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.
Beathoven I think was talking about licking inside their nostrel, which sounded kind of interesting. Mine wakes up furry easy though so I can honestly say I've never had to try an weird tactics on her.
ReplyDeleteMy cats would like to add some other suggestions. Here are the latest successful methods they employ*: -
ReplyDeleteLaunch self from windowsill onto the bladder area of the sleeping human.
Pounce on one human eye as it moves during REM sleep. Always land with both front paws on the eyeball, ensure paws are muddy too.
Shove a fat paw into the armpit of the sleeping human. wag it about relentlessly, claws slightly out helps speed up the waking.
Lie on back under the bed, use claws on the underside of the bed to haul self around in a wild/crazy manner.
Have full blown wrestling match with feline housemates on the pillow of the sleeping human.
*Not an extensive list btw!
Mine usually wakes very easily, but if some boosting is needed then gentle scratching of any any bare part of the body usually does the trick. This is very easy even if your human tries to hide under the duvet, you just gently push your paw under the duvet from the end of the bed and hey presto you can find the toes.
ReplyDeleteCheers
Elis from London
I try to be polite, initially, however, if my quiet squeak meow doesn't work, I then plunder around in the basket next to the bed and if that doesn't work I go and rattle the doors between the den and foyer and my very last resort is to scratch on the big chair next to the door going outside. That one works EVERY time.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to try toe biting and eye pouncing next. I also like the general jumping suggestions and once heard of a cat named "thud" in honor of her high level skill in jumping on humam body parts. She also used to gently bite visitors on the calf if they didn't get her food from the fridge. I must say I admire her style.
ReplyDeleteSmudge
Felix said,
ReplyDeleteI just howl outside the bedroom door and I know the pitch that really gets inside my owner's head.
I build it up to an unbearable level and also pound the door with my paws.
October 17, 2010