The Noble Pagan Forums - A Cat's Guide To Human Beings

A CAT'S GUIDE TO HUMAN BEINGS



1. Introduction: Why Do We Need Humans?
So you've decided to get yourself a human being. In doing
so, you've joined the millions of other cats who have
acquired these strange and often frustrating creatures.
There will be any number of times, during the course of your
association with humans, when you will wonder why you have
bothered to grace them with your presence.
What's so great about humans, anyway? Why not just hang
around with other cats? Our greatest philosophers have
struggled with this question for centuries, but the answer
is actually rather simple:
THEY HAVE OPPOSABLE THUMBS.
Which makes them the perfect tools for such tasks as opening
doors, getting the lids off of cat food cans, changing
television stations and other activities that we, despite
our other obvious advantages, find difficult to do ourselves.
True, chimps, orangutans and lemurs also have opposable
thumbs, but they are nowhere as easy to train.



2. How And When to Get Your Human's Attention
Humans often erroneously assume that there are other, more
important activities than taking care of your immediate
needs, such as conducting business, spending time with their
families or even sleeping.
Though this is dreadfully inconvenient, you can make this
work to your advantage by pestering your human at the moment
it is the busiest. It is usually so flustered that it will
do whatever you want it to do, just to get you out of its
hair. Not coincidentally, human teenagers follow this same
practice.
Here are some tried and true methods of getting your human
to do what you want:
Sitting on paper: An oldie but a goodie. If a human has paper
in front of it, chances are good it's something they assume is
more important than you. They will often offer you a snack to
lure you away. Establish your supremacy over this wood pulp
product at every opportunity. This practice also works well
with computer keyboards, remote controls, car keys and small
children.
Waking your human at odd hours: A cat's "golden time" is between
3:30 and 4:30 in the morning. If you paw at your human's sleeping
face during this time, you have a better than even chance that it
will get up and, in an incoherent haze, do exactly what you want.
You may actually have to scratch deep sleepers to get their
attention; remember to vary the scratch site to keep the human
from getting suspicious.



3. Punishing Your Human Being
Sometimes, despite your best training efforts, your human
will stubbornly resist bending to your whim. In these extreme
circumstances, you may have to punish your human.
Obvious punishments, such as scratching furniture or eating
household plants, are likely to backfire; the unsophisticated
humans are likely to misinterpret the activities and then try
to discipline YOU. Instead, we offer these subtle but
nonetheless effective alternatives:
* Use the cat box during an important formal dinner, or
even better utilize the indoor planters instead.
* Locate the cleanest vehicle in the driveway and walk
all over it. This is particularly effective if it has rained
very recently.
* Stare impassively at your human while it is attempting
a romantic interlude.
* Stand over an important piece of electronic equipment
and feign a hairball attack.
* After your human has watched a particularly disturbing
horror film, stand by the hall closet and then slowly back
away, hissing and yowling.
* While your human is sleeping, lie on its face.



4.Rewarding Your Human: Should Your Gift Still Be Alive?
The cat world is divided over the etiquette of presenting
humans with the thoughtful gift of a recently disemboweled
animal. Some believe that humans prefer these gifts already
dead, while others maintain that humans enjoy a slowly expiring
cricket or rodent just as much as we do, given their jumpy
and playful movements in picking the creatures up after
they've been presented.
After much consideration of the human psyche, we recommend
the following: cold blooded animals (large insects, frogs,
lizards, garden snakes and the occasional earthworm) should
be presented dead, while warm blooded animals (birds, rodents,
your neighbor's Pomeranian) are better still living. When
you see the expression on your human's face, you'll know
it's worth it.



5. How Long Should You Keep Your Human?
You are only obligated to your human for one of your lives.
The other eight are up to you. We recommend mixing and matching,
though in the end, most humans (at least the ones that are
worth living with) are pretty much the same. But what do
you expect? They're humans, after all. Opposable thumbs
will only take you so far.









C.S.

So true. My first cat (rest in peace) was my baby...or I hers. We were very connected. My current 'owner' is Drusilla. She's my black cat. She tells me when its time to eat, time to pick up her poop, when to pet her, when to leave her alone, when she is just being bitchy.

A good guide! I have one cat named Dudditz (after a character in S. King's book Dreamcatcher). He thinks I'm his personal beer provider. If I put a bottle of beer down, he thinks its his to drink! I have to be quick to grab it.

Rule number two had me snickering. I am an avid reader and my cats are at constant war with my books. The moment I have one ( book) up in front of my face one of my cats (usually Hoody) will mysteriously appear to bat, chew and claw at it.

C/S/