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December 20, 2004
And you shall know us by the trail of socks
I came home this afternoon and was greeted by this:
I know when I started this blog I said that I wouldn't talk about my cats, but those of you who know me well won't be surprised to hear that Cathode didn't get finished in time for Saturday (I've had a few more setbacks, but it'll all be okay), and since I hate blogging without pictures I'm showing you this instead.
So let me tell you a story. Benny and Pickle don't get out much and as a result they're a bit on the corpulent side. Last summer, in the interest of their health, I decided to put them on a diet. As soon as I started rationing the food, Benny got a little crazy and started performing ritualistic moving around of laundry.
(Okay, a little further background is required here: years ago, Pickle had his own ball of yarn that he would carry around and bring to me, and because I thought it was funny and cute I would reward him for it. When it became a nightly ritual of him waiting until we had been in bed for ten minutes then bringing the yarn ball into the bedroom, shouting his fool head off the whole time, we threw his yarn in the garbage and started training him that he could get love without having to perform for it. He switched to bringing me my knitting until I started hiding it, then anything I had knitted, then finally he gave it up, but they both still have this idea that they can please me with woolen stuff.)
So when the diet started, Benny started bringing socks down from the laundry pile in the bedroom and dropping them near me then standing at the food dish. She has even brought my sweaters downstairs, and we've caught her dragging towels out of our bedroom a couple of times. There was also a matched pair of striped socks laid out neatly on the dining room floor when we came in today, but I picked them up before I thought to take a picture, then found the trail of dead on the stairs when I was going to put the others away.
If anyone knows how to stop this kind of behaviour, I'm all for trying new things. Scolding doesn't work, and it's too cold to keep the bedroom door shut right now.
Other reasons why you should have your camera ready at all times: today we drove past a transport truck that said "show chickens inside" on the back. What the hell does that mean?
Posted by jodi at December 20, 2004 04:33 PM | categories: crazy cat lady
Comments
My kitty cat likes to drag any of my clothes around (this is the reason nearly all of my t-shirts have tiny little holes in them that eventually grow embarassingly). I haven't actually tried to break her of it, but I do know that one way to break cats of bad behaviour is a squirt gun. When they behave badly, squirt them with the squirt gun, making sure that they don't actually see you squirting them. They learn to associate whatever behaviour they've been performing with getting wet, which most cats hate. I know that's not very helpful, considering that they're doing this when you're not home to do so, but I did want to mention it, in case it's somewhat helpful.
As for "show chickens inside", it sounds like that's exactly what it is: show chickens. My mother's family had a fair amount of ribbon winning show cows, though I'm not sure if they had any show chickens or not. I'll have to ask her tomorrow.
Posted by: levi at December 21, 2004 01:25 AM
Strangely enough I think our cats lead parallel lives. Only fitting since they are siblings. Pandora had also been putting on the poundage and as a result found herself on a new diet "of 20# before christmas or your money back".
Amazingly enough, she slimmed down with almost no complaint. As a result she's been a hell of a lot more active. She's racing around the house at night, being much more playful and yes, has started dragging out the socks and scattering them around the house. I thought it was all about her being more playful or the hunting instincts coming back, but who knows. Since Benny is doing the same thing, I'm sure its only natural and just sign of a healthy, active cat having some fun. The only way to solve this is just keep the socks out of reach for a while until she forgets about how fun they are.
Posted by: Rob at December 21, 2004 10:41 AM
Cats can be so weird, LOL...unfortunately you have to catch them in the act in order to be able to dole out any type of discipline or they don't associate properly. Sigh...
One of mine likes to try to steal the ball of yarn I'm sitting and knitting with at the moment to tell me "Hey - pay attention to ME!!!". Doesn't get far since the ball is attached to what I'm working on, but it's still really funny.
Posted by: Eklectika at December 21, 2004 01:29 PM
Um, chickens that do show tunes maybe? :)
Posted by: Sharlene at December 21, 2004 07:51 PM