Dear George
What's the best way to wake up a human? Mine has naps when she should be playing/ stroking/ feeding me, especially at the weekends. She finds touching noses endearing, so sometimes I indulge her. Most of the time she hides under the covers and puts them over her head. Then I have to reach down and stroke her face gently (at first).
Most useful to share training tips, I've taught mine some voice commands for "I want to go outside" and "I'm back now". There is also one she takes as "thank-you", when in fact it means "about time/good" - I'm with the Bear on being too polite to our carers. I also find that it helps to get your rest. My humans are always running around and come home tired, then they attempt to train me (the cheek!) I think we both know who's best placed to have the energy for that!
Keep up the excellent blog!
Smudge
Dear Smudge,
I can think of several interesting ways of waking up a human and I invite other cats to share their favourites. Try some of the following.
1. Purr loudly near the ear. Normally this doesn't work very well but if your human had spent a night on the tiles, your purr will chime in with his hangover and intensify it very effectively.
2. Jump on to the head set of the bed (if your humans have one) and leap down on to their chest. A variation of this is to climb on to the feet end, then make a flying leap towards your human's groin. This works best with male humans.
3. Sit on their face.
4. Merely turn your back and, using a flirtatious backside presentation, move back towards their face. As their eyes open slighty, they will see your backside VERY close to them. Something about that seems to upset them!
5. Open their eyelids gently using a sheathed paw.
6. Bite the nose.
7. Go down to the bottom of the bed, lift the duvet with your head, and bite their toes. This is useful when they are cowering under the duvet and you can't reach their noses.
8. Jump on to the dressing table and swipe down their brush, comb, face cream etc one by one on to the floor. Pause between each crash, to make sure they have noticed.
9. The sneaky snoozy method. Lie very close with your face touching their cheek. Rub gently. Poor deluded creatures, they think that you just love to soooo much.
10. Sit on their chest and use the command stare on them. Believe me, even if their eyes are closed they will FEEL that stare and have to open them. A further development is to sit on the chest, and if they don't stir, to roll over and wave your paws in the air. This makes them laugh and laughter wakes them up.
