Saturday, January 11, 2014

Emotionally blackmailed..... by humans?

Dear George, 
I need your help to determine if my human is indeed emotionally blackmailing me or not. My brother, Blackie, got this idea in his head and it’s bugging me now. You see, I’m the Master Mouser of the House! All…from mice to humans both respect and fear me (as you can see from the photos attached). My brother is more of an artist; he’s more interested in gossip, food and spying on humans. He won’t know what to do with a mouse; he’ll simply hide in a cupboard away from the strange creature.
So, my point here is that he can be a bit ….off too, but he was telling me about a conversation between my “daddy” and a friend he overheard the other day. Apparently my daddy (and I call him so as I know I’m his favourite) told his friend (talking about me) that “I better be nice to him and never complain about him as the roast, the turkey, the chicken, the steak and the fish…come from his plate”
I mean…what did he mean by that? Did I ever count or list the prey I shared with him? Did I ever remind him of the mice, the rats, the bugs, spiders or night butterflies we shared? What is this?  George, with your expertise in human behaviour I hope you’ll help me determine if my brother was right! Is my daddy emotionally blackmailing me?
And…if he is…what should I do? Cut him off mice? Rats? What?
Hurt and confused
Spokey 



Dear Spokey,
We cats do emotional blackmail. Not humans.  I doubt if the normal human is intelligent enough to do this, though I suppose I should not rule it out entirely. There is a range of intelligence among humans and while almost all fall well below our intelligence level, it is possible that the odd genius human is as bright as we are.
You must take action immediately. Punish him. If he is like most humans, then start sharing your prey with him in the middle of the night. Stash away a living or half living mouse and then jump on the bed with it at about 3am.  Or start playing games on the bed at about that time - leaping on to his middle regions (that should hurt!), poking at his toes below the duvet, or just sitting on his head.
A programme of aggressive grooming should be instituted. As he is sitting on the chair, jump on to the back of the chair and groom his head. Concentrate on the bald bits if there are any. If not fiercely pull some of the hair. Nibble his ears if within reach and see if you can pull some of the ear hairs. Most humans find this excruciatingly painful.
Withdraw affection. Remember cats can use emotional blackmail with an exquisite grace. If there are visitors to the house, rub on the legs and jump on their laps purring with pleasure. Gaze lovingly into their eyes. Then, if your human makes any move towards you, run away as if terrified. Try to create the impression that he has been cruel to you in the past.
That'll teach him to blackmail you.
Yours cheerfully
George.
PS. Blogspot seems to be on the blink. So if this layout looks odd it is due to that.

4 comments:

  1. It looks like your brother is a funny creature! Maybe he's playing a prank on you or your daddy is way too smart!
    But, George is right - give him the "cold" shoulder for a while.
    Frederico

    ReplyDelete
  2. Most humans aren't smart enough for emotional blackmail. Give him the back of disrespect when he wants affection. That should do the trick.

    Spyro

    ReplyDelete
  3. Spokey, either your human daddy was a cat in a previous life (which it can be a possibility since he is the only human I heard of sharing a mouse or a rat with a cat) or....you trained him way too well (which means ....you made him to be so smart). In either case, George is right.....punish him!
    Love
    Fluffy

    ReplyDelete
  4. CAT VictoriaJanuary 17, 2014

    Emotionally blackmailed by humans? Unheard of! Wake up Spokey! You are the Master Mouser after all. Teach your daddy a lesson and put him in his place.
    CAT Victoria

    ReplyDelete

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