Saturday, July 19, 2014

Claws and clippers - an official complaint from Australia

Dear George,
Can you have a quiet word with your Human about claws and clippers?
Nothing sarcastic, mind - just gently point out that some humans [and I include mine amongst them] should never be given access to machinery or tools.Your Human, whom I am prepared to concede has been highly trained and certified by you – gave my Human a set of cunning and devious pointers on how to approach my beautifully clawed feet, and trim my carefully honed daggers which have taken MONTHS to perfect.
Ye Gods...what was she thinking?
Anyway....my paw was held; [a skill I already had, thank you very much]-and I got my treat... and then held again while this gadget thingy was picked up. And I was off, before even snatching the treat she was holding out for me.
 Back to square one.......
I held hands; sat up and said “Please”; let her hold my paw; watched her hand sneak towards the damn thingy again, and I was whistling off into the sunset again.
I can play this game as long as she can, but my complaint to you, George my friend, is that I keep missing out on my treats, due to having to take off and gallop away all the time.
Not to mention, it’s tiring and wasting quality treat time. The Dog thinks I’ve gone mad, and chases me around the lounge and upstairs, telling me to “just sit and have it done, you wimp,” like she does. Not a chance......
Back to you, Chum – a quiet word is definitely required.
I didn’t also mention that the first thingy was changed for a different thingy...but she’s still not getting near my feet with it, so there!
 It’s pretty cold here now, and I am missing out on lap time as well, not to mention having to sleep with one eye open, in case.......
I am retaliating by shedding more fur all over the place, but all that’s done is make them go out and get another small screamy, sucky thingy, to clean it up with. It’s a scary little beast, and can get into small spaces where I have been able to deposit huge heaps before. Not impressed George...too many gadgets!
Your Aussie mate    
Chaos.

Dear Chaos,
This is an official apology for my human. Poor Celia thinks she trains cats, while all the cats she has ever owned have trained her. Compared with us, she is a really poor trainer. Like all humans she suffers under the delusion that she is in charge of us, when really we are in charge of her.
Continue your behaviour around the clipper. Your humans will soon give up their pathetic attempts. They do not have the feline level of purrsistence. We can outwait and outwit our humans every time if we keep our cool.
Missing the treats. Develop a "cute" behaviour for them. Sitting up on your backside or waving a paw when food in around. They will probably give you some and then every time you want some, you do the behaviour. This is called reward training or operant conditioning. They give you food and you reward them with the cute behaviour.
If only humans knew....
Yours George
PS. If you have a good scratch post (or outside tree) your claws will look after themselves to your satisfaction, if not to theirs. It needs to be large enough for your full height and very stable. I have a Fat Boy post.



5 comments:

  1. Sounds like some pawsome advice to us ;)
    Heehee
    Purrs Georgia and Julie,
    Treasure and JJ

    ReplyDelete
  2. Too late. Our mom has already mastered those chippy things.

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  3. We meant to say clippy things but the iPad auto corrected to chippy. They definitely aren't chippy.

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  4. George, Chaos, get it right! No human (not even Celia) ever owned a cat! We, the cats, own everything and everybody. Yes, Celia might think she's training us, but she's no dummy....she bloody knows she doesn't own us! And....Chaos...use your male legs as "a tree" to sharpen our nails! That's what I do :-)
    Love
    Fluffy

    PS. Celia trained my mummy to trim my nails and that's exactly she tried to do this afternoon (unsuccessfully):-)

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  5. Thank you one and all, for your support. I note that George has a scratching post...at risk of doing a 'one up' thingy...I have one too. It reaches from the floor up to the house rafters, and the humans say is twelve feet long. I claw it madly, of course, and then use them to get the hall door opened. I LURVE the sound of claws down paintwork, don't you?

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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