Jun 08 2009

Catspeak

Published by at 5:30 pm under Cats,Henry


Some things never change: June front & center, Audrey wandering off. They are two days old.

The cats’ vocabulary is slightly limited. Now this may be because they aren’t quite two years old yet, and who among us (except possibly Oscar Wilde) can boast that their vocabulary was at all impressive at such an early age? But there are definitely a few important words and phrases they understand.

The girls get fed around 9 am and 6 pm. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from the kittens’ first vet, Dr. Jill. Dr. Jill impressed upon me the importance of not feeding the kittens as soon as I got up, no matter how plaintive their tiny mews. Her point was that if you feed them as soon as you stumble out of bed, they’ll take your daily rising as a signal that the food will be instantly in their bowls, and they will go to great and annoying lengths to wake you up. Just ask my sister.

So even if you just spend fifteen minutes making coffee and reading your emails, it will be worth it. And it’s true – the girls just sleep or play or do whatever it is cats do when we’re asleep until I say it’s time for breakfast. I usually ask them the purely rhetorical question “Are you girls hungry? Do you want some breakfast?”, which prompts them to scamper into the kitchen and get underfoot as much as possible. Nothing seems to convince them that this delays the food delivery. Henry does the exact same thing. I guess it’s a cat thing and we wouldn’t understand.

They know that I will also be scooping out Henry’s cheap and therefore desirable food, so they keep an eye on me. They generally stick their heads into the tupperware-ish container of food (I have to store the cat food in separate plastic containers – the cupboard doors don’t close properly and if the food is in the bags, the cats will be, too. I learned this the hard way.), so I put a few pieces of Generic Chow on the floor to distract them and then put the container away before going outside to have Henry get in my way all the way to his dish.

The life of a cat maid is not an easy one.

While the girls’ vocabulary may be on the small side, they do seem to be able to tell time fairly well. Around, say, 5:20, they start hanging around the kitchen. June in particular will try and convince me that it’s dinner time. She also likes to sit right in front of me and stare at me unblinkingly with her great golden eyes, as if to say, “Have you forgotten something? Hmmm?” June is much more interested in food than Audrey, and always has been. When the litter was a day or two old, she was stepping all over the others to get milk (see photo above). Audrey never finishes her food, so I have to keep an eye out and put it back in the container; otherwise, June will eat it.

When I tell them it’s supper time, they race into the kitchen again.

At night, when I’m ready to bring the girls in from the porch and close and lock the back door, I tell Henry goodnight and then ask the girls if they’d like some treats, which brings them in right away. It may be bad parenting, but I used to have to go out there and chase them and try to keep one in while I chased the other, and it was a lot easier to just give them a couple of treats when they came in at night. So now they expect the question, and I’m pretty sure they know what the words “hungry”, “breakfast”, “supper” and “treats” means – even if their understanding is limited to “The Girl is finally going to feed us! Yay!”

Clever kitties.

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7 responses so far

7 Responses to “Catspeak”

  1. Kellyon 08 Jun 2009 at 6:03 pm

    Yes they have trained you amazingly well! So cute….

  2. Joy Fon 08 Jun 2009 at 7:00 pm

    love the photo…. you could give cat training for beginners…..you sound pretty organized. I think that animals ( & children too ) like routine.

    jx

  3. LisaBon 09 Jun 2009 at 5:13 pm

    That is the best bit of cat advice ever. I heard it for the fist time when my cats were a year old. Now they wake Peter up every morning at some ridiculous early hour for food (he never feeds them right away, but too little to late). Fortunately, I sleep through all the ruckus. =)

  4. Guyon 10 Jun 2009 at 4:05 am

    Animals have a funny way of training their owners, they pretend to be stupid and eventually train you to do exactly what they want and need, that is, if you let them.

  5. Caton 11 Jun 2009 at 1:15 am

    Because out cats Onion and Tiffy would fight at night, I’d let one of them sleep in room. Whoever got there first won. Mom is an early riser and would feed them at 6am. They knew it was breakfast time and would bug me until I let them out. Onion would meow incessantly. Tiffy, an excellent people trainer, would very calmly throw my stuff off my dresser. The latter got me up quicker! Marilyn is so goodly though. Even though I do feed her when I get up, she doesn’t try and wake me up. She comes and checks on how I’m doing, but if I’m still asleep she’ll either curl up at end of the bed and waits or go away and come back later.

  6. suzyon 12 Jun 2009 at 10:00 am

    Marilyn is a real treasure. And so beautiful!

  7. Kathleenon 23 Jun 2009 at 4:22 am

    I feed Boris and Igor at night right before I go to bed. That way they let me sleep all night and well into the morning (particularly important on Saturdays when I do not get up prior to 5:00 a.m.).