Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Zzzzzz! I'm a Zen cat!

Dear George,

Sometimes life can be very boring between breakfast and dinner, especially if you are an indoor cat and alone until your human comes home!

I’m not complaining, don’t get me wrong! If you remember …I was rescued after living for about 2 years on the streets of a suburb.

I do love my forever home and I do love my mom, but once in a while I get THAT urge to scratch or knock down things. Obviously mom is not pleased and calls me “a naughty girl”! So, trying to keep myself busy…..I took up meditation!

My “focus point” is a little fish in the aquarium next to my bed.

I stare at it until I fall into a deep meditation as you can see in the picture!

And I meditate (guess…deeper then a monk) until mom comes home.

I think I am a ZEN cat now! But I heard people talking about an Alpha cat!

George, what’s the difference between the two? Can I be both an Alpha and a Zen cat?

Something like the “A to Z” cat?

Love

Shumba


Dear Shumba,
Yes, fish are interactive TV for cats. Your human has obviously provided them for you to help amuse you. I see you are using them for meditation. Have you thought of a snack? Raw fish is very tasty and it is fun to put your paw in the tank and swish it about even if you don't actually fish one out! Some even more thoughtful owners provide a hamster cage for our amusement - though be wary, because if you put your nose too near the bars, these bite.
Deep meditation, intense serenity and the ability to nap often and anywhere (under radiators, on top of wardrobes, inside the bed, windowsills, near the Aga or on a radiator hammock) is something humans could learn from us. They don't know how to switch off. They spend their time working and worrying while they could learn from us the art of relaxation. So congratulations on being a Zen cat and setting them a good example.
Of course, you can be and should be an Alpha cat too. Being Alpha in the household means taking control of the family. First thing your Mom can do to keep you amused is to hide dry food in containers for you to "hunt" and eat - toilet rolls with sticky tape on the ends and holes to let the food out, paper (never plastic) bags, large cardboard boxes, small cardboard boxes to sit in (look at the photo of Cayenne on the blog entry for November 20th). And she should build some high stairs, ledges, using planks. Get that human to work.... This is the time when you don't let her nap or do Zen things, but you need her work much harder at being a feline amusement operative.
Make her get out the fishing rod toy and use it while she is watching TV. It is all on www.celiahaddon.com under Indoor Cats. Cats rule. Humans serve. If you are bored, Shumba, your human is not doing enough for you. They can be very slack in their duties.
Love George
PS. My secretary will be at college next Monday for five days so comments will be slow on going on the blog until the next weekend. I wish that woman would take her duties more seriously. Humans should be seen and not educated. The idea that they can learn anything much is just plain silly. She doesn't even clean my litter tray often enough - I like it cleaned 5 times a day.

6 comments:

  1. I am the alpha cat. My sister, Sweet Pea, used to thing she was the alpha cat, but she wasn't! My humans serve me well, but they have started to put me in the kitchen at night. I don't get it. Maybe it's because I keep waking them three, four time a night. I just want to go outside. If I don't sleep then every one else in the household should not sleep, now that is being the alpha cat. How do you think I got my name?

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  2. Hm! Very interesting position you meditating in Shumba! What would you call it?
    It doesn't look to me to be any "lotus"; not even half lotus :-)
    Cayenne

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  3. Shumba, let me know when you'll start teaching meditation! I might sign up!
    Sir Winston

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  4. Dear George, I don't understand why you are so mellow when it comes to Celia?
    What is she doing at that college before Christmas? Obviously she's not taking her secretarial duties seriously! Show her that you are her boss; the Alpha cat of UK!
    Love
    Fluffy

    PS. I'm the Alpha cat in our house and yet, she's mentioning Cayenne's name all the time!
    Guess....she doesn't like me very much, right?

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  5. Shumba, great idea! With the cold winter and snow around I think that being a Zen cat is wonderful!
    Minnie

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  6. I'd be more interested in that fish you're staring at! Did you try to catch it?
    Diego

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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