keepingupwithlife

Have you ever wondered about what your pets think about you?? My roommate’s cat made me think about that this afternoon. I was sitting on the front porch having a smoke, and she came out to “visit.” She walked down the steps, then planted herself right in front of the chair between my legs, making herself convieniently pettable. She allowed me to stroke her for a few moments, then moved to the center of the porch in a nice spot of sunshine and made herself comfy.

Once she found exactly the right spot, she stared at me and started rolling around like she does when she’s being petted, stopping every couple of minutes to stare at me. It finally worked, too. I got up and joined her on the floor, stroking where directed, until she’d had enough and wandered off to amuse herself with something else.

It got me to thinking about the differences between dogs, cats, and birds, and how they train their people. I wonder if they make comparisons between us. Do they actually think, “okay, this human is easier to train than that one, so I’ll go to her to get what I want”? I mean, Socks has four people, a dog, and a bird; and I wonder what she thinks of us. She avoids the dog like the plague, ignores the bird unless it does something interesting (like fly across the room or chirp,) and has patiently trained her people to do what she wants them to.

She’s quite good at training, too, although I think she’s decided my husband is untrainable. He stubbornly refuses to get up and open the door for her, play string when SHE wants to, or put out fresh water when she indicates that it’s needed. Even miaowing doesn’t work on him, although it works on all three of her other staff members, so she mostly ignores him.

She has the rest of us very well trained though. There’s a pet door next to the back door, so she can go out into the backyard and come down to the cottage whenever she wants, but to go out the front, she has to get someone to open it for her. She will choose her victim, I mean staffperson, walk up to them and allow a moment of petting, then walk a few steps away and look back. If they don’t immediately follow her, she comes back and rubs against their legs, then walks away again. Once they start to follow her, she looks back every few steps to make sure they’re still there, and when she arrives at the door, she sits and looks at the handle, waiting for them to open up. It usually works with everyone except my husband, who just looks at her unless he happens to be standing next to the door.

The way she chooses who to approach is interesting, too. Her first choice is anyone who happens to be standing up, even if they’re farther from the door than the ones sitting down. (I’ve been led from the kitchen, even when there are three people sitting within feet of the front door.) Her next choice is whoever is sitting closest to the door, and if there’s no-one home at the main house, she’ll come down to the cottage and try to lead me to the gate to let her out that way.