Saturday, August 20, 2011

How to wake up your sleeping human.

Dear George,
Hello, my name is Purdey. You may recall my appearance on this blog two Winter's ago, where I was shown scampering happily through fairly deep snow (well, it came above my elbows!). Now, after a chance remark about Getting My Human Up in the morning, I now relate how I, my half-sister and my darling Mother awake said Human in the mornings when we feel that breakfast is due. Fortunately, he almost always has an Open Door Policy, so we have free access to his bed at all times. And to him.
Me, when I feel that breakfast is overdue, or rather when my tummy feels that breakfast is overdue, with all due deference I leap to his bed-head, sit close up to face, and very, very slowly extend a relaxed paw (claws retracted and held under) and just touch his face with the softest of furry touches. Contact made, I immediately withdraw paw and wait a a few seconds. If no movement, I repeat at shortening intervals until he opens his eyes. Result!
I see that if my Mummy gets the Tummy Call before I do, she leaps up towards his head, stares intently at his face and begins to wash his nose. She then swiftly moves over his upper lip and down to his chin, which she proceeds to wash with vigour and no small effort, for our Human has a rather stiff and not-so-pleasant fur covering most of his face (termed a 'full set', I believe). Anyway, a good rasp from Mummy soon gets him stirring!
But the medal for immediate results must go to my half-sister Milly, who brokes no nonsense! She leaps up and goes for the head. But not close, so when she puts out a paw, as I do, her arm is stretched so, as Nature designed us, her claws as also extended. She then descends onto our Human's face and pulls her claws lightly thorough his facial hair. This wakes him up! Sometimes she approaches from the side or even higher up and pulls her paw over his nose. Unfortunately this means that a claw can, just perhaps, become hooked up his nose and that really does wake him up. Still, I must say that he takes it all in good humour and does get up to attend to our breakfasts.
Usually he then repairs back to bed and switches on Radio 4 extra and settles back for another half-hour or more. Which is all right, because we then leave him alone. Unless it is cold or raining, when we may join him in bed.
Love to all.
Purdey Puss
PS. I have added a photo of me asleep and also of me yawning after a nap on the nearby roof.

Dear Purdey,
Thank you for a valuable addition to Chapter 5 of the
Training Manual, a masterpiece of training practice and theory which is my major literary interest. Unfortunately due to the way the publishing industry is run almost entirely by humans, I have not yet found a publisher. However, your post gives me a chance to appeal for contributions of other wake-up-your-human methods.
Here are some methods I have heard of. A cat called Little Mog used to back up to the human face and present her butt - a cat way of saying I fancy you. Some how the proxmity of this part of the anatomy would - possibly by ESP - wake her human within a minute or so. To intensify the wake up call, she used a tail quiver like the one used in spraying urine. This dry spray, so to speak, had an electric effect.
Fat Ada, a black and white beauty, simply used to scratch the bed making pleasing zen-like marks on it. The message, rather like that of the speaking clock of the old days, was "At the first scratch, it will be 7.00 am." If this didn't do the trick she would just walk up and down her human's body.
Other methods - jumping off the bedhead on to the pillow; jumping off the bedhead on to the human head; sitting on the human head; opening the eyelids with a gentle paw (claws retracted out of kindness); biting the toes below the duvet at the bottom of the bed; scratching the carpet outside the bedroom door (if humans thoughtlessly shut you out); jumping on the dressing table and swiping off anything standing upon it.....
Join in, cats. Help me compile the ultimate list.
Love George

11 comments:

  1. Very funny....
    Katie has given up on me. Lost cause I guess. She's still slumbering away when I'm out of the shower and getting dressed. Some mornings I have to "invite" her downstairs for breakfast!
    : )

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  2. I meow out loud! Very loud! Always at 6 am!
    Sebastian

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  3. Hm! My Mommy is the one to get up first. We sleep together and I don't understand why she needs an alarm clock.
    Shumba

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  4. As a rabbit I find the most effective method of waking people is The Thump. I went on all night once when somebody was sleeping in my bedroom.I'm not allowed to stay up there now when visitors come. The Thump can be fast or slow. Fast is for danger but an irregular, slow thump is, for humans.like waiting for the second shoe to fall. It drives them mad.

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  5. Sir WinstonAugust 24, 2011

    Purdey Puss....you are beautiful. How do you think that anybody can get mad at you (no matter how you wake him/her up)
    I, for a fact, ignore my housekeepers in the morning. I like my breakfast around 9 o'clock but I "encourage" them to get up at 7 am, especially my male housekeeper. I pretend I like "his breakfast" so.....I start by "pushing" him out of bed.
    Sir Winston

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  6. Agh! My humans dare once in a while to close the bedroom door. They pay dearly for this. Their excuse? They want to sleep! My revenge? Biting toes, ears ....whatever sticks out! Or, if this doesn't work and they close the door again....then, slamming cabinets doors in the kitchen works wonder :-)
    Minnie

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  7. Thump! Thump! Thump! works for me. It is true that it's not as good as a rabbit's thump but good enough to get them up. Or running down the stairs - the house has a echo!
    Frederico

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  8. Hello there! Jumping down from a bookcase or even a desk and landing on your human belly....it's so much fun! They jump too! Instantly!
    Lucky

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  9. I wake up my human "daddy" every morning at 4 am SHARP! And I do it just for fun! I want to play not to eat. I want my breakfast served at 6 o'clock precisely! He tries to bribe me with food but I say "NO" each time! Let's play first! I love to see his miserable, sleepy face trying to fool me into laying down besides him but, I love action! My sister, Cayenne, is in charge with our mommy! She jumps on her.....but, then mommy sweet talks Cayenne into sleeping for another 2 hours! Sucker!
    Love
    Fluffy

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  10. What a wonderful array of methods from everyone, we are gonna try some but...

    ....bugger all this claws-retracted-for-kindness malarky, one claw inserted up an ape nostril gets that lazy snoring ape awake and serving fuuds quicker than lightening.

    Other methods include - galloping up onto and over the ape bed repeatedly.

    Jumping onto the apes according to whether they are male or female apes - for males jump on the bit where their legs meet their bodies - for females jump onto their convenient chest cushions. If the ape is in a particularly deep sleep, make sure you jump from a high place.

    Whapping precious items off of the dressing table is recommended too. Choose something delicate and breakable.

    Use those claws to hook and drag books from the bedside bookshelf. Bonus marks if you manage to make any bookmarks fall out of books currently being read.

    Digging your way under the duvet right by the big fat snoring ape face is quite good too.

    We don't need alarm clocks at Everycat Towers.

    Luff from

    Gerry & Oliver

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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