Just Give It Up.
If you show a cat patience and kindness, keep your movements subdued, and take the time to let a cat know you are trying to understand its language and its needs, the day will come when you suddenly see the light of recognition in its eyes. Once a cat knows that the sounds you make have meaning, and that you are doing your dumb human best to communication and to learn to interpret feline body language and vocal calls, the game is on. Your cat will now take on your training with gusto. Life will never be the same.
Hooter races to his cat tree, leaps to the ledge and wraps his paws around the 'trunk'. Play stance. Time to dangle leather shoelaces and strings of feathers for him to grab. This is the game where the eyes glaze and shift and, if you get your fingers to close, you WILL get nailed. Humans have to learn the rules.
When he reaches around my chair and taps me with a paw, he want to play 'the feather game'. Once I'm up, he throws himself on the floor close to the nearest feather (I bring bird feathers in for him). I dutifully pick it up, drift it through the air - sometimes close enough for him to swipe (claws retracted this time), then I reach up high and let it go, so it can drift slowly downwards where Hooter grabs it with both paws. He never tires of this one.
The dinner call is frantic. He comes looking for me, calling and beckoning. I am to follow. He races to his food table in the computer room, looking over his shoulder as he runs to make sure I am behind him. One pounce and he's in front of the dish. "EMPTY," he shouts. "EMPTY. OMG. How can this be?". I pick up the dish and he runs after me, talking all the while I open a new can and replenish his bowl. Then he runs ahead of me, showing me the way to his table. Talking, talking, talking. I place the dish; he digs in, and purrs while he eats.
Hooter's collar is cut too short. Once it's fastened, there isn't enough fabric to tuck properly through the metal loop. Occasionally it slips off. He has not always been amenable to my putting it back on. Every time I explain to him how the tag lets everyone know he has a home and that if he ever got out of the house, we could find him again. The collar means we love him. Yesterday it fell off somewhere in the house. This morning I was woken up by the sound of deep, worried cat howls. I jumped up, afraid he was ill. Hooter was beside my bed, with the collar trailing from his mouth. He had found it brought it to me. He stood patiently while I put it back on. I couldn't believe it.
So... for those of you who think animals (animals other than us) don't think, plan, figure things out, or communicate, I'm telling you now to just give it up. It just makes us look more like stupid humans than we already do.
Hooter races to his cat tree, leaps to the ledge and wraps his paws around the 'trunk'. Play stance. Time to dangle leather shoelaces and strings of feathers for him to grab. This is the game where the eyes glaze and shift and, if you get your fingers to close, you WILL get nailed. Humans have to learn the rules.
When he reaches around my chair and taps me with a paw, he want to play 'the feather game'. Once I'm up, he throws himself on the floor close to the nearest feather (I bring bird feathers in for him). I dutifully pick it up, drift it through the air - sometimes close enough for him to swipe (claws retracted this time), then I reach up high and let it go, so it can drift slowly downwards where Hooter grabs it with both paws. He never tires of this one.
The dinner call is frantic. He comes looking for me, calling and beckoning. I am to follow. He races to his food table in the computer room, looking over his shoulder as he runs to make sure I am behind him. One pounce and he's in front of the dish. "EMPTY," he shouts. "EMPTY. OMG. How can this be?". I pick up the dish and he runs after me, talking all the while I open a new can and replenish his bowl. Then he runs ahead of me, showing me the way to his table. Talking, talking, talking. I place the dish; he digs in, and purrs while he eats.
Hooter's collar is cut too short. Once it's fastened, there isn't enough fabric to tuck properly through the metal loop. Occasionally it slips off. He has not always been amenable to my putting it back on. Every time I explain to him how the tag lets everyone know he has a home and that if he ever got out of the house, we could find him again. The collar means we love him. Yesterday it fell off somewhere in the house. This morning I was woken up by the sound of deep, worried cat howls. I jumped up, afraid he was ill. Hooter was beside my bed, with the collar trailing from his mouth. He had found it brought it to me. He stood patiently while I put it back on. I couldn't believe it.
So... for those of you who think animals (animals other than us) don't think, plan, figure things out, or communicate, I'm telling you now to just give it up. It just makes us look more like stupid humans than we already do.