Saturday, June 27, 2009

Look what I brought in... and where I put itl


Dear George,
This evening I brought home a frog from the garden and placed it in my waterbowl in the kitchen where it swam about most charmingly and gazed up at me out of the water. I was admiring it and experimenting with tapping it lightly on the head when to my amazement my human swooped down and covered the bowl up and took it out to the garden and emptied it. Can you explain why? Does this indicate she has some serious character flaw or just very low intelligence?
Yours mystified,
Chubby (Fluffums D'Wuffums)

Dear Chubby,
Humans don't get hunting. They have the predatory instinct but it is in a very warped and dysfunctional form. For a start, we are proper carnivores-only and they are omnivores. Like chimpanzees they eat fruit and veg as well as meat. We are designed for a meat-only diet. So our hunting instinct is intact, irresistable and highly efficient. Mice, rabbits, frogs... whatever, we hunt it.
Humans used to hunt but nowadays, instead, they shop. Shopping is the new hunting. It's really bad for them - sitting at a desk and ordering stuff online. Even before the net, they only walked a few yards from shop to shop. They ought to be out there slaughtering mammoths.
Of course, your human is of very low intelligence. They all are. No doubt you love her, and you want to think that she understands everything you say, but frankly she (and they) don't. They are dumb animals given to meaningless vocalising Blah blah blah. So it isn't a character flaw in her that she didn't understand the frog. It's just lack of mind. (For the zoologists among us cats, it's been proved that humans don't have theory of mind. Extensive tests with tail and ear movements have failed to show that they can really understand what we feel.)
So frogs... A sensible human would have taken it out of the bowl and eaten it with garlic as French humans do. Your human took it away
and let it go. If she'd been a cat, she'd have let it go in order to have the pleasure of catching it again. But being human, she didn't. She did the first half of the sequence and then, in her mindless human way, forgot the second half. They can't concentrate on anything more than a few minutes, Chubby.
If you keep on bringing in frogs, you MIGHT be able to train her to leave them in the bowl but I doubt it. Just accept the things you cannot change - human limitations.

George


9 comments:

  1. Funny how humans have the big whining pity for the frogs and songbirds we like to hunt, but little for the animals that are farmed to provide apes with meat. They mostly suffer far more and far longer than the wee beasts we hunt.

    Apes = hypocrites!

    Whicky Wuudler and his frog batting claws of truth.

    (grrr)

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  2. Humans just don't get it! We bring home trophys and they flip out. I just don't get it. I brought a baby rabbit in recently and both of my human freaked out, I mean freaked out! I was grabbed up and closed off in the bedroom and MY rabbit was allowed to escape out into the yard. Such a bummer. Now it is just too hot to hunt, today it's 95F (34C), I just don't have the energy to hunt in all this heat.

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  3. Chubby, I'm with you here!
    I bring in mice, snakes....but do you think my humans appreciate it?
    I never found frogs around where I live, but I'm going to check tommorow.
    Minnie

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  4. Hey Chubby,
    A frog in the pond....I mean...your water bowl? This must be really entertaining :-)
    Love
    Fluffy

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  5. Puss-PussJune 30, 2009

    Dear Chubby,

    I share your dismay. My cruel previous humans viciously declawed me, and so I can't hunt outside. I have tried to train my human female to at the very least leave the door open, so I can lay in wait for any hapless birds that might fly in, or a stray squirrel--anything. My original plan was to demonstrate my hunting skills to my human female by searching out and destroying any insects that came into the house; my hope was that she would see my value as a provider and supply me with mice or birds, but even though I once saved her life from a charging centipede, she hasn't picked up on her end of the bargain. It would be completely obvious to any feline, but not to a human. So I have taken to stalking her irritating little dog, which vaguely resembles a rat, and which I suppose would be at least worth a nibble once I dispatch it. The dog is wily, so I have had no success as of yet. But sooner or later, I will. Oh, yes--I will.

    Sincerely,
    Puss-Puss.

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  6. Sir WinstonJuly 02, 2009

    Hey Puss-Puss,
    I'm quite in the same situation like you; I was declawed before my current humans got me!
    Guess.....humans need a lot of education.
    Too bad that most of the vet doctors are too greedy to advise humans otherwise!
    I'm currently at the cottage with my housekeepers.
    I'll get back to you guys soon :-)
    Regards,
    Sir Winston

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  7. Hi Chubby, are you eating .....frogs or just play with them? something like ...."hide and seek" - you let them jump around the house...and then, let your humans find them? :-)))) That will be soooo much fun!
    If you are eating them....what do they taste like? Are they good?
    Hugs
    Cayenne

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  8. Hi Whicky Wuudler,
    I really appreciate your wisdom!
    I know what you are talking about!
    I participate in a lot "animal rights" campaigns with my humans :-)
    Cayenne

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  9. I have at times brought frogs but there is such a song and dance and so much jumping and screaming that I just go and look for something else and leave them to it. Humans have no idea of right and wrong, they don't seem to think that taking your spoils off you is theft. How would they like it if I took their lotto ticket off them I wonder?
    Hey Puss Puss and Winston that was a crime hacking those toes off, I'm glad you both got away and ended up with good staff. Cats of the world unite! Love Walter

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Help for cats whose humans show behaviour problems.

This blog is devoted to the study of human behaviour. We cats, who live with this sometimes unpredictable and always feeble minded species, can benefit from seeing their behaviour in its proper scientific context. The study of feline dilemmas, training problems, and difficulties with humans, can only benefit all of us. All of us train our humans - to buy the right food, for instance, but many of us do not have knowledge of how to improve our training methods. The human species is obviously not as intelligent as the cat, but nevertheless can learn quite a lot - if properly managed. Topics of interest include the use of claw and order, purring as a human reward, rubbing your human up the right way, when to bite, spraying as a method of making our wishes known, ignoring the human, human harassment, human inattention and sheer human stupidity. I welcome your questions. Photos can be sent via my secretary's website, www.celiahaddon.com This blog has been chosen as one of the top 50 feline blogs by Online VetTechprogramms.org