Okay, so I need some help, and maybe some advice. I wouldn’t normally go to tumblr for help but I wanted to see what other people have to say.
So I have two cats, recent adoptions (like within the year) . They are a brindle black cat named Odysseus and a black cat named Ulysses. Both are neutered and adopted together since they had bonded in their foster home.
Both of them are sweet as pie, with Ulysses, just under a year old, being a spitfire whose cute and he knows it. He doesn’t like pets unless he starts them, but spends most of his free time when he’s not hunting curled up on my shoulder sleeping. He’s a little dumb but always up for a play fight or a puzzle toy. Odysseus, four- five years old is much more laid back, allowing for lots of cuddles, belly rubs, and quiet nights writing and reading with his purring body on my lap. He’s very food oriented, he was a stray for at least a year, but takes care of his little bro like a father.
Since both look “black” I saved them from extended adoption stays at the shelter , with Odysseus being very close to the time limit for his stay. As such I am very protective of them. Which makes me worried about a habit the older cat has that the younger cat is picking up.
Odysseus refuses to cross one door in my house. Specifically my master bathroom.He will violently growl and stiffen at this one door should you bring him nearby. Attempts to carry him across the door way will only end in claws coming out. If I close the door he will avoid it and if he needs to approach it he will puff up. Occasionally I find him in the dark, alone, growling and yowling at the closed door, as if something is there.
I would normally brush this off as a weirdness he picked up. He doesn’t need to use the door and I prefer it closed but sometimes the yowl sound pained as if something is hurting him. I will rush across the house expecting blood but I only find him growling and puffed up staring.He also will not allow me near the door if he can help it. At times he will perch in a nearby dresser and the normally docile cat will swipe at me and growl to keep me back. No other door, not even the one quiet close to it illicits this reaction. If I am even looking like I am going through it the cat that defers to a kitten half his size and flops in my arms will try to be dominat to deter me.
If he can not deter me he will take up a “guard” stance and stalk around into the room through an alternate route to the room and stand gaurd while I work in or use the bathroom. More than once he has stubbornly refused to allow me to use my bathtub, going so far as to sit in it even when I turn on the hated water. He will get soaked and then grudgingly perch on the tub side and stare at the door growling at these times.
In this same vein my kitten has taken up the mantel when he is busy. He does similar, though he talks more than growls.
I would actually still mark this down to cats being anxious and weird but I have a few things that bother me.
I am a pagan who has taken a break from that world mostly due to circumstances that I won’t go into. That being said many years of being in that space has given me a radar for the weird. The home I have is perfectly normal and I have felt safe As I ever have except for 3 things :
1) I have a reoccurrence of age old nightmares of being dragged underwater , but rather than the normal seaweed in the ocean, I instead get dragged down in my bathtub by something I can’t see.
2) I hate the closet in our room with a passion. I refuse to face it when I sleep, I send my partner into because it feels like I’m intruding. I only go in when I have to. To make matters worse during the first weeks in my house the kitten got himself stuck in in really unlikely places (15 feet off the ground, in a formerly clasped box , in a giant tub he couldn’t have gotten into with out help.) until I kiddie locked the door.
3) there is a space between the bathtub wall and the closet wall that was constantly “springing leaks” to the point I had water pouring through my bathrooms vent on the consistent before they redirected the pipes. Now it just makes thumps every now and then.
So I am asking for some help here : what is going on with my cats? Is there a way to stop it? Is there someone I can turn to to keep them safe. I can’t use ouija, and I’m not naturally a medium. I’ve tried smudging but I’m not sure it’s working.