Sunday, February 21, 2010

A pet in training

Aiman has been wanting a cat for a pet for a very long time. But, since he is asthmatic and has a bad case of eczema, we have been advised by doctors and many others not to have one in the house. But, Aiman has never stopped asking for one.

Recently, our back door neighbour’s cat gave birth to 4 kittens in our wet kitchen. While she was nursing her 4 new kittens, who should come around to play in our wet kitchen so as to be able to stay close to his mummy, but the big brother of the 4 little kittens!

We found him one day waiting by the back door, meowing in hunger as our neighbour had left for the long Chinese New Year Holidays.


Aiman took one look at his adoring eyes and was immediately smitten by the cute little kitten (seen in the above photo with his mum), whom he later affectionately calls `Abang’, as the little kitten was the big brother to the 4 little kittens just born.

Ever since that day, Aiman has found himself a pet in Abang and would wake up early every morning to feed him. Before this, it can sometimes takes us close to 10 minutes to try to get him to get up every morning, but with Abang meowing outside waiting for his food, Aiman practically jumps up every morning to feed Abang. LOL! Now that’s what I call a good influence! *grin*

Aiman is getting very attached to Abang and would get all sad if he can’t get to say goodnight to Abang before he goes to bed each night. He rushes to the back kitchen each time we come home from anywhere to look for Abang. He would stay at the back kitchen for as long as possible to play with Abang and would not want to go anywhere in case Abang might come and wants to play with him.


Having Abang has also made him do his chores faster as it becomes a motivation for him as we tell him that he can only play with Abang when he is done with all his homework and chores.

Tonight, Aiman was upset that when Abang came to play with him, but he wasn’t done yet with his chores, and as he rushed to finish off his chores, Abang had left. He wanted to play with Abang first before he went to bed, and he must have felt that all his efforts, rushing to finish off his chores quickly, did not pay off, as by the time he was done, Abang had already left and it was also almost his bedtime.

I hope something good will come from Aiman’s attachment to Abang, as seen so far in that he is more motivated to do his chores . I only hope that when it is time for Abang to go back to the neighbour, Aiman wil not feel too sad.

I have promised Aiman that if he really wants Abang as a pet and if he can prove to us that he can take care of a pet cat, I will ask permission from our back neighbour to let us have Abang. I told him that for now, he is in training and his duty is to make sure that Abang’s bowl is always filled up with food and water everyday. So far, during this long CNY holidays since Abang’s arrival, he has pretty much fulfilled his duties.

Tomorrow it’s back to school for Aiman. I am waiting to see if he remembers his duties with regards to taking care of Abang, and at the same time, nor forgetting to do his daily chores.

6 comments:

nikai said...

I heard if you can herd cats from one place to another (i.e gembala kucing), there's a good leadership quality in you.

Datin Nik Zaharah said...

I love cats so much when I was little. I would climb up the tall mangoesteen tree at the back of our house to save a cat from falling and I would nurse kittens from the moment they were born. I would become the midwife when my cats gave birth and I would play and sleep with them. Cats give me such pleasure and happiness just by touching their wet nose and stroking lovely furs.

... ... ... ... ... ... nik elin said...

cats leave their odour if you keep it inside the house. But many would have gotten accustomed to the smell.

We had 18 cats at one time when we were staying in 2nd college. I wonder how bad it smelt to others who visited

Za said...

I don't remember the smell. Maybe that's because we love cats so much, the smell becomes part of the normal smell!

Now Aiman is so into cats! If only he isn't so allergic to it.

NikAi - huh? What's herding cats from one place to another got to do with good leadership quality?

nikai said...

I knew we had cats back then, but I'm now allergic to cats. Wonder how that happened.

Herding cats is a leadership skill because cats are individualistic. Everything a leader does, can be thought of in herding cats. Go figure.

Astrid said...

What a touching story Nik! I'm a cat lover to my deepest heart, and I'm sure I know how Aiman feels it. I think you should let him keep the cat, if the neighbor allows it, but of course you have to keep an eye on his allergy etc. It's so sad people just leave their pets without thinking they need food too!