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“I only regret that I have but one face to palm for my country.”
Friday, May 24, 2013
Sometimes they're creepy-smart.
Watch as the cat knocks on the door and then turns around expectantly to see if it opens. I'm fairly certain he doesn't have the whole chain of events ironed out (like a three-year-old or a drunk ex-boyfriend, he would probably knock 'til his foot fell off without ever thinking "Maybe nobody's home...") but there's an obvious rudimentary cause-and-effect relationship in his pointy little head between beating on the door and a monkey opening it.
About fifteen minutes before feeding time, Huck starts knocking stuff off Bobbi's dresser or hitting his sister, because it spurs a reaction from a mommy* that may involve putting food in front of The Stomach That Walks Like A Cat.
*I'm not being cutesy-wootsie here: Whereas dogs have fairly sophisticated social arrangements, cats have only one way of relating to their huge food-providing human companions.
I've said it for years... the little jerks are smart.
ReplyDeleteThey are creepy smart sometimes. And other times they run smack into the sliding glass door because they didn't realize it was closed.
ReplyDeleteNever a dull moment when you share your home with felines.
I've said for years that if they had opposable thumbs, they'd be hunting us!
ReplyDeleteHey, for a long time in our genus/family history they did hunt us.
ReplyDeleteThen we killed off the larger ones in proximity to our homes, and do our very best only to let the little ones around us.
The only reason our cats just don't kill and eat us when they're hungry is the difference in size. Also they know they've got a sweet deal where they don't have to work for their dinner.
ReplyDeleteIt's disturbing to see how good they are as predators versus us. The way in which they hunt together is so sophisticated, it makes SEAL Team Six look like chumps.
ReplyDelete-Rob
Every morning at 6AM, both cats are either in the bed or on the dresser or nightstands perpetrating shenanigans.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that they get fed at 7AM. Every. Day. And they know it.
You'd think it would vary through the year with the daylight hours, but it doesn't. It's like they're looking at the clock and deciding, "It's time."
"Machine Gun" kitty!
ReplyDeleteWe just leave food and water out for our cat. She eats when she wants.
ReplyDeleteBut she still perpetrates shenanigans often.
She lost an eye to infection as a kitten an I sometimes wonder if it shows her ghosts or something making her freak out.
That is some serious fast-twitch muscle action.
ReplyDeleteAlath
Carmel IN
Oh yea. I'd have to crack the door slightly and hose the kitty down with a squirt bottle for doing something that annoying.
ReplyDeleteNot out of spite, mind you. I would be doing this for the exact same reason you train a dog not to bite fingers while playing.
If the cat is annoying you daily at 6:45 AM for the 7 AM feeding you would need to mix up this ritual. He doesn't get fed after you wake up, he gets fed after the alarm clock in the kitchen goes off. Funny thing though, that alarm clock gets changed daily to different random times like 7:15, 7:45, 8:00 or 8:15 by his humans.
Cats.
ReplyDeleteWe had one growing up from when I was six (after the dog the parents had before I was born got put to sleep) up until I was 22 or 23. She was a hoot.
Think she got taken from momma too early, as she had a habit of sitting in the litter box and peeing over the side, but that's not the point.
We had linoleum in the kitchen, and her litter box and bed was in the basement. One day, mom waxed the floor, and Bridgitte came tearing through the dining room into the kitchen at full tilt, tried to stop, did two full, spreadeagled 360 degree spins, and ran into the (open) basement door. Which fortunately, was a hollow core model. Me, my brother, and mom (don't think Dad was there) were all watching. She shook her head, started licking her paw...then noticed all of us staring at her, she took off into the basement.
We didn't see her for about a half hour or so.
Secret Code: zedrat sent
Sure he did, da Comrade?
Scott,
ReplyDeleteI forgot to mention: The bowls (dry food and water) are usually still about half full when they try to get us up at 6.
They're not hungry, they're just ornery.
Cats are famous for their "I meant for that to happen" look.
ReplyDeleteAnd for disappearing for long periods of time after you laugh at them.
Fuzzy, we once had one who was good with the arrangement until he could see the smallest sliver of the bottom of the bowl.
ReplyDeleteWhen that happened he'd pester you endlessly until you topped off the bowl.
I like how what starts as a genteel "tap... tap... tap.... tap..." quickly turns into a Gene Krupa solo.
ReplyDeleteMidnight figured out doorknobs pretty early on. He just couldn't get enough of a grip with his paws to turn them, no matter how hard he tried. Which he did, frequently.
ReplyDeleteThere's a reason I won't get those lever-style doorknobs.
Gremlin can open the garage door if it isn't locked. So Oleg keeps it locked. He can also open and close the drawers where we _used_ to keep the food. So far, the tupperware it's now in has stymied him.
ReplyDeleteHe was most disgruntled the last time he went to the vet - after making a break for it, acheiving the floor, he found there was no way to escape. So, Gremlin opened a drawer, hopped in, and shut it with himself inside. Now there's a cat protesting this indignity!
I put "childproof" latches on my lower cabinets to keep the cats out. That worked for about a year, then they figured out how to unlatch them.
ReplyDeleteI've added a second latch that has to be pushed in a different direction to each door. We'll see how long it takes for D'Artagnan to figure that out.
I know as a man, I'm "supposed" to be a dog guy.
ReplyDeleteDogs, man's best friend for unswerving loyalty and blind obedience.
It is precisely the independence and amazing cunning (hunting skills, especially) that make me love cats.
I've had great dogs, but cats have always been more entertaining, day on day.
My oldest is 18 in October, I get up at 4:30 am daily, at 3:30 am, he's up on the bed purring up a storm, even on the weekends.........brat........posted.......;-)
ReplyDeleteJake - when I was growing up on base in Germany, a neighbor had a cat named Charles Dickens that would use the lever style door handles to let himself in. In an eight unit stairwell, he had plenty of places to visit!
ReplyDeleteOMG you weren't in Baumholder during the early 80's were you? If so I remember that cat.
DeleteLOL, he's tryin!!!
ReplyDeleteYears ago my girlfriend and I were sitting on her couch, and I heard the toilet flush.
ReplyDeleteWhen I looked at her she laughed and said, "That's $NAME_OF_CAT. When he thinks he's not getting enough attention he flushes the toilet."
One underestimates the cleverness and manipulation skills of cats at one's peril.
ReplyDeleteI once saw the cat across the street, ensconced on a sheltered porch on a rainy day, hear its 'staff' round the corner in their car a half block away. The cat immediately approached the nearest puddle and rolled in it. When the aforementioned staff parked the car and got out they were greeted by their poor bedraggled kitty who had obviously suffered greatly, what with being out in the rain all day and all.
Talk about laying on a guilt trip.
Ratbane used to like to go out in th pouring rain and get soaked, so her could come back in and get toweled off. Soak, dry, repeat.
ReplyDeleteSparrowbane is almost tall enough to reach the lever-style handle on the back door. But not quite, and even if he could, he couldn't unlock it.
He, too, does the "knocking things off the dresser so they know to feed me" thing.
Take note of the even smarter cat sitting back and letting the other one do all the work.
ReplyDeleteHe thinks the knock summons the humans. Heh.
ReplyDeleteTamara hast hier recht. I remind a gal I used to hang out with telling me a similar thing. She recommended that I say something like "mrewrr?" to a kitten with which I was trying to ingratiate myself. It worked like a charm.
ReplyDeleteIt did not work with Uzi. I think he thought of me as his grown-up cat buddy, as I thought of him. Oh God I miss him!
It's been a year now since he was MIA, presumed dead. Owhell, he had a good run. I think he was 17 when he died, and maybe spent a month indoors in his entire life, unless you count the time we both spent sleeping in the back of my truck when we didn't have a house to live in.