Make your human feed you - a new method

Hello George,
It’s me again, Rakishi. I thought I would share with you a ploy I’ve been developing which gets my humans to give me extra food without any effort at all on my part. The idea may not be entirely original, but I’ve been refining it with some remarkably good results. It utilises the Making Guilt Work principle which you explained so well to Natasha.
In between what they call my “mealtimes” ( I ask you, would you catch a mouse or vole only at specific times each day?), I often get a bit peckish, so I go into the kitchen and sit silently by my empty bowl, facing the doorway, putting on a sad expression. This is a room they go in and out of quite often, so I usually don’t have to wait too long until one of them comes in. I get almost immediate results. They feel so sorry for me that out comes something, usually tasty enough.
They have tried their own trick of giving me something they think I’m not fond of, with the female muttering about my not getting fat. But I eat it any way, as it’s important to keep the pressure up. And, if I think they’re slipping, instead of sitting by my bowl, I lie down next to it. This is nice and restful, and I find I’m tempted to doze off – but I have to keep alert so as not to spoil the effect. This is a real winner. The female in particular gets quite bothered, and gives me extra tuna, which I love. (It’s always served with lots of tuna-flavoured water which is really yummy; she thinks it’s good for me to drink more liquid and I’m happy to oblige.)
So you see rather than expending energy hanging about them and nagging for food, I have a nice rest while at the same time getting them to do what I want. Lord, what fools these mortals be, as a great cat poet once wrote.
Hope you are keeping well and the hunting is good. Personally, I don’t bother much. I don’t really feel the need.
Rakishi

Dear Rakishi,
Thank you for another helpful training tip. I shall mention this in my forthcoming monumental and much researched work, A Cat's Guide to Humans. This particular method of training humans to give food is, as you say, marvellously effortless. Feline indolence, I once read in a science paper, has to be taken into consideration when studying cats. Many hours of observation or of videoing merely result in a human watching or recording a cat sleeping.
You are quite right in thinking that humans fail to feed us properly. We cats like a mouse-sized portion about 10 to 15 times in 24 hours, depending on the size of the notional mouse. What we often get is a large meal, equivalent to about six mice, twice a day. Or, if we are lucky, food left down all the time - easy to eat but somehow not very exciting.
Celia decided to feed my friend Tilly, the ugliest cat in the shelter, ad lib. She put down a huge bowl of food, equivalent to at least a day's grub, and Tilly ate it all immediatly. So she put down a similar amount, which Tilly had finished about three hours later. Celia, now alarmed, put down another similar amount - and that too was eaten up. All in all, Tilly ate three days food in approximately eight hours. The experiment ceased and Celia went back to feeding Tilly twice a day with proper portion control.
It is always satisfying when cats outwit human plans in this way.
Thank you for your valuable contribution to knowledge of the cat-human relationship. Good hunting.
George



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