I have a cat named Freddie, and he’s a little strange…to put it mildly. He’s one of those odd cats who actually like human interaction and likes to snuggle in bed between my girlfriend, Kara, and I or on Kara’s stomach. While trying to work out what to write about I came across a site suggesting topics for high school students to talk about one of which was “What have you learned from your pet” so that’s what I’m going with. Something a little fun.
1. Start your day with a routine – Freddie wakes up the same time every morning, he has a bit of a meow, shoves in behind the blinds to have a look at the world outside then jumps up on Kara’s bedside table to announce that it is time to get up. All of this as loudly as possible. When this fails to elicit the correct response he sometimes wanders out of the room and down the hallway to see if our roommate has accidentally left his door open. He does the same thing every day, and very rarely deviates from his chosen wake up order (unless Cameron does forget to close the door and then “Oh, what fun!”) and I must admit that he seems far more ready to face the day than I do when Kara finally stumbles out of bed to feed him so he will PLEASE stop making so much noise.
2. Never close yourself off from your family – According to Freddie, closed doors are the enemy, particularly when it separates Kara and I. Regardless of how much I want to sleep and Kara wants to blend up a juice, to Freddie, they are completely unnecessary obstacles that serve no purpose other than to prevent us from being able to spend time together as a family. Doesn’t matter which side of the door he actually wants to be on, there should not be a barrier between his mummies. He will sit at the door and meow until it is opened to allow him access, and if it is closed behind him he will then sit on the other side and wait for this horrible thing to be removed. Once the door is left open, even if only slightly, he is a happy boy and will pick where he actually wants to set up shop. He hates closed doors so much he has worked out how to open our ensuite door without assistance which is usually fine until I’m having a shower and my sister and Kara are watching a movie in our room!
3. Don’t give up/Go after what you want – Freddie likes to hunt, if he wasn’t a solely indoor cat I’m pretty sure he would destroy our wildlife in a week. Since he is stuck inside the house he is restricted to simply devouring any bug unlucky enough to find its way into his domain. Occasionally one will get in and decide to hang out on the ceiling, well out of his reach and with no inclination to come down to where his paws are waiting to catch and torment it. He will sit beneath this bug, moving along with it as it traverses the ceiling apparently unaware of its peril. Eventually he may get tired of waiting and demand that one of his slaves (any one of the 4 humans in his house) get this prey down for him. This cannot be denied, believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve chased him away, splashed him with water, and tried locking him in another room (see 2 for the result of that!). Finally someone will grab a broom and brush the poor bug off the ceiling to its doom below. He gets exactly what he wanted from the beginning, a lovely meal of ant or mosquito, sometimes a small moth and nothing was going to stop him from reaching his goals.
So by being the weirdest cat I have ever met, Freddie is teaching his poor human some interesting lessons. And as I finish thinking this through I’m noticing a pattern of exactly who is in charge of our household, and it certainly isn’t the people!