WHEN your kitty shows signs of jealousy, it needs more affection and reassurance

Sitting in the centre of the kitchen table, I strategically position myself to keep a sharp eye at my human who is being rather sentimental these days, way more than I like her to be. One morning, she discovered that a mother cat has had babies in the backyard in an old wooden crate lying there, abandoned for ages. Since then, I am beginning to feel that soon I will be abandoned.

She is always out there giving them food, milk and water, or covering them up in an old blanket or just standing around with tender eyes, while mine grow green with jealousy as each moment passes. Yes, I admit I am jealous, very jealous and I absolutely do not like to share my human with other cats nor can I stand her ‘oooing’ and ‘aaahhing’ at any other creature except myself.

They say that cat jealousy has the same roots as humans. It springs from insecurity and lack of confidence. I have not been deprived of love and affection in the past but I am certainly not ready for heartbreak. Loving and caring for them means that there is no loving and caring for me at that time, and it upsets me to no end. Just like a bigger slice of cake for you means having a smaller slice for me.

Well, you see a jealous cat doesn’t know that love doesn’t work that way. Jealous cats feel terribly insecure. If we come and hug you after feeling jealous, it is not love and devotion, it is insecurity and can go to a point where I can get aggressive and chase all the other cats and kittens away. But I know that it will upset my human and that is why I just sit here or follow her to the garden, but stay at a distance to see what she is doing. It doesn’t make me feel good at all. I need to find a way out of this.

The other day my human saw me hissing at them and got a fairly good idea of what I was going through. She told me that she was going to cuddle the kittens and much to my dismay, she did and then she picked me up, I resisted a little but she hugged me hard and tickled my belly and my ears the way I love it. I realised this was an ‘everybody gets some love round’ because again she started petting the mother cat, Lisa. I decided to sulk and wandered off to hide under the bed and take a nap. Isolation and a nap always work wonders for me.

I woke up feeling lonely and hungry. As I went into the kitchen, I was warmly greeted by my human with a tin of tuna. Oh, so she still loves me! As she heaped tuna from the tin on to my dish, a lot of fuss and kitty-talk followed that always works well on me.

I ate till I could eat no more and was sitting down to groom myself on my favourite kitchen counter, I was picked up again by my human, slung across her shoulder and taken to the lounge only to be draped on the couch. I sat close to her throughout the show that she was watching and she stroked my fur. This was love growing. I realised that a piece of cake may go out to the guests in the garden, but the whole cake is mine and enough for everybody.