Hear some updates on leash training Miso. Last week, I took her to my school for the first time! I was nervous about how she would react being in a new environment and being surrounded by so may new people. But she did great! At first she was getting anxious in the car ride there, she is fairly used to car rides but it’s been a while. She really doesn’t like parking garages and unfortunately thats the only parking that my school provides. She really like sitting on my shoulder or around my neck, for her thats her comfort spot especially when she is in a new environment. She was really anxious in the parking garage but the moment that we came outside, she was doing fine.
I walked her around campus a little bit and then i needed to meet some friends for a picnic on the lawn. I wasn’t sure how Miso would react having to stay in one place with us but she did so good! She mostly cuddled with me or just sat on the picnic blanket with me and my friends. At first I thought she was scared of the grass because she would sit at the edge of the blanket and stare at the grass without ever actually touching it. But eventually she warmed up to it and explored the lawn as much as her leash would allow.
Something that surprised me was how cuddly Miso became. Normally she is not a super affectionate and cuddly cat so during the picnic I wasn’t expecting her to want to sit in my lap. Anything thing that surprised me was she became shy when I tried introducing her to my friends. she would turn her back to them and then just sit in my lap. I really wasn’t expecting that of her because I would normally describe Miso as a very extroverted and energetic cat. Maybe it was all too overwhelming to her, being in a new place and meeting new people, so she wanted to stick by me who was someone she was very familiar with. I’m not sure but all of my friends thought that Miso is super cute and toward the end, she warmed up to them.
Something that didn’t surprise me at all was how Miso was being nosy about the food my friends brought. It was a Bring Your Own Food picnic and some of my friends Brough sandwiches or Chick-fil-a and Miso kept trying to eat it all! Miso sometimes can be food aggressive which shows up by the way she tries to get into any food that is made available to her. So every time she kept trying to sniff and eat my friend’s food, I had to pull her away. Sometimes at home, if I am eating something that would be safe for her to try, I would give her a bite. So this might have encouraged her strong interest in human food to be honest.
After the picnic was over, we got to meet another cat on campus! This was the campus cat, Belle. Unfortunately this was Belle’s last day on campus, she has to be put down due to kidney disease and other health issues. So when me and Miso ran into Belle on campus that day, there was a huge crowd of people around her to say goodbye to her. Miso wasn’t used to this amount of people, many who wanted to pet and interact with her as well. She started to freak out a little bit and she really dug her nails into my shoulder and neck. But I chose not to introduce her to Belle because I didn’t want Belle to have a stressful last day and just overall, I felt really bad for taking Miso into this crowd of people because the day was supposed to be about saying goodbye to Belle. I felt that Miso distracted from that.
Overall I felt that this was a really good outing for Miso. I hope to bring her to walk on my school campus more often and to get her used to meeting new people. Maybe she can become the new unofficial campus cat!
