A meow is worth a thousand words
A recent study has shown that a cat is capable of a wide variety of different sounds and that the frequency of some of these noises is the same as a baby’s cry, which is why we are quick to react to them. I believe this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that cats are one of, if not the, most manipulative and cunning creatures on the planet. For further reading on this subject I recommend this article.
Personally I have never been very good at learning languages. I studied French for seven years and all I really learnt was either highly inappropriate phases such as “J’adore le grande saucisson”, “La femme est très facile” or “Elle a des seins énormes” or totally useless such as “Je voudrais un kilo d’ananas”. I came to the revelation that when it came to any language bar my native tongue I was pretty darn useless. Perhaps by having said revelation I caused a self-fulfilling prophecy and doomed myself to become one of those tourists who thinks if they speak loudly and slowly enough someone will understand them.
With this in mind it came as a surprise when I started to really understand and distinguish my cats’ meows to such an extent I could confidently say I knew what each one was saying to me. I now know when my cat is hungry, annoyed, confused, concerned, seeking attention, generally being a dick, in season and there is one specific meow Cringer uses to show she has had enough of Loki. My personal favourite meow comes from an unlikely candidate and I am ashamed to say I have yet to get it on film. Nausicaa likes to tell me to “get lost”, but I believe she uses a more colourful term for it. She will use this meow when I want her to leave a room, normally the bedroom, as I need some downtime away from the animals. I will politely ask her to leave the room and she will raise her head and give me this meow that almost sounds like a whine before darting underneath the bed. She will stay there until I give up. I have since learnt that if you meow in a high pitch fashion to her and insure your meows are long, she will think you are in danger and come to help you – thus giving you ample opportunity to seize hold of her and eject her from the room. See Nausicaa, two can play at that game.
When the humans are asleep, the cats will play.
To this day I still do not understand why cats insist on waiting until the early hours of the morning to run from one side of the house to the other in the loudest fashion possible. Just the other day I had been in bed for nearly an hour playing Hay Day on my iPad (that game is evil) and the cats had been silent. But the moment I switch the light off it was as if I had flicked a switch to the douche part of their brain. At that moment Nausicaa and Cringer decided to have an epic battle. That in turn set the dogs off, and while Khaleesi has a soft bark, Loki has a bark that would be better suited to a dog twice his size and soon the whole house was in chaos. Not what you need at midnight on a Monday. As such I managed to shut the dogs up and calm the cats down and for the most part I had an uneventful night – that was until 5:30am.
And what?
Io will seek out any opportunity to destroy the bath panel and will make as much noise as felinely possible in doing so. This morning was no different. She climbed behind it and pushed it over with everything she had. Her and Rorschach then thought it was the best thing ever to jump up and down on it and when I went into the bathroom; with wild hair and groggy eyes, I impolitely told them to get out and although Rorschach complied Io, well Io had other plans. She darted underneath the bath and refused to get out. I unfortunately am yet to discover her Kryptonite so I admitted defeat and crawled back into bed.
She came out on her own accord and I am happy to say they left the bath panel alone. Unfortunately, that was because they had found a more entertaining pastime of running around my bedroom with a crazed look on their button faces. Suffice to say, I gave up on sleep and got up.
You will never pee alone
When I did not have pets going to the bathroom was very much a solo event. You would pass the time sat on your phone. Either way it was not a spectator sport (for me anyway, I don’t know about all of you). When I got cats they did not seem to share that ideal, in fact Cringer would not only watch she would often take that moment to jump on my lap and get comfy. It is quite off putting to have an animal watch you I have to say, and unfortunately due to the previous owner of my house being a tool the doors do not shut very well and can easily be opened. So, I succumb to the inevitable and became accustom to their gaze.
We are lucky enough to have two toilets in our house, the main one is mine whilst the smaller one is my partner’s. As such my partner’s toilet also houses one of the many litter boxes spread throughout my house – after all I would not put it in mine that would be ridiculous! They tend to exclusively use that one but on the most part this is done in privacy and we rarely see them go. That was until we got the kittens. It would appear that Io thinks going to the toilet is not a spectator’s sport, but rather a two player event. As such every single time you use that toilet and she is nearby she will run into the bathroom and join in on the ‘fun’, whilst her sister will often try to ‘catch the stream’. I think soon you will come across a blog of me explaining how Rorschach partook in an accidental ‘Golden Shower’.
What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is mine.
My typical audience for dinner
My cats live a peaceful existence and are fed once a day. We started off feeding them smaller portions once in the morning and once in the evening, but it became very evident that cats cannot tell the time. I would feed them at first light at the tail end of the winter, so around 7:30am, but by the time summer came along they had started asking for food at first light, which was 5am. There is nothing more annoying than a cat begging for food. It is a genius feat of evolution on their part for the sound is so irritating you quickly cave in and give them what they want – and as such you only reinforce the behaviour.
I feed them at 6pm each day so naturally they start asking for food every single time I walk in the house, however, when I do feed them I do not pester them. I would have hoped after showing them this courtesy for the past five years they would do the same, but no. I do not remember the last time I ate dinner without eight pairs of eyes looking at me.
My daily dinner routine consists of eating as quickly as I can and occasionally slapping a random paw that creeps onto my plate. I quite often have two cats on my shoulders, two dogs to my left, a cat to my right and all the rest spread across the floor waiting. Why do they wait? Well, because they know that I am weak and always share my dinner with them. On the most part they won’t snatch food from my plate, however, I do remember an incident a few years back when the steak I had cooked proved too tempting for Nausicaa and she ran away with it growling. As it had already touched the floor I grumbled and had salad instead.
Contortionists in training
The places and positions cats choose to sleep always amazes me. It reminds me of Ice Age where Sid finds a nice, hard rock and somehow finds that as comfy as we would a nice soft mattress. I will often find my cats twisted and contorted into the smallest boxes around the house. For example, I was bored one Christmas and had a spare shoe box floating around. I lined it with stuffing and covered it with some spare faux fur. I thought it would be the perfect bed for the kittens or Pandora as it was far too small for any of the other cats. As with anything new the cats approached it with caution and downright ignored it for weeks, until I walked up the stairs to find Cringer asleep in it. As time went on Nausicaa also adopted the box as her own, but barely fit into it. So imagine my surprise when one day I found Totoro squished into it. It looked as if someone had poured liquid tar into the box. There was not an inch his impressive frame did not cover.
Not to be outdone Cringer went one further and started sleeping underneath the table. That would
be perfectly fine, but she would sleep on her back with her legs sticking out in some feline homage to the Wicked Witch of the East.
To date this is still one of the creepiest, weirdest positions I have seen my cat sleep in. Of course the internet is full with even weirder ones – all you need to do is google “cats sleeping in weird positions” or if you are particularly lazy – click here.
You may go hungry but your cats never will
A civilised meal
The debate on what to feed you cat is never ending. Personally, I can tell you which ones have worked for me and what I feel is the best option, but as with humans a cat palette varies and also it depends on your budget. My financial fortuity, as with everyone’s, has peaks and troughs – which on the most part coincide with where the British economy is at the time. At the moment we are out of the recession and inflation is at an all time low, as such I currently feed my female cats Pro Plan® Complete Indoor cat, the kittens James Wellbeloved® kitten food and Totoro, due to his illness last year, has a prescription only food called Specific®. As such each month I spend on average £80 a month on cat food and I always budget for it, even if it means I live off rice and beans for a month.
The journey to get me where I am today though, that being finally happy with their food, was a long one. I am not ashamed to say I have spent hours comparing the foods on the market, reading reviews and ensuring my cats have a well-balanced diet. If I spent half the time on my own diet I would probably be the healthiest person on this planet. As such I don’t – I don’t care what I put in my body as long as it satisfies my hunger, hence why I am carrying a few more pounds stones than I should, I get out of breath if I go up two steps, I have all the stamina of a sloth and generally just the laziest, most out of shape person in the world.
The word holiday has no meaning in their household.
You are not going anywhere!
With so many cats and dogs in the house going on holiday is impossible. The price to house all my animals for two weeks is a whopping £1498! That is for two weeks for 6 cats, 2 dogs, 4 hamsters, 3 guinea pigs and a rabbit – which is pretty darn expensive. In fact, you can get an all inclusive holiday for a third of that price.
The last holiday we went on was almost five years ago and it was for two days, and back then we only had three cats so my mum was kind enough to pop over to feed them. However, asking someone to look after my hoard now? That is a little more difficult. Sure someone could come in to feed the cats, fish and small animals but who would look after the pee and poop machine that is Loki and the nervous aggressive wreck known as Khaleesi. Also, Pandora would not come out to eat for anyone bar me and my partner and if you left food down for her the others would eat it. As such a holiday is not in the equation at the moment. Thankfully, I am scared of flying so it just gives me an excuse not to go.
Stroking a cat’s belly is like playing a suicidal game of Pop-Up Pirate
Under no circumstances – despite how cute they look or; in Cringer’s case, how much they drag your hand down to them – ever stroke a cat’s stomach. They may allow you to do it for one stroke, perhaps two, maybe even three but eventually this will happen.
I understand they lie on their backs to show you they feel comfortable around you so it begs the question why they don’t want rubs. I have a theory it is because they see this as a bonding exercise between humans and dogs, and as descendants from the great Wild Cats and their cousins being lions, they are above this and as such get angry if you think of them as you would a dog. No, cats are not our equals, they are above us and as such should be held in high regard. Belly rubs? We think not.
You will never have an empty lap again.
When I was growing up and went over my a friend’s house who had a cat, I was the first to offer up my lap to them. I could spend hours stroking them and listening to them purr. I loved how soft they were and how they would become your very own hot water bottle. Nowadays I spend half my time pushing them off me.
What? This is how I lie!
Don’t get me wrong, I love nothing more than snuggling up to watch television with a cat on my lap, however, two thirds of my cats are incapable of sitting on a lap in a normal fashion. Totoro and Rorschach will quite happily sit still, enjoy the strokes and keep their balance. The others, well as you can see from the picture to my left, are unable to grasp that concept.
Every single night Cringer will lie on my in this fashion, or something close to it. Pandora, who does not like to be touched, will sit on my shoulder like a parrot and Nausicaa will sit on your lap and slither around like a snake. To combat this I bought them beds and even when I bought my new sofa I did so with the cats in mind, hence why it is so large, but do they use it? No. Nothing beats mummy’s lap.
I miss having an empty lap.
Christmas is AWESOME!
Christmas is always a fun time in my household. Any other national holiday I am indifferent, including my own birthday, but Christmas. Christmas is amazing. I love how for one month out of the year everyone, on the most part, is just generally nicer to each other and seem happier. Strangers speak to each other about the stress of Christmas shopping, whilst others silently gloat that they completed it all in October. On Christmas Day if you pass someone on the street they will talk to you, rather than avoid your gaze. Then there is the food. The one time out of the year you can eat until you physically cannot move and at no point do you feel guilty. As with their owner, the cats love Christmas, especially when I went out and bought my new Christmas tree.
I had grown tired of my cheap Tesco tree so went to John Lewis and bought an impressive 7 foot fake tree. We are not a natural tree kind of household – I find real Christmas trees a little pathetic and difficult to decorate. With a real one you have to buy one every year which works out more expensive and then there is the added expense of throwing it away.
The first day we got the tree we put it up and as you can see from the picture to my left, the cats highly approved. It became their battleground and a few years on the kittens favourite place to sleep.
As time went on Pandora grew a taste for tinsel and would devour large quantities of it, which made cleaning out the litter tray a rather colourful experience. Whilst Cringer loved nothing more than to chow down on Sellotape, which made wrapping presents an enjoyable experience.
Then there is the decorations. No sooner had I decorated the tree with my finest baubles had the cats taken great offence to them and launched a large scale attack. I have been fortunate that none had been broken, yet, but we have since learnt that was cannot decorate the lowest level as the temptation to too great.
The final, greatest thing about Christmas is that you can dress up your animals and never feel guilty:
WTF is this?!
The Cat's Meow 