As I have mentioned before, Huck does this little somersault trick, where he presses his forehead against the basement door in the kitchen, presses forward, tucks his chin, and somersaults so that he is lying on his back, tail end against the door and head in the middle of the kitchen floor, looking up expectantly.
He is looking up expectantly because this is the point where I coo "Ohhhh! Did himums do a sommysault? Did himums do a sommysault? Good boys who do sommysaults get treats! Yes they do!"*
And then I open the cabinet and get him a treat, and Rannie, who heard all the fussing and the opening of the cabinet door and the rustling of the treat bag comes in, and I give her one too, which neatly illustrates the Free Rider problem. (Which isn't much of a problem, since Huck got his treat and doesn't seem to mind if others got some, too.)
This morning, I'm standing in the kitchen, talking to Bobbi about various breakfast possibilities, when there is a thump, soon followed by another, and soon a steady thumping noise is coming from the basement door. Out of the corner of my eye, it is apparent that Huck had done his food-producing trick and, when nobody noticed, just started doing it over and over again because, hey, we were standing right there and sooner or later somebody would get him a cat treat, right?
*If you tell anybody I coo baby talk at Bobbi's cat, you'd better start wearing kevlar knee guards, and that's all I have to say about that.
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24 comments:
I think that cat's already out of the bag, Tam.
Naw, don't worry about it. Your nersty lil secret's safe with us.
;)
JPG
HA! Like everyone didn't already know that Rosholme was the epicenter of coo'ing.
She talks more baby talk to my cat than I do.
As I type this I have a cat strewn across my lap and am sneezing because of cat allergies. I consider the baby talk a non issue. BTW Mizz Myra is a 6 year old rescue cat and a real sweetheart.
wait, why haven't you put the vid up on youtube yet?
-SM
I have spread the word to all that will listen you baby talked a cat....I have hard knees...
Pavlov wins! He has you well trained.
(and I know the 'baby talk' was just prosaic license - you would NEVER do that in real life!)... covers knees and slinks away...
Kevlar knee pads. Somehow I expected worse, if you know what I mean.
Your secret is safe.
wv: mousi (really)
I have 4 dogs. I do a lot of cooing talk to them...like they don't understand it when I talk normally to them, right?
Note to Self: Purchase inexpensive video camera through Tam's Amazon link and have it shipped to Roseholme. Pay Roberta to video tape said activity and post to youtube. Hilarity will ensue.
hahahahahahahahaa...
Not a word.
Pay Roberta to video tape said activity and post to youtube.
Which activity? The somersault or the cooing?
RandyGC, the answer to your question is 'yes'.
"If you tell anybody I coo baby talk at Bobbi's cat"
I expect it would be more interesting to see how you speak to the S&W collection.
"Whoos a kwoot lil lemon squeezer! Yooo are! Yes yoo arr the kwoootest lil .38 S&W evarr yes yoo arre!"
We were trying to toilet train our cats, but one of them got injured (unrelated to the toilet training) and then got diarhea from the antibotics for his injury. So now he associates pooping in the litter box with pain, so he poops in the sink instead.
Needless to say, I'm envious of "cats who do tricks" and would love to just get all three cats to use the litter box again.
We love them, but refer to them as our "little furry retared children," especially recently with all the poop problems.
Rob
Am I the only one who expected this tale to end with the basement door being unlatched and the cat somersaulting down the stairs????
Obviously Huck has read Pavlov, and in a nifty turn-about, has YOU trained!
With the recent passing of my Aussie, Torry, who would charge the TV whenever any kind of critter came on, my ex-ranch tomcat today decided he needed to at least check out the dinosaurs on some show I had on TV. Actually stood up on his hind legs (we don't call him "Lardass" for nothing) and pawed at the dinos.
That was after swatting the 100# Old English Sheepdog in the head and then running off.
Cat are just plain weird.
So I just got the baby to go to sleep, and now I'm sitting here with my hand over my mouth trying to stifle the laughter so I don't wake him up again..
By god, my WV is "untam".
This last summer, my nine-year old Russian Blue was introduced to Miss Tacticute's promised black kitten. This was not taken well.
Said black kitten, named Lily, was introduced to the Litter Robot. All completely above board and normal, except that the Litter Robot smelled of Different Cat.
So we ended up with kitten crap in the upstairs hallway-end, around the door of the master bedroom, and along the wall downstairs in the living room.
We tried to train Lily by restricting her access to the standard Cat Crapping Location, but this causes a problem, because this put the aforementioned kitten between the regular house area and the Cat Crapping Area. So the nine-year old Russian Blue named Nessa began crapping in the dining room area, as she would not move past the terrifying kitten to her normal Crapping Location.
Thus began a summer long project of purchasing large kennels to contain each cat, right next to each other, then joining the kennels together so the cats were sharing spaces and had food water and litter in common, then melding the kennel to the usual Cat Crapping Location entrance with food and water co-located with Cat Crapping, then finally removing the kennel and allowing them free access to the house with food and water and litter still co-located, then finally moving the food and water back to the normal place with the cats sharing the common Cat Crapping Location.
Four months to finally get the Cats to Crap in the same Location.
It Can Be Done.
Rob Reed:
Understand entirely about cats associating objects with pain. Several things to try.
Since one of the cat's most important senses is that of smell, there is a good possibility that it might be the smell of the litter box that the cat associates with pain. I am frequently appalled at how badly supposed cat lovers are at keeping their litter boxes clean. A cat's nose is at least a hundred times more sensitive than ours. Imagine how you would feel if your nose was a hundred times more sensitive than it is now, and you had to crap in a dirty litter box. The litter box should be cleaned DAILY. Get in the habit - do it every morning on your way out the door to work, or every night on your way to bed, but do it daily. This might help.
If this does not help, try changing cat litter brands. Cat litter brands all smell different to a cat, and the new smell may change the smell/pain association.
If all else fails, buy a new litter box that does not look like the old litter box.
Lastly, there is the ownership problem. Cats are fiercely territorial. The cat having it's own litter box may help also.
BoxStockRacer
I won't tell, if you don't tell anybody I just let my pooter-pie out the door, while telling him what an oozer-p'doozer he is.
That T. Gondii makes us do some weird stuff, sometimes, don't it?
Oh, Og wins the thread.
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