Sometimes he will flinch when I go to pet him. He never did that before, and while I am undoubtedly reading into his behavior, it feels like he doesn’t fully trust me. He has always been wary that I have ulterior motives when I am sitting on my couch and call to him, I think because he associates that with my giving him the medicine of some kind (he is prone to ear infections with all the hair in his ears.)

But the flinching is new. It doesn’t happen all the time, even much of the time, but does happen occasionally. There is also, it seems, a certain shyness around me.