Taking Orders From a Cat

She's deaf, she has a heart murmur, arthritis, and kidney problems, but she still plays (sometimes) and fights will Ella (more often). Cutie's sister almost made it to 27 and their mom was 24 when cancer claimed her, but 19.5 years is still a long life for a cat. Most don't make it to 16.

 

No, just a cat. In the early 1980s, I came home to find that someone had left a black cat in my closed (but unlocked) porch. That was Cutie's great-grandmother, who I named Cousin; I don't remember why. She later had kittens, and I kept one of them - Cutie's grandmother, Little Girl. I was living in a place where it wasn't safe to let cats outside, so Little Girl was an inside cat. Some idiot friend of mine let her sneak past him one day when I wasn't home, and then he was dumb enough to try to chase her, and I never saw her again. But I had kept one of her kittens, Baby Girl, who became the mother of Cutie and Lydia. Baby Girl lived to be 24 when she died of cancer.

 

My wife made me change their names. Originally, they had normal names. Cutie's original name was "Kitty Who Likes Me," while Lydia was "Kitty Who Hates Me."

 

Ella is very controlling. She is pattern-oriented. I think I mentioned earlier in this thread, she often decides when it's time for me to go to bed. For a while, it was around midnight, as I was going to bed around that time. If I wanted to stay up later, she would nudge me over and over, trying to get me to follow her, then she'd lead me upstairs to the bedroom. If I decided, all right, I'll go to bed, she might go back downstairs. She's nocturnal, after all; she doesn't have to go to bed. But it's my bedtime.

I can see her struggling to find ways to communicate, and she does a pretty good job of it. When she doesn't like the cat food that I give her, she will make digging motions on the sides of the bowl, as if she is covering it up, as she would crap in a litter box. She's telling me, "This is crap. I don't like it."

For most things, she nudges me to get my attention. If she wants a treat, she will stare at the drawer where I keep the treats. If she sees me take out a treat pouch other than the ones she wanted, she will continue to stare at the drawer, as if to say, "Try again." Once, she wanted some of the treats that Michelle had for her instead, so she led me to where Michelle keeps her treats, to say, "I want some of these treats instead."

Otherwise, I'll follow her. If she leads me to the backdoor, she wants to go outside. Sometimes, for reasons I can only guess at, she wants to go out the upstairs window to the fire escape instead, so she will lead me there. I think she might think that the window leads to a different outside because if she sees goes to the backdoor and finds that it's raining, she will often lead me to the upstairs window instead.

If she wants wet food, she will lead me to the feeding area. Then, she wants to be there when I open a can of food because if it turns out not to be the kind she wants, she can walk away before I even have a chance to put it in the bowl, seemingly so that I know that I had chosen poorly.

Today, Michelle wasn't feeling good so she fell asleep on the recliner shortly after getting up this morning and slept much later than she usually does. Ella led me up there twice, apparently to let me know that something was wrong. I actually woke her up to be sure and to satisfy Ella that she was okay.

Cutie did something similar, but she would bring me a toy. She didn't play with cat toys. Instead, she used them as a prop. She would bring me a toy as if she was paying in advance for whatever it was that she was going to ask for. Then, I'd follow her to the cat bowl, the back door, or wherever. Sometimes, it was clear that she had gotten my attention but hadn't yet decided what it was that she wanted. She'd lead me to the back door. No, wait! Let's go to the food bowl.

Cats were born to be in charge.

 

That is exactly how I feel about my beloved little Chipper. He might have looked like a mere dog, but he was actually a little furry person, with all the intelligence and personality possible.