Cat Diary 30

I’ve been in training. The first new habit I’m supposed to pick up is to scratch either one of the three objects she got into the house for that purpose—to be scratched!

I really don’t know why she bothers? I scratch the uprights of the couch and after she told me NO! a few too many times, I graduated onto the vinyl chairs.

Look at me, I’m thinking. This after the old woman said NO! about the couch. I want her to see my expression which says I am not pleased to hear NO! when I’m trying to get her attention.

She didn’t stop and I switched to the vinyl chairs. Too bad the vinyl is so strong I can only make holes. She said a blind woman could read these, and she’d be saying NO! just as many times.

She also said, this is the last straw. Whatever that means. She collected the three things to be scratched and lay them out …

The cardboardy thing is in the middle, it’s useless because I get my claws stuck. The thing with rope around it is just too weird for me. The thing on the left is the board the old woman found on the riverbank after a flood.

That’s the one we settled on for training. She lays it beside her on the couch. The first session she dragged a cord over it and every time I touched the cord, she’d go all gooey, slathering me with praise.

But more importantly she gave me a kibble everytime I touched the cord. After about twenty toes worth of kibbles, she said that’s enough today. We both relaxed then.

Cat Diary 29

My favourite way of gathering kibbles is from this thing that the old woman built from toy bricks.

This is already the third version. It’s getting higher and today there are three things with moving parts.

This thing with the bits looking like wings took me ages to work out how to shift and she’s just added the crossbar but I think I’ll handle it. She leaves kibbles under the crossbar, or under the grey thing.

There are three sides … the front, the back and the top and I do them in that order. The front is my favourite.

The back is harder as the kibbles are always on the tiniest ledges where I need to grapple them from with my tongue.

The top is the highest it’s been yet, but not a problem. I can still reach with all four paws on the ground.

My Duplo puzzle board is my favourite kibble hunting ground!

The Blue Tumbler

Calling it that for want of knowing what its proper name is.

The theory is that filled with kibbles, a smart cat will be able to get them out by pushing or tweaking or pawing at the tumbler.

Moggy is far too smart, or shall we call that wily, to do this work herself. She waits, sitting there looking interested, until the human loses her patience and does it herself, and the tumbler spills its load. Then she doesn’t hesitate, then she steps forward and eats whatever kibble in sight.

It’s a stand-off. We’ve been doing this daily for a week and there appears to be no breakthrough yet.

Although, I shouldn’t forget that this morning she stared piercingly at the tumbler sitting innocent and half-empty nearby. That’s a miniscule bit of interest, what do you think?

So come training time, I had the idea of putting kibbles under the tumbler. See if she’d engage. And that’s as far as we’ve got today, she’ll push it with her nose to be able to grab the kibbles from under it.

I carefully arrange the holes and the tumbler so if she pushes hard enough one time, the thing will tip and spill a few kibbles.

That hasn’t happened yet.

Cat Diary 28

When I was totally mellowed out the pernickety old woman vacuumed up all my catnip that I have fallen in love with!!

This pic of me mellowed out before she did the vacuuming. See the leaves?

Why would she do that?

She said you’re not eating.

I didn’t feel the need to eat and she worries?

But last night she spread out a brown pillow case for me that had the rest of the catnip supply in it Tthat she had whip-stitched shut, she said. For me to spend the night on. Which I did.

This morning she took it away. To air it, she said.

What for? I like it the way it is. But anyway, she laid out the usual track of breakfast kibbles for me and I set off finding them, eating them along the way, and keeping body and soul together.

Cat Diary 27

What happened yesterday is I fell off the palace. A shock to the system I tell you. The old woman’s too. So then I was crabby and when she touched me … well you guessed it.

The structure might’ve been made for smaller cats than me and the floors on it are all hard and slippery.

But probably she forgave me because today she spread a bunch of dried catnip leaves on the floor and I’ve been having fun rolling around in it.

The pillow case was meant to contain the leaves but spilled as soon as I had my way with it.

She said nevermind we have a vacuum cleaner.

Cat Diary 26

Well she did something stupendous! See this thing? All my evening meal spread over it and she expects me to engage with it!

She got it from a cat living on the sixth floor, a certain Dolly. Apparently Dolly didn’t like it and neither do I so far.

Of course I’ll be eating all the kibbles off it. I’ll eat kibbles however and whenever they come.

Nope, I’m telling a lie there.

One Saturday the old woman came home from shopping with a blue top. There’s a couple of holes in it where she pushes a few kibbles into the top of the top. And there’s this gold tingaling thing hanging in it.

That’s me studying it. So far it’s just easier to force the old woman to work it, and eat the kibbles as they roll out.

She’s wising up to me, though. she’s letting me starve, not reacting to any of my hints about getting more kibbles out. Soon I will have to ‘engage’ either with the blue top or with the castle.

Or with her. Her feet, for instance. Make her run to the kibble tin.

Cat Diary 25

I’ve been trying to tell how bored I am every night when the old woman shuts me in the den.

The carpet under the door is my nightly target. I’ve managed to strip out three lines of weaving. The old woman tells everyone she’ll be having someone in the install a metal strip. So I’m shredding carpet while I can.

But really I want to run and jump and play zoomies at night. I want to play on the balcony. I want my true freedom. But the old woman tricks me every night. She tosses a handful of kibble in my kibble bowl and I can’t resist them, you know?

Then she says, “Nighty-night.”

And she walks away.

I gobble up the kibbles and then start miaowing most pitifully. She doesn’t listen. Or she pretends her ears are made of steel … well, she says she steels herself not to hear me.

So far she hasn’t weakened and let me out.

Me, asleep on the back of the couch. I was furious with old woman when she took away my towel. I hissed and showed my teeth.

She was not impressed, she said. And she said sh’d be washing it.

Pardon me, I’m sure.