Copycat: a brief photo essay
9:12 a.m.: Kaga chooses a new spot in which to nap. Neither cat had ever slept here previously, mostly because it's usually covered with stuff.
10:05 a.m.: Squish, while playing around on a desk chair, spots Kaga lying in this new spot.
10:50 a.m.: Kaga has vacated the new spot of his own volition. And oh look, Squish has a new spot in which to lie.
This was absolutely not intended as a series at first. I took the first photo because Kaga had never slept in that spot before. I took the second photo because Squish was being goofy trying to climb onto the back of the chair, and only later realized he had spotted Kaga in this new spot. Then when I discovered Squish had gotten up there, I of course had to take a photo of that.
This is far from the only copycat experience with Squish in recent times. He has climbed into the shelf basket now that he's seen Kaga do it. He ignored the small window in the living room (prefering to sleep in the window seat in the dining room) until he saw Kaga sleeping there--now Kaga has to chase him out of that spot half the time. We have a length of fabric draped over the canopy framework at the head of the bed, and Kaga likes to stand on the headboard and peer behind the fabric (he seems to think there's going to be a window back there if he just keeps checking for it). Recently, after watching Kaga do this one Saturday morning while we were all lounging in bed, Squish started doing it too.
And of course there is the ongoing war over toys: Basically, no matter how many toys are available, Squish only wants to play with the one specific toy that Kaga is playing with. He will ignore any number of toys for days on end, but the moment Kaga starts playing with something, Squish wants to play with it too--indeed, shortly after the last photo in the series above was taken, Kaga came into the office with a toy, and Squish abandoned the new spot to come down and try to take the toy. It's gotten so bad that in the past few days I have deliberately removed Squish from the room so that Kaga can play with his toy in peace.
I haven't yet figured out if this is little-brother-esque emulation, or if Squish is way more of an asshole than he lets on.