Purrs In Our Hearts - Cat Forum UK
Cat General => General Cat Chat => Topic started by: LeighK on January 04, 2008, 15:44:27 PM
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Excerpts from "A CAT'S GUIDE TO HUMAN BEINGS"
1. Introduction: Why Do We Need Humans?
So you've decided to get yourself a human being. In doing so, you've joined the millions of other cats who have acquired these strange and frustrating creatures. There will be any number of times, during the course of your association with humans, when you will wonder why you have bothered to grace them with your presence.
What's so great about humans, anyway? Why not just hang around with other cats? Our greatest philosophers have struggled with this question for centuries, but the answer is actually rather simple: THEY HAVE OPPOSABLE THUMBS.
This makes them the perfect tools for such tasks as opening doors, getting the lids off of cat food cans, changing television stations and other activities that we, despite our other obvious advantages, find difficult to do ourselves. True, chimps, orangutans and lemurs also have opposable thumbs, but they are nowhere as easy to train.
2. How And When to Get Your Human's Attention.
Humans often erroneously assume that there are other, more important activities than taking care of your immediate needs, such as conducting business, spending time with their families or even sleeping. Though this is dreadfully inconvenient, you can make this work to your advantage by pestering your human at the moment it is the busiest. It is usually so flustered that it will do whatever you want it to do, just to get you out of its hair. Not coincidentally, human teenagers follow this same practice. Here are some tried and true methods of getting your human to do what you want:
Sitting on paper: An oldie but a goodie. If a human has paper in front of it, chances are good it's something they assume is more important than you. They will often offer you a snack to lure you away. Establish your supremacy over this wood pulp product at every opportunity. This practice also works well with computer keyboards, remote controls, car keys and
small children.
Waking your human at odd hours: A cat's "golden time" is between 3:30 and 4:30 in the morning. If you paw at your human's sleeping face during this time, you have a better than even chance that it will get up and, in an incoherent haze, do exactly what you want. You may actually have to scratch deep sleepers to get their attention; remember to vary the scratch site to keep the human from getting suspicious.
3. Punishing Your Human Being
Sometimes, despite your best training efforts, your human will stubbornly resist bending to your whim. In these extreme
circumstances, you may have to punish your human. Obvious punishments, such as scratching furniture or eating household plants, are likely to backfire: the unsophisticated humans are likely to misinterpret the activities and then try to discipline YOU. Instead, we offer these subtle but nonetheless effective alternatives:
* Use the cat box during an important formal dinner.
* Stare impassively at your human while it is attempting a romantic interlude.
* Stand over an important piece of electronic equipment and feign a hairball attack.
* After your human has watched a particularly disturbing horror film, stand by the hall closet and then slowly back away, hissing and yowling.
* While your human is sleeping, lie on its face.
4. Rewarding Your Human:
Should Your Gift Still Be Alive? The cat world is divided over the etiquette of presenting humans with the thoughtful gift of a recently disemboweled animal. Some believe that humans prefer these gifts already dead, while others maintain that humans enjoy a slowly expiring cricket or rodent just as much as we do, given their jumpy and playful movements in picking the creatures up after they've been presented. After much consideration of the human psyche, we recommend the following: Cold blooded animals (large insects, frogs, lizards, garden snakes and the occasional earthworm) should be presented dead, while warm blooded animals (birds,rodents, your neighbor's Pomeranian) are better still living. When you see the expression on your human's face, you'll know it's worth it.
5. How Long Should You Keep Your Human?
You are only obligated to your human for one of your lives. The other eight are up to you. We recommend mixing and matching, though in the end, most humans (at least the ones that are worth living with) are pretty much the same. But what do you expect? They're humans, after all. Opposable thumbs will only take you so far.
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Cheers
Leigh
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PMSL :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
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Why do I suspect that in the world of cat that is completely true :rofl:
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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: fabulous .... and so true!
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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Tena moment
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Love it - every word is so very very true.
Long live the cat - and the human that it needs/wants to use!!!!
Mary
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LOL :rofl: :rofl: Hey, who managed to smuggle this top secret document out of kitty paws? Do they know we have it - and ore importantly, would they care? :evillaugh: :evillaugh:
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Isnt it funny that they know us better than we do :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
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I very strongly suspect that they wouldn't care a jot if they knew human creatures had read it. For example, Alfie knows that I like a nice nap on the settee in the afternoon at weekends, he also knows that this is an excellent time to jump up on me and really go to town on the headbutts and licking routine. I know that he does this to provoke me into getting up and feeding him his wet food early. I know that he knows that I know this, he knows that I know that he knows this and he also knows that given enough "persuasion" I'll always give in and get up and give him what he wants it's a game to see who can last the longest and he always wins but it's a fun game to play. As soon as he's gotten what he wants he goes for a nap and leaves me to mine :). Likewise, Frankie knows that if he repeatedly headbutts my computer chair and miaows pitifully enough whilst I'm trying to work on the computer in the bedroom I'll get up and lay down on the settee in the living room so that he can climb up for a cuddle and strokes, he also knows that I know that he knows but the end result is always the same, yes, you've guessed it, I stop what I'm doing and head for the settee :). Suzie knows that a great time to get more strokes and cuddles is just as I'm drifting off to sleep when she can creep up to position her mouth a smidgen away from my left ear and miaow VERY loudly and this gets the result that she desires, sometimes I hear her maneuvering into position sometimes I don't, sometimes for a fun variation of this game, I can feign sleep until she does it again, sometimes I'm caught off guard and genuinely jolted back into consciousness like I;'ve been hit on the head with a mallet :)
As I said, I don't think that they'd care one jot that we've read this as the result would be the same as we all end up doing what they want and when they want it anyway don't we?! ;D
Cheers
Leigh
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Well, Alfie certainly KNOWS doesn't he leigh? At least I think he does, I nearly got lost with all those KNOWS!!!!!!
I need some retail therapy now - Might buy something for Bonnie in the sales too!
Mary
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Ah but now YOU know that I know that he knows I know ;D
Enjoy your retail therapy and get some great bargains. I'm off to get the hair (not beard) cut and do my/their food shopping.
Catch you later chuck,
Love Leigh x
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Leigh, I KNOW chuff all chuck!!! :naughty: :evillaugh: :hug:
Got some bargains but nothing for Bonnie. She was pleased to see me though and I gave her more kisses to make up for not bringing anything home for her :Luv2:
Shattered now so I need a cuppa and a cuddle with Bonnie to bring me round. I'll clear up the litter from the floor and pick up all her toys that she's been having fun with while I've been out all day when I've had a rest!! She's looking at me now with those big beautiful eyes and she KNOWS she can get round me with them - she wants a fuss making of her and she KNOWS she will get exactly what she wants.
Mary x
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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: