Cats Are Interesting People

Cats are one of nature’s most interesting creatures, from a sociological aspect. On the one hand, they like being around people—but not too close. Most become spoiled very quickly. A cat likes things to be as they like them. Cats, unlike dogs, don’t care a whit if their master is pleased. In fact, cats believe that THEY are the Master. When put in her place, a cat will sulk, likely not speak to you or honor you with a leg rubbing for hours. Yet, if you pick up her favorite toy—oh, say the laser light—all is forgiven, and playtime is on!

Our half-year-old kitten growing every day and is becoming less kittenish in many ways, but she still likes to play more than sleep. Spring is upon us and Squeaky is a busy kitty. In the evenings, bugs come to the light in the windows. There is an 8-foot sliding glass door off the kitchen, providing her with an almost endless playground after dark. As night falls, moths and lacewings will twitter up against the window. Each one provides a veritable video game of entertainment. As the insect flutters against the glass, Squeaky jumps. She crouches. She springs into action, sometimes as high as 4 or five feet in her attempt to catch the moving object on the other side of the glass.

It seems as though cats assume that anything that moves is their responsibility to check out. For instance, if Squeaky is curled up in her little ball on the back of the love seat (her favorite spot for maximum sunshine) and I begin to wiggle out of my shoes some 4 feet away, she goes on alert. She’ll watch and if the action continues, she will attack. If she hears the ice dispenser begin its crunching in the kitchen, she will leap across half a room in order to hit the floor running to arrive at the ice dispenser within three seconds of its beginning. You know those cartoons where the cat takes the corner so fast that the cartoonist her shows feet moving so fast that they can’t quite get the traction to make it around the corner? That’s not a joke. It’s for real!

Someone once told me that it is impossible to stare down a cat. While I don’t agree with that, having done it myself, it is a difficult task. Cats really don’t like giving up. They are much more comfortable with being taken away from some forbidden object than they are with backing down.

I suppose I have an unfair advantage. In my years of being a school principal, I’ve stared down a bunch of 6^th graders, who may be harder to get to back down than a cat, but cats are right up there! It is obvious that Squeaky knows the meaning of NO. If she hears NO, she freezes. In mid air!  She will stare at me, inching almost imperceptibly closer to the forbidden object/area/dog. Only when I bring out the squirt bottle—and sometimes make it sputter ever so slightly—will she turn and start licking her fur. “I really wasn’t interested, anyway,” she projects.

As for feigning disinterest, she employs the skill artfully when playing with her favorite toy. Squeaky’s favorite toy is a cluster of long, feathery streamers, about 12-14” long, tied to the end of an elastic chord attached to the end of a 36” stick, fishing-pole-style. She has trained us to jiggle it for her. As I am bouncing it up and down, she jumps and dives for it, pulling on it and letting it go so that the elastic makes it rebound into the air. Then, she claims disinterest. She stops and licks her paws. She washes her face and turns away from her feathery quarry. Just when she thinks—and timing is everything here—that her human playmate is about to stop jiggling the feathers, she will POUNCE again.

Lights are a mystery to Squeaky. They move. She can touch them. But then they move again and she can’t catch them. She can’t bite them. She can’t claw them. When she sees a reflect light on the wall, made by sunshine reflecting off a watch crystal, for instance, she begins a aggressive campaign to track down and eradicate this intruder. The sound she makes is unique to light chasing. After a life of owning a variety of schizophrenic cats, I really thought that I had heard everything. Not so. The sound that Squeaky makes when confronted by a moving or—her personal favorite—a flickering light is really much more like a squirrels. I have often wondered if she learned the sound from the squirrels that taunt us from the trees that surround our house. The sound is rather a guttural, scratchy sound that squirrels make when they want to attract the attention of another squirrel. Her eyes get incredibly large, she gets in her tummy stalking position, and chatters and stalks. She is having a grand time. Until the ice dispenser starts!

I have to say that watching a cat is more amusing than 99% of today's entertainment industry's efforts. You can't plan the entertainment. You can't schedule it. While you can encourage it, if you want the cat to do something to show off for your guests, you can BET kitty won't do it. You just have to take it when it comes. And that is really a relaxing concept when you get right down to it. That's why cat owners live longer. They develop a life that happens in it's own time, much like a cat's.