, I remembered another one. Girlcat (the more I think about it, the more I realise that actually the outragously spoiled one is mostly her) is obsessed with towelling. So whenever I get out of the shower she waits for me in the bedroom and jumps on the bed, whereupon I have to sit on the bed, still wearing my towel, so she can flop on my lap and rub her face on the towel while I tickle her tummy

My two yell at me until I put down their bowls. They yell at me to open the cat flap. They refuse to push it open so I have to hold it open while they sniff air and take their time and then I have to tape it up so they can come back inside. If I get up from MY spot on the sofa they leap into it and wash their bits then settle down. Same with the bed, they will get into my side and I have to squish up into the available space. If me, DH or DD attempt to move them they do their best dead lions impersonation to make it as difficult as possible.

When I was young, I had a single bed. The cat slept vertically and I got 6 inches on the edge.

When I was older, I had a double bed. The cat slept diagonally and I got 6 inches on the edge.

Now, I have a king-size bed. The cat sleeps horizontally and I get - Yes, you guessed it - 6 inches on the edge!

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

mine insists on sleeping upside down in my arms, cradled like a baby.
She won't drink from her water bowl unless it's fresh with an ice cube in it.
when the shopping comes, she ALWAYS gets a treat and every time there's a shopping bag she yells at you until you produce her treat.
We open windows on demand, despite the fact she has a cat flap. She won't walk round the house so if she wants to go down the front street, you have to open the front window.
I bought her a little cat sofa and hand made her some catnip cushions to go on it.
She has to have some of our dinner. She may not eat it, but she has to have a bit of whatever we're having on her own plate. Otherwise she yells at us.
She has trained my eldest son to lay on the floor on command.
We can't go to bed until she's finished sleeping on our bed. She simply wont move and we're too daft to shift her.
There's more but this is embarrassing enough.

There's more.......?

My girl won't let me go on my laptop without wandering across my lap/chest at least four times. If I ignore her or move her, she wanders across anyway and sits down and refuses to move. Once she's had a nosy at what I'm doing and approves of it, she moves and sits behind my shoulder, watching.

The boy has to be able to get into the living room. If the door isn't open, he yowls and scratches until I open it, and then refuses to actually come in. He sits and looks in, but won't come in. Unless I get up and close the door, then he needs to come in immediately. Weirdo.

sadly yes.

like the time she brought in a dead mouse and we pretended to eat it so we didn't hurt her feelings.

...and we pretended to eat it so we didn't hurt her feelings...

And I've occasionally wondered whether I might be over-indulgent.......

I thought DH was bad, microwaving cat milk for 30 seconds to warm it before pouring it for them. But Fenella wins

Oh no no. I refuse to be be the crazy cat lady of mumsnet.
someone simply has to come up with some way they service their cat that makes me seem normal.

Did I mention that the back of the house, which has a spare bedroom (where boycat likes to sleep), plus guest bathroom and small staircase to the kitchen, is known as the 'cat wing'?

yes. That'll do nicely.

Not me, but my brother lives in a two bedroom flat, and their (quite large) second bedroom is 'the cat's room'. If you come to stay, you sleep on an air mattress in the living room - 'the cat's room' is not a figure of speech.

I'm sorry, Fenella - I'd be kind if I could but I still think you win.

No, no, no! This is supposed to be a non-judgemental, confessional thread about enabling our entitled cats. No mad-cat-lady-shaming, please

I stand abashed.

(You've got to admit, though..........)

I'm still chuckling at the couple who make guests sleep on the sofa rather than evict the cat from the spare room

It makes me seem quite restrained by comparison. I even realised what was happening halfway through when the cat was training me to play Fetch, and put a stop to it