Dan A. wrote:I talk to my pets all the time. Sometimes they talk to me, too. Sascha usually gets talkative when he knows feeding time is coming up or I am eating something that smells really good!
Food's a big one, all right. And treats? Good Lord, but things get noisy. But they ask for help and express opinions, too. One fellow calls his cat a tattletale because it is always demanding his attention in order to point out a spider in the tub (the cat won't even touch them - so much for the vaunted "killer instinct"), or a raccoon outside the window, or whatever discordant element offends it next. Not a day goes by, it would seem. But the fellow also knows that as vigilant as it is, his cat would alert him to an intruder or a fire or the like, too, so essentially he's got himself a dedicated watch-cat. You don't see that every day. Once Mubu objected to me paying more attention to the computer than she thought was good. Usually she'd just jump up on my lap and we'd have quality time that way, but not that day. I was tapping and clicking away as usual when, unexpectedly, behind me a big yowl pierced the quiet and made me jump out of my seat. I looked back and there she was, seated, suggesting she might well have been there a while, just watching. If cats could raise an eyebrow, that's how disapproving she looked. It wasn't a matter of food, because her food was always out for her, and there was nothing else pressing at the time. She could have simply jumped up onto my lap as usual, but this was more like telling me I was a sorry sight in need of an intervention. Which I'll not deny. What I really think it was, at core, was her letting me know that she wanted me to do more initiating of quality time instead of leaving it all up to her, and indeed, that had been the situation of late. For beings with emotional lives this is an easily understood feeling, and in a partnership context, a very reasonable position to take as well. If you pay attention to how the pet is behaving
in that moment, which is to say that you also take the bigger picture into account along with it (and that includes you), mammals, at least, are not that hard to read.
Come to think of it, Mubu used that pointed, significant-looking expression on me various times, all consistent with there being good reason for it. It was very much like a look when one says, "
Seriously?". If she liked a new tune and my playing was good she'd do antics in the armchair, but if it sucked, I got The Look. Happened every time. She had an ear, that one. Now, I know
that sounds like nothing but projecting, but frequency and consistency do lead one to arrive at conclusions, because everyone knows that it is common for cats to have an affinity for music. So why not discernment between good and frankly bad, at least in some cases? There's room in my world for it. There are other times where she used The Look, too, and to proper effect, but there's no need to go into them here.