Do Cats Have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

Esp. indoor cats. This autistic woman on NPR the other day said that they did, and I kinda thought she was fulling of the BS, but now I am thinking that much of what my cats do it OCDish. In partic, one of my cats has this MANIA about sitting on my shoulder -- head on shoulder, butt on chest -- whenever I am in the computer chair. It's not the most stable position in the world, either. Who but an OCDer would insist on sitting in such a crazy place every time I sit down?

Holy crap I haven't lolled so hard in ages.

"shh i want to put it on the web"

My friend's cat used to run around the room in circles and eventually jump startled onto the sofa if you whistled the Superman tune.

obsessive catpulsive disorder

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/1348/caytyt4.jpg

There's another one on my lap just out of the pic.

INSANE.

This autistic woman on NPR the other day

temple grandin?

I suspected it was Temple Grandin, but I missed the first part of the interview.

So . . . I now have two kittens. Is there any way to encourage them not to immediately walk on / sleep on / obscure my laptop, or should I just assume that that's the way it goes with cats?

She's NPR's favorite autistic woman!
xpost

It's a losing battle.

Try hissing at them.

I have a habit of leaving my lappy 3/4 closed if I am going to do something, because the moment I leave it 1/2 open I am going to be making some very strange ILX posts.

i sometimes get kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkl;'' from friend's cat in gchat

Yeah, I can't walk away for five minutes without NumLock, CAPSLOCK, or some long thread of xcgggggggggggggggggggg3333333 gibberish getting entered. I love em to death, but oy.

i have to stand my keyboard on end while sleeping now due to friends having convos with mine's own

I was followed in the street by an OCD-cat the other day, and spent about 10 minutes trying to distract it enough that it would go back home instead of following me and I wouldn't get accused of cat-stealing.

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/funny-pictures-kitten-falls-asleep-while-writing-a-letter.jpg

My dog likes to sleep on my keyboard, which can lead to the computer thinking I'm trying to open 1000s of files etc, and I have to restart.

my cat sits on my arm while I'm trying to use the mouse. I now know all of the one-handable keyboard shortcuts in excel.

Newest OCD behavior of cat in the pic above (Maggie): She RUSHES into the bathroom whenever anyone is done showering (and often, before they are finished). She jumps into the tub and stares at the droplets going down the shower curtain (and sometimes bats at them, tearing holes in the curtain).

She has gotten so obsessive about this lately that she's convinced the other cat to join her on her shower trips.

Our cat Francie does this! As soon as I turn the shower off and open the curtain, she runs in all MEWOMEOWMOEOMEOWEMMOEOWOWOW, jumps on the side of the tub and MEOWOWOWOWOEMREWO until I pet her head, then she jumps in the tub and stares at the drain.

I don't know if it's OCD, but I can definitely see our cats' little pea brains get locked into circuits of repetitive behavior.

Other Francie Circuits:

When my husband and I are sitting on the couch, she walks back and forth across the back of it, meowing (she's very fucking vocal) and stopping to sniff the backs of our heads, until we pat the cushion at which point she very slowing inches down the back of the couch, until her front paws are on the cushion while her back paws are still on the back of the couch, and then she starts! and runs away like her ass were on fire.

When we're in bed, she stands on my night table so her face is right next to mine and then meows until I pet her, at which point she walks onto the bed and kneads the comforter until I flop her over and she falls asleep or until I push her off, at which point she returns to the night stand and meows until I pet her, etc. (She did this once while I was asleep and I dreamed that I could understand her but as soon as I woke up, I lost it. Probably for the best.)

She always sits in the same spot under a chair while we clean the litter box/feed her and the other cat, and only comes out after the other cat has started eating.

When you're on the toilet, she comes into the bathroom, meows, stretches, flops over on her side and does this cute little parentheses-shaped side stretch, rolls on her back, then stares at you and MEOWMOWEMOWMEOWMOEWMOEMWMOEW.

As one-time behaviors these are cute but the fifth time she does her back-of-the-couch circuit while we're trying to watch a movie it starts to get annoying.

Maggie also has the obsessive must-come-into-the-toilet-room disorder. She's mostly concerned with what's going into the bowl, because she's sure that something is being snuck inside w/o her knowing.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1843104814.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Oh dear.

The Other Cat runs into the bathroom in the morning to get a drink from the sink. She's old so she usually goes from floor to toilet to sink and I'm always afraid that we'll time our actions poorly and she'll jump into the actual bowl.

It's not just the human condition.

Libcrypt, what breed is your cat (the one in the pic on your shoulder)?

Cosmo and Bob definitely both have VERY set routines with stuff, especially feeding, but also as soon as it gets light in the morning they demand that I open our bedroom blind so that they can sit on the windowsill and look out at the rooftops.

If Bob wants feeding he does this thing where he comes right up at you, looks you in the eye, and chews thin air, smacking his chops quite audibly, to let you know he needs feeding. I must video it.

The cat on my shoulder is what they call "snowshoe siamese", which means that she's 1/2 traditional siamese and 1/2 American shorthair or something, so as to get the white paws.