Cat Diary, 40

I’ve learned Come and Sit, both of them easy, but does the old woman think I am a dog?

She keeps saying “Look.”

I look everywhere she might send a kibble.

Have I told you I’ve graduated onto grain-free kibbles? That’s mornings, anyhow. She persists feeding me the lesser kibbles from lunch time onward.

Everytime I think I’ve trained the old woman to send a kibble into the direction where I’m looking she screws the lid back onto the jar and that’s that.

Here’s me looking everywhere …

We’ve been working on it for a couple of weeks, I might’ve cracked it 20% of the time and she keeps wanting me to look at her while she throws the kibble.

That’s so labour intensive. I want to be looking into the field when the kibble sails overhead and I can see where it lands.

She started to teach me Look because she kept finding kibbles where I hadn’t found them. What does she expect? That I should sniff them out??

I want to skip Look and go to Lie Down, should be easy to pick up a bunch of food mid morning.

Not a Cat Wrangler Now

From a long time cat wrangler, I’ve gone to being a … well, words fail me. I don’t know what I now am to a cat.

Make that, not this cat.

She decides my program and when I don’t keep to it, she’ll let me know.

Like today. She acts like she’s out of patience with me and just now batted my wrist with her claw.

I’m lucky I’m wearing sleeves or there would’ve been another scar beside the one wher she got me last time.

At first I don’t even want to work out the why’s and wherefore’s. I’m furious and get the spray bottle ready should she have another go.

As the pain fades—yes, she hit a nerve—I think again. Do I really want to go back the square one with her? Not really.

I start the analysis. How have I not come up to her expectations?

Today I had a visitor for half an hour and then I went out for two hours. Both normally not what happens on Wednesday’s.

There was an extremely long and large boom lift working outside, fixing the outside of the highest balconies. When you’re on level 2 this thing is menacingly visible in all the places a cat likes to sit.

What else? Did I miss giving her any meals? Nope. She got her titbits at lunch and dinner, her breakfast hunt and her training session at 10.30 a/m.

The last feed of the day isn’t until 9 p/m. Do I spoil her? Yes. Is she spoiled? Yes, I’m inclined to think. She was a stray before she spent a hundred days at the cattery recovering.

Right now she’s pretending nothing untoward is going on, but lying nearby as though she’s waiting waiting for me to suddenly discover I haven’t done xyz for her yet.

But it’s only 8 p/m. I don’t even have the TV on for her to get narky about. Umm, what was I doing when she lashed out? Reading a book.

What? I’m not allowed to read anymore?

So, Readers, with me so far?

What does she need more of?

As I’m typing it, I’m thinking it. More attention! She needs more interaction. Or she needs more … or she needs more … or or or!

I don’t know. Biggest ongoing mystery in my life.

I’m stumped.

Cat Diary, 39

Me—Mog—trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be looking at …

Usually there are birds in there. Flitting and flying. Twittering and chirping.

Sometimes we look at mice or squirrels. When they run out of the picture I get worried amd have to check for them under the couch.

Cat Diary 38

This is me hiding from the old woman, it’s my playtime but a few minutes ago she made like she was a bird! Can you believe it, she puckered her lips and whistled!

At first I couldn’t believe she was making those noises. I’m shocked that she can. I hid so she couldn’t see me or more to the point that she can’t see me!

She’s been saying for a while that she’ll get me more catnip. The shop where she got the previous supply closed down. It’s no excuse. Times like these, with her whistling, I want to hide my head in the catip pillowcase.

We’ve got it growing too, but so disappointing only three of the seeds made plants. here I’m trying to take in the goodness of the single leaf she allowed me.

I ask you, one leaf! She said because all told there are only eight leaves. It’s not a viable plantation.

Sleeping Impatiently

This something cats are capable of, lying right beside your chair and having a little doze while they wait impatiently for you to stop typing and get up already, it’s time to do xyz for me! ME! ME!

Like, get going old woman! It’s 10.30 AM! We are so far behind schedule I am quite out of sorts! And you threw a towel at me this morning when I hooked you to make you hurry up!

I’m not forgiving you until we are back on track!!!

Cat Diary 37

We have started training. Apparently it’s a good idea for me to learn the meaning of some human words. This week we’re tackling “Sit” and “Come”.

When the old woman says “Sit” she means for me to go sit beside her on the couch. When I get there, I usually get some kibbles on her lap table, which is the board she lays over her knees to eat her dinner off or use her laptop on. “Sit” is easy.

“Come” is hard. She wants me to come right up to her feet before she puts the kibble down. When I have finished the kibble, she walks to the next place where she can perch on a chair or a bed, and says it again. “Come.”

I so don’t see the point. I’ll sit down and wait for the next kibble right where I am.

So then, next time we did “Come” I was really hungry, and it was worth my while to just follow her around the house, and be there before she even said the word. Too easy!

Probably she’ll make it hard again next time.

PS, I’m also learning to take selfies …

Cat Diary 36

I’ve started learning to put my head in things to get the kibbles out. For a long time I didn’t like my whiskers to be bent backward. Now, because I know there’ll be a kibble at the end of my hunt, I can bear it.

It proves that we cats are just as good at delayed gratification as humans are, don’t you think?

The old woman craftily loads kibbles into my catnip pillow case … I swear I don’t know when … in between me looking here there and elsewhere it must be.

When I walk by the bundled up pillow case and I can smell a kibble or two, that’s when I pounce.

I can even get the kibbles out of a crumpled piece of paper now. We had a lady visiting last night. She said, “My place is much tidier than yours!”

The old woman laughed. She said, “Tthat shouldn’t be hard!“

It’s true that the whole floor is busy with activities, is that necessarily untidy?

Just having a nap here, waiting for my bedtime kibble storm. Once I’ve eaten them, it’s time for me to encourage the old woman to go to bed. She complains it’s too early, but when I bite her ankle she soon goes.

Night times I play with the toys the old woman has put on shelves. Which I can reach now, except for my bird. It lives high on a bookshelf.

The old woman says I can have it back when she’s taken its voicebox out. Apparently there’s a nasty battery in there that’d kill me if I chewed on it.