It has been over 3 months since Naomi came to our home. I finally did an oil painting pet portrait for her.
It is not a smooth adapting process if I would say, but I’m glad that at least I keep my calm and try to solve problem one at a time.
First, I spent sometime to switch the litter type. She is now using pine pellets which is environmental friendly.
Second, I figure out that she likes to use one litter box for poo and another clean one for pee. Because I caught her peeing on carpet several times (Yes there was time out for her). After observing her for couple of days, I noticed that she usually pee right after poo. With that being said, once she used one clean litter box for poo, she needs another clean litter box for pee as well. So I placed an extra one side by side for her to use.
Third, my litter box cleaning routine didn’t meet her standard. Why so many litter box issues? Now I clean all litter boxes twice per day. In the morning and before bed time. I believe she doesn’t like too much saw dust accumulated at the bottom of litter box.
Fourth, yes, another litter box problem. She REALLY prefer some locations. My husband tried to move her litter boxes to somewhere else (AKA, invisible to hooman). She stopped visiting her litter boxes and went back to her favorite spot to unload herself WITHOUT the litter box. So I moved them back and told my husband stop moving her litter boxes unless he can figure something out.
Fifth, due to all the problems above, I now know how to effectively clean cat urine stain on carpet. I even looked through some professional carpet cleaner forum. Some of them have a professional manual on how to remove urine from carpet, but they only gave to professional cleaners. LOL
Sixth, scratching issue. She has one horizontal cardboard scratcher that came with her on adoption day but she didn’t use it at that time. Then I got her at least 5 vertical scratching posts with different surface texture including wood. She didn’t use them at all. Then I tried the product called FeliScratch. And guess what, AFTER I treated all vertical scratching posts with this product, Naomi went directly to her old horizontal cardboard scratcher and use it daily. She still doesn’t use any of the vertical posts. Couple of days later I realized that she needs more than one scratcher so I got bunch and placed them according to her usual routes. She uses them all~! I still can’t figure out what happened to FeliScratch but I’m just glad that she doesn’t destroy my carpet anymore.
Last but not least, her favorite toy is rubber wrist band. I have no words on that one. I bought her toy mice, feather toy and so on but she loves our old rubber wrist band, and plastic Easter egg.
In December 2020, I painted my cat. In January 2021, I happen to see the proko challenge on Instagram. Topic is pet portrait! And judge is Aaron Blaise~! The most important thing is now I have a pet and I have a painting of her on hand~! So yes I submit this painting for January proko challenge. It is fun to participate. I guess this is the first time that I officially submit something to a “challenge”. Besides, their rules are straightforward. I’ve looked some other art challenges on Instagram and their rules are hundred pages book such as you have to follow 20 people first and # everyone when you post your picture.
Here I present pet portrait for my cat, Naomi~
The reference photo for this painting–>
I plan to give this painting to Feline Rescue as a present once I can put varnish on it. I hope they would enjoy it~^_^
Although I lists those problems in the beginning, they don’t eliminate how much happiness that Naomi brings to us. She now plays with my toddler girl and school age boy. Well, I think she runs away from him for the most of time, haha.