Unschooling my cat, part 2: Letting go

My cat continues to remind me of unschooling lessons I had supposedly already learned.

We made the decision when Rigby was young (she's going on 2 now) that she would be an indoor cat. Indoor cats are safer, live longer, and have lower veterinary bills, and they tend to be cleaner and free(er) of fleas. It was a very sensible decision with her and our best interests at heart, and when she was a kitten, it worked beautifully.

But there developed a problem: Rigby loves the outdoors.

She began to cry to go out, sitting at our sliding glass door for hours--really--yowling like the Siamese she is for her freedom. She'd take periodic breaks from the yowling to come over and bite my ankles to make sure she had my attention. On the occasions when we would give in and take her outside, usually on a leash which she tolerated sort of as a fair trade for some outside time, she would romp and run and chase bugs and look like, well, a cat. A happy cat.

She loves it. LOVES it. Loves it. It is her favorite thing.

Like good unschooling parents, we've paid attention. We remembered that our comfort level is not the most important thing, and that being uncomfortable isn't fatal. We began to prepare for Rigby to be an indoor/outdoor cat, with some safeguards to make us feel better about the whole thing but primarily focused on this clearly communicated preference of our youngest, furriest daughter. We took her to get the feline Leukemia vaccine we had previously declined. We bought her a collar with a tag so kind people can help her find her way home should she wander. And we kitty-proofed the yard as much as it is possible to do, so that mostly she will remain in our yard.

Then we opened the door and let her out.

I wish you could see the changes in her. Outside, she moves with obvious pleasure around our yard, satisfaction in every step and radiating a clear sense that she is in her place. If you're out there with her (which she loves), she comes over to rub against you and head-butt and let you know how pleased she is with life in general. She climbs trees and stalks everything that moves and hides from loud noises. If I kick the soccer ball, she will sometimes chase it, and she has taken to sitting near me when I hula hoop, apparently not concerned by the fact that I drop the hoop nearly as often as not.

She has struck up a fascinating and hugely entertaining friendship with Roxie, the dog next door. They peek at each other through the knotholes and gaps in the fence, sticking paws or noses through, swat at each other, and then race together down the fenceline to the next peekhole to do it again there.

Inside, she's calmer, more affectionate, and just happier. I don't know how to explain it, but we can all see it.

We have seen the law of diminishing marginal utility very much in practice. She used to be desperate to go outside. Now, she still loves it, but if we leave the door open for her, she's in as much as out.

And she just thinks we are pretty darn cool. As I write this post, she is wandering the yard apparently giving me no notice. But when I went inside a moment ago, she immediately came to the door to call me back. Like most unschooled "kids," she enjoys being with her parents! :-)

Unschooling my cat

Catchy title, right?

This is my cat:


She's bigger than that now, but you get the idea. This amazing, bright-eyed little being has entered our lives and transformed our home and our routines.

Sound familiar? Yeah, it's a lot like having an infant again.

Several years ago, I read something Sandra Dodd wrote about things she did to make her dog more comfortable. She didn't say she was unschooling her dog, but somehow hearing the changes she was willing—no, happy—to make, to her home and routine and the arrangement of her furniture, in order to meet her dog's needs and make her dog happy really helped me see what the unschooling lifestyle is all about.

Fast forward a few years and my kids are pretty much grown. While we continue to adapt our home and routine as needed to meet their needs, everything is pretty settled these days, and we take even the surprises in stride because adapting is habitual by this point.

And then along came Rigby.

She is named for Eleanor Rigby, thus continuing our mini tradition of naming cats after Beatles' characters (our last two cats were Desmond and Molly). I am allergic to cats, so she was only supposed to be a visitor, and I was quite prepared to fall head over heels in love with her and give her away anyway.

What I was not prepared for was for her to fall in love with us. And she did. Within a day after I found her cowering under the neighbor's car, beyond thrilled to be found, she had bonded completely with all of us. This is where she slept:


And there I was, an unschooler and attachment parent riding on nearly nine years of unequivocally meeting the needs of the beings I love, confronted with a little loved one who clearly did not need to be separated from another family. Surprise!

So we adapted. We kept her (and my allergies are learning to live with it). She's a fair bit bigger now, but she's still attached. She sleeps on whichever of us is not moving, and she struts and sprints around the house like she owns it. Which I suppose she does.

My next surprise was the unschooler refresher course that having her in our home provided.

She likes to play with the cords on the mini-blinds. We don't especially want the mini-blinds to come crashing down, so we tied a string to chair. It has a bead tied on the end, in as close an appromixation of a mini-blind cord as I could conceive on short notice. She loved it.

She has daily periods of astonishingly high energy. We call this Satan Cat Mode, and Honey Badger has nothing on Satan Cat. What Satan Cat Rigby needs is someone to romp with her. It doesn't matter that we'd rather sit on the couch or go to sleep. (Cats are mostly nocturnal, remember.) We have acquired a collection of toys and other items that she finds entertaining, and I spend close to an hour every day creating opportunities for her to chase, tackle, climb, pounce, sneak, destroy, and gnaw. Very often with me as the target. This is in addition to the time that Frank, Chloe, Emma, MJ, and whoever happens to be visiting contribute to the cause.

She loves plastic bags and cardboard boxes. We have had varietal bags and boxes littering our floors for eight weeks.

She needs to claw something. She would like to use the oriental rug, while we would prefer for her to use one of the alternatives we have provided. We can occasionally be found dragging our fingernails over the surfaces of these alternatives to show her how it's done. She's getting the idea.

She needs to be with us. We leave doors open so she can follow us around. We make sure not to leave her alone for too long. We talk to her and generally provide companionship. I sit in weird positions so she can drape herself across my neck or my lap while I work.

She needs to cuddle. I know this is true because if we are too slow about noticing when she's ready for a cuddle, she will climb on shoulders, laps, keyboards, books, or faces until someone does their damned job, thank you very much. It's usually not too hard to get someone to cooperate. She prefers cuddling on her favorite blanket, so this blanket is usually adorning one or the other of us. (This last might become more problematic in August.)

And of course she needs a litter box and good food and medical care. Check, check, check.

But in terms of illustrating unschooling principles, the need that is the most interesting and, yes, entertaining is her obsession with the bathroom. She loves the bathroom. She needs to explore the bathroom. We have no idea why. It is the strangest cat behavior we've ever seen. If someone goes in to pee, she literally runs after them so she can watch. She hangs out in the sink. She sleeps on the toilet lid (the seat is heated so this one is less puzzling) and considers the toilet tank a prime perch. If someone goes in and closes the door, she sits outside and waits for them to come out. And she showers with me every day, spending some of the time hanging out at the foot of the tub and the rest in the safe zone between the shower curtain and (clear) shower liner.

We don't get it. But the thing is, we don't have to understand her need in order to respond to it. We just have to care that her need is met. That is pretty much the prime directive of unschooling.

Gotta go. My cat needs me.