Interspecies Communications

[minoanmiss]

I didn't have time to write this down until now.

This morning I heard scrabbling at my door. I got up and found Mistress Cheese waiting for me. With many glances back to see if the dumbass human was still following, she led me to the bathroom, where I found that her water dish was empty. I rinsed and refilled it, and she began drinking with great satisfaction, which she hadn't actually let me see her do before.

Woot woot. I have known not a few cats who would have perforated me to send the same message.

Comments

[acelightning73]

Cats can communicate with humans quite well when they want to. My late High Priest was the receptionist at New York radio station WBAI (a very left-wing and weird station). There was a resident cat at the station. Sometimes, if Fred left his desk before he had finished his lunch, the cat would steal some of the beef out of the curry beef stir-fry. And one day the cat walked up to him and meowed, and ducked his head as if to say "follow me''. Fred followed the out into the building corridor. It was an old building, and it had big wall-mounted ashtrays full of clean sand by the elevators. Cat jumped up into the ashtray, shat, covered it, and walked back and smirked at Fred - saying pretty clearly, "Clean my litterbox, you stupid human!"

[amaebi]

I found that if I was polite and respectful to my cats they would be polite respectful to me. I figured that would likely work in parenting. It did.

[sabotabby]

Cats are very smart like that.

[claudia603]

oh my cats communicate splendidly when they want something! :D Helo starts knocking stuff down and rattling the blinds when he wants me to get up and do something or feed him. Or he'll come over and pat my face, which would be darling except he doesn't know how to sheath his claws, lol!

[mdlbear]

doesn't know how to sheath his claws...

Same problem with one of mine. She also doesn't like having her claws trimmed.

[claudia603]

ha, mine neither. He squirms and whines like he's having his paw chopped off when I try!

[acelightning73]

Cats usually know a whole lot more human language than people think they do. One time my son had an asthma attack - he doesn't really have asthma - but we had just gotten our Loki cat. The pediatrician told us we needed to bathe the cat to reduce the allergen load. So I ran a little water in the tub and got a big towel and wrapped Loki as a cat burrito to keep from getting sliced, I carried him to the bathroom door and he got partway free of the towel, and as we passed through the door he did the cartoon-cat thing of reachin out with all four paws to grab the doorframe. And he meowed at the top of his voice, "NO!!!!" - he knew the word and what it meant, and he was capable of pronouncing it and using it correctly in context. The only reason they don't use human language very often is because they know they don't have the correct anatomy to pronounce things clearly enough for us to understand. (Old hippie cartoon, "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers", the stupidest brother Fat Freddy Freak had a cat. In one episode, the cat was standing by the front door trying to get Freddy's attention. "Me-out! Me-out! Prowwwwl Nnnowww!" Freddy bring a bowl of cat food over. "OH, you're hungry? Here!" THen one of the other guys goes to go outside, and the cat sneaks out while the door is open. "Oh, you wanted to go OUT! WHy didn't you just say so?" and the cat's thought balloon says, "HUmans. THey're so stupid, even if you talk to them in their own language, they don't understand you."

[cellio]

I trust that Mistress Cheese is satisfied with the progress of her training program. She can't expect you to jump straight to "telepathically knows that the bowl is empty and refills it before the need arises" in one step, after all. But just in case you were wondering where this curriculum leads... :-)