The Good News: It's NOT the mother

A number of my devoted fans(4 to be exact) have inquired as to how the cat therapy session went. Rather than offering my opinion, I will describe the session's antecedent and the one hour session itself. On the day before therapy, I received an e-mail from the therapist containing a one hour segment of sound to be downloaded to the computer. I presumed I was supposed to play it for Moe Moe and did. It started with a female voice cooing, "you are a great cat. You are a very great cat.You are hearing seagulls and wonderful sounds." New age music--the kind you hear when you're getting a hot stone massage at a high end spa--played softly in the background, interspersed with odd sounds that I assumed were seagulls. Periodically, the female voice repeated softly, " you are a great cat. You are a very great cat. Yes you are." Moe Moe seemed to enjoy the download. He climbed up to the chair in in front of the computer and fell into a relaxed sleep, head and one paw hanging off the chair. I was in the sofa opposite the computer, relaxed and soothed by the sound, but craving a massage. My head and paw were not hanging off the sofa. Promptly at 4:00, the therapist arrived. She had a large tote bag with her, out of which she took crumpled tissue paper, a massive amount of catnip , two toys with feathers and an empty paper towel roll. She asked me to play the sound download she had sent so he would, in the future, associate it with the session. As Moe Moe rolled around on the catnip covered paper, she laughingly said, we'll get him stoned. And, for her entire visit, he lay, mostly inert, in a stoned trance on my living room carpet. I reiterated what I previously described as his issues...his attacking me daily, stealing food and destroying the furniture. With respect to the first issue, although she did not say it in so many words, she made it clear that it was not my fault. He simply has a lot of energy.(I thought that was somewhat euphemistically put.) She inquired as to whether I had friends in the building with dogs. I didn't know why she was asking, but I answered that I didn't. She said,"that's too bad because one way of channeling that energy was by him being with a dog. He'll be tense and observing the dog will expend the excess energy." She continued, "the dog should be on a leash and if I pet the dog I should say--Moe Moe, you want me to pet the dog." That's so Moe Moe thinks it was his idea. I asked what I should do if he appears to want to attack the dog. She suggested that I distract him by throwing a toy. I felt bad that I didn't have friends in the building with dogs---actually what made me feel worse is thatI don't have friends in the building at all--but then I remembered that my cousin has a wonderful dog, Ghost, who would make a great therapy dog for Moe Moe. The therapist became all excited and her prescription was that I arrange a play date with Ghost and Moe Moe. I explained that a major problem with my "great cat," as she kept calling him throughout, is that once he gets that demonic look in his eye, his teeth go into my leg very quickly. Her remedy was to be quicker that his is. (I'm still mulling that over.) With respect to eating my and everyone else's food, she praised me for doing the right thing by locking him in my bedroom or, as I put it, putting him in jail. She suggested that I not call it "putting him in jail," but rather tell him I'm giving him his"private time," because he will then think it was his own idea to be isolated from society. As to his shredding my chairs, she suggested I get a tall scratching post. Why he would use it when he has the dining room chairs, is beyond me, but I'll try. During much of the session, we discussed restaurants in the neighborhood. I paid her $365.