Eigo de Essay
Training Fuku There's a saying, "A man may cause his own dog to bite him," which means that you have to be careful as there is a chance you may be betrayed by the one you trust. A dog is a trustworthy, loyal, and obedient member of your family, so it must be a shocking incident if you get bitten by your dog. However, this saying loses its meaning if you replace the word "dog" with "cat." It's a daily matter for me, a long-time cat owner who gets bitten by my cat. Let me tell you how it goes. Fuku was found in a deserted village in Fukushima when he was only two weeks old and grew up in a cage in an animal shelter. Being on his own, he never had a chance to learn any social skills. I got him when he was three months old and thought I could guide him to be a properly domesticated cat as I had had some experience of keeping cats at home. How wrong I was... I used several methods to train Fuku. There are things cats hate: water, loud sound, menthol smell, and others. All I had to do was providing Fuku links between these unfavorable matters for cats and his undesirable behaviors for me. When Fuku was on the dining table, for example, I splashed water on his face. It worked until Fuku learned that jumping onto the table always attracted my attention, and some exciting chase would follow this action. After some running around, he got his splash of water, but it was apparent that the excitement was greater than the punishment. There was another unforgivable behavior of Fuku's that had to be dealt with. Biting my arms and legs was his means of communication, especially when he was frustrated. One time when I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, a friend of mine looked at my arms with numerous scars and asked me if I had run into a barbed-wire fence or something. To protect myself from Fuku's attack, I knew water splash was not a good method and used a different approach. First, I brought two metal pot lids from the kitchen and used them as cymbals when Fuku bit me. The loud sound they made surprised him, but it was hard to use the cymbals before he bit me, so I didn't have fewer scars than before. Now I apply menthol cream to my arms and legs, and it does have a deterrent effect. The problem is that the smell disappears soon, and I need to reapply it pretty often, or forget about it and get bitten anyway.
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