Cat progress.

The last week of this past year, I was at my last shift of the year at my one client with disabilites's house, and like I always do, I went to go give her cat a treat soon after I had arrived, but since it was the end of the year, I realized as I was going to her bedroom and shaking the treat jar, that I probably should have gone and given her some of the catnip-flavored treats that she really goes nuts over, so I stopped shaking the jar and turned around and went back to the pantry and got the plastic cat treat packet with the catnip-flavored treats in it.

I started shaking that, too, and though her cat usually stays under the bed and only comes out after I leave to go eat the treat, this time she hurried out and stopped like a few feet in front of me, and sat down and started meowing.

I knelt slowly so as not to spook her, and she didn't spook, and I pulled out a treat and held it in my hand in front of her.

She sniffed it but didn't eat it off of my hand like she's done once before, so I lowered my hand and rested it on the floor, and that got her to put her head down and eat the treat off of my hand.

And, since she was such a good girl for doing all of that, I asked my client if I could give her another treat, and she said I could, so I gave her a second treat like that, too, in the same way as I had done with the first treat.

Afterwards, I tried to slowly reach up and pet her, but she kind of avoided my hand and padded over back under the bed, and I realized that that last bit might have been too much for her, and maybe I shouldn't have tried it.

Overall, all of that got me thinking that next time I go to give her one of those treats, I'll stand in the kitchen and shake the packet out there, to see if she'll hear it and come out of the bedroom to come meet me.  She doesn't like being in the kitchen or the living room when I'm in the apartment, but who knows, maybe the treat will make her break her habit and get her out of that particular rut that she's been in.