The Transition of Spike

This is the story about the time my cat, Spike, came to college with me. Spike is an eight-year-old ragamuffin who is one of the most laid-back cats you will ever meet, but with the fact that he had never been anywhere other than my house ever since I had adopted him, the adjustment was a little rough. He is also a registered Emotional Support Animal, which is why I was able to bring him with me in the first place.

I moved all of my belongings into my dorm and my roommate and I set up our room before I moved Spike in, in the hopes that this would reduce the stress he would feel about being in a new area. Moving things around and there being the possibility of loud noises would only have made things harder for him. Then, once we were ready, I went home one weekend and returned with my cat.

The drive to campus went smoothly. He has a mesh carrier that can unzip at the top, so I strapped it in with the seatbelt then opened it enough that he could see out the window the entire ride there. Upon arrival, though, his anxiety started to rise. As I entered the dorm, he was bombarded with a myriad of new sights, smells, and sounds, and he immediately retreated back into his carrier. It took nearly an hour for him to gain the courage to come out of it, and we tried to be as quiet as we could to keep him from getting scared and returning to it once more.

A few days went by like this. Spike would come out of his carrier to lay in my bed at nights while I slept, but as soon as I got up he would either hide under the blanket or go back into his carrier, which housed the familiar scent of both him and home. He would also come out to eat his food, drink some water, and use the litterbox; if we coaxed him out with a toy - such as a laser pointer - he would come out for that, as well. And slowly but surely, he grew more and more comfortable with being out and about in the room, even going so far as to lay on my roommate's bed sometimes rather than just my own. Within the first week, he barely hid in his carrier at all anymore.

But then one day he grew a bit too confident. There was a smell he did not recognize coming from on top of my roommate's desk, and like all felines, Spike was curious. So he decided it would be a good idea to jump up onto her desk to figure out what it was. This is where the next challenge presented itself: My roommate also had an Emotional Support Animal - it was a guinea pig - and Spike had never encountered anything other than a cat or dog before, certainly not something as small as a guinea pig.

Luckily, he didn't think the guinea pig was a toy or try to play with it at all, but when it moved, that scared Spike back into his carrier once more, knocking things over in his hurry to get there. This forced us to realize we should probably introduce the two so that wouldn't happen again. We began letting Spike see the guinea pig for short periods of time at first, then let it run around some on the ground for longer amounts while I held Spike so he couldn't chase it. Eventually, he no longer felt the need to investigate the scent because he had learned what it was and that it was not a threat.

Other than those initial challenges, bringing my ESA to college with me went rather smoothly. He has always been okay with meeting new people, so visitors weren't a problem, and once he got used to the area/his surroundings, along with the guinea pig, he made himself at home. Something he picked up while there, though, is laying on my keyboard while I am trying to type, tearing my attention away from my work and onto him, and this is something he still takes pleasure in doing while I work.