Training a Cat

What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?

Hito has a body clock. It’s very precise, but it allegedly becomes confused by the time reset we have in the UK. Looking forward to British Summertime and returning to Greenwich Meantime in the winter.

This means that Hito effectively moves his feeding time forward one hour every summer. However, somehow it has never corrected when the clocks go back.

Tony was made redundant in February, which men’s he’s no longer up at the authorised time in the morning, every morning. This has not pleased Hito, but having an IQ at genius level he has overcome and is fighting back.

At 5.45 every morning he starts walking across the bed. He is a large cat and heavy. If there is another cat on the bed he starts a fight. That cat gives as good as they get, and then storms off. No felines are harmed during the performance; I’m sure Hito pays them in biscuits later.

If this does not work he starts tapping you, exactly as we would tap each other on the shoulder. If that does not work he pulls the bedclothes off you.

He does not stop. No threat, no asking, begging, or pleading can divert him from his purpose: to wrap himself around a plate of food before the minions get up.

In fairness, the kittens will happily shove him out of his food bowl without a second’s hesitation and with no shame. He’s been a very indulgent big brother to four kittens so far. He will not do that to them.

He’s actually utterly magnificent.

The other day Tony shut him out of the bedroom. When he opened the door half an hour later, hoping that Hito will have learned his lesson, there he was, sitting outside the door, bolt upright, in high dudgeon!

That’s a British saying for absolutely outraged, and of course a cat dudgeon is the highest dudgeon of all. It’s crushing.

So, one improvement we would like to make is negotiating a two hour truce with Hito, but instead we’re thinking of taking a bowl of food to bed with us, ready for the morning. We’re not unrealistic.

He understands breakfast, lunch, tea, supper, but he does not understand either no or wait! Nor does he care which meal he’s eating. His intelligence is highly selective.

He’s been tricky to manage in other ways, took us a while to realise that he hated carpets. Now we have a gorgeous Lino, he’s happy, and we get twice the exercise of having to vacuum then wash all the floors. What’s not to love?

Vacuuming plus washing floors, but he will always be loved.

Pity humans can’t understand differences in the same way animals teach us to respect what we don’t understand, and learn to accommodate. That’s good for us humans.

Invade someone else’s country or negotiate a beneficial partnership? It’s a no brainer. Unless both of you are human apparently.

Although I wouldn’t trust Hito near any country’s cat food storage.

Big sigh

And best love

Deb xx