A couple of months ago The Raven was out of town for a while and Nosy was put out. In order to keep him distracted from his separation anxiety I overfed him a bit. Since I’ve known him he’s mostly eaten dry food, so I thought I’d liven things up for him by giving him a couple servings a day of the wet stuff.
Yes, I have had a cat before.
No, I don’t know what I was thinking.
It’s just that Nosy isn’t like any other cat I’ve known. The cats I’ve known have had their culinary idiosyncrasies — Jasper liked cucumber, for instance — but would generally chow down on anything vaguely meat-flavored if it was within reach: pizza, tuna sandwiches, what have you. Nosy, oddly, has no interest whatever in any food people eat, unless said people are eating unadulterated tuna out of a can. Oh, he’ll ask politely if he can examine the fork full of salmon you’re holding, but he always turns away after a cursory sniff as if to say “... I see. How interesting for you.” He reacts exactly the same way after asking to inspect the rabbit’s carrots. He only eats cat food, and nothing else. It’s weird, really. And so, more than any cat I’ve known I thought he might be unspoilable.
I was wrong, of course, but I think that’s a reasonable excuse.
I started giving him a “pouch” of wet food for lunch and one at dinner, along with his usual ration of crunchies. Given that the pouch manufacturer’s daily serving suggestion for a cat of Nosy’s size ran to approximately twelve times that, I figured it was a modest treat. It did seem to make him happier. He sulked less, he meowed at the door a bit less, and at first I didn’t notice that he asked for lunch about 15 minutes earlier each day.
When The Raven got back home, though, lunch was being requested at about 9:45 a.m. This was a noticeable discrepancy. I’d forgotten that the best possible way to make sure you get up early on a given date is to feed your cat a good breakfast every morning for a few weeks beforehand: soon you will be the recipient of 4:00 a.m. wakeup calls.
We needed to nip in the bud this slow ratcheting-forward of Nosy’s lunch schedule, but going back to crunchies alone seemed Draconian. Besides, depending on the brand and ingredients, canned food is better for cats anyway. So we figured we’d get him some good canned food, and feed him the actual recommended amount of it every day at 5:00 p.m. I don’t recall getting much work done the day we switched his schedule over, but he caught on pretty quick.
The ratcheting-forward commenced at once, but I held my ground. I would walk into the kitchen in the afternoon. He’d be in there with me and yowling in something less than a femtosecond. I’d turn to check the clock on the wall and would see that it was 3:30, or 2:45, or some other time well in advance of food-o’clock, and I would tell him that he had to wait and that he was a very smart and brave kitty and he could certainly hold out that long. Sometimes, if I’d been immersed in my work, I’d look at the clock and see that it was actually food-thirty, and I’d grab the can opener apologetically.
This past week I walked into the kitchen after my one-hour two-o’clock phone meeting ended half an hour late. I poured myself a glass of water. Nosy barreled in, meowling. I looked him right in the eye and told him I knew it was nowhere near time for dinner.
He turned and looked up at the clock.
I’m going to have to start checking it every day now to make sure he isn’t setting it forward.
That’s hilarious! So he knows you have to get permission from the clock, eh? Obviously the alpha in the house.
Thanks for my morning chuckle. And here, I thought only dogs could manipulate time. Einsteinian, all of them!
heh! two of my cats have my beloved trained—he has to give them kitty treats every morning before he leaves. as soon as he starts toward the kitchen, they are in place reminding him of his duty.
with 4 cats, one whose system is of such delicacy that a serving of wet food guarantees <ahem> difficulties of the disgusting variety, we have to be very strict about sticking to the one dry food that keeps him settled. so now i have an entire posse informing me, loudly, when the bottom of either kibble bowl is visible, because then they are all in danger of STARVING STARVING STARVING.
Chris,
I have two barn cats, Bubbles and Paint. In the morning, they are at the back door and will lead me, driving the pickup, to the barn where they are fed. I must drive slowly. They will turn around and make sure I am on the road. Takes more time, but I couldn’t have a safe barn without them.
Chris, would you check on my 2010 Prairie Sagebrush Awards for Writing and Photography on my blog? It’s the lead post and anyone that leaves a comment, I will donate a buck to the wildlife corridor organization in NM. The Awards are to my blogging friends this past year and their work is well worth a quick read.
Your blog is popular and your comment might attract some others.
(Jack Matthews, Sage to Meadow Blog)
Aren’t cats hilarious? But we love them for their companionship, unconditional love, and their great senses of humor! All my cats seem to have at least one quirk: Kisser loves to chew on toilet paper, Gracie (or Gris, The CSI Cat) goes around covering everybody’s business in the litter boxes if it’s not already covered, and all the cats are fixed but Midnight and Double Stuf love to profess their love for each other nightly and like to sing their praises as they do that. Crazy cats!
Sometimes a clock that chimes the hour works. Cats have pretty accurate time sense, so even if the chime is the same every hour, they’ll know which is the right one. If they pretend otherwise, they’re bluffing.