Read my paws....

 

Look at our front paws and you can read our feelings from them. If they are tucked neatly under us, bent towards each other or bent back under the chest, while we am sitting, it means we are relaxed and happy.

If they are under our bodies but firmly on the ground, it means we are anxious. /we have not relaxed. We have our paws ready for movement, so that we can back away fast or even flee for our lives.

 

Pay attention, humans. Read our paws.

The delicacy of a paw touch

 

One of my many cat friends, Mr Nipper Spangles, is finding it hard to adapt his paws to a key board. He has tried sitting on it. He has attempted to use the tip of hi
s tail as a digit. He has tried to manipulate the keys by standing on several at a time.

To no avail. All that emerges on the screen is a series of meaningless scribbles.

True, when he stands on several keys at a time, the computer makes several strange noises. Clearly it is attempting to communicate vocally. But, says Spangles, it makes no sense at all. It cannot mew or miss or wail in the correct form.

What is the secret of my success at the keyboard? I want to be modest so I shall not mention my immense intelligence or my amazing patience. I will not even mention my days of practice when I was a kitten.

No. All I will say is that the secret of my success is delicacy. The delicate way I have learned to pat with my paw. Gently, Delicately. But with a feline firmness.

My paw work is so fine, so nicely judged, so precise that I am able to write this blog. To encourage other cats here is a photo of me at work. Note the delicate left hand paw.

My advice to cat bloggers is to accept the fact that you may not be able to type... get a human secretary.

Just use the keyboard to interrupt her when she is not paying you proper attention.

Stressed humans and tender paws

My paws hurt from trying to use this laptop.

My human has let her  computer get too old and it is dying on her. That is why this blog is so late. She is frantic so I decided to help her with the typing. I don't usually offer help. Altruism is not a cat thing. But I don't want to disappoint my fans.

The keyboard is great to sleep on. It's fun to walk on too. I like leaving messages on screen like this - ssrr  44444 'lkp[0\]12. These cryptic comments enhance her efforts though she never appreciates them.But it is hard on the paws.  So my message is simple. And very short.

Christmas is coming. This means your human will be particularly difficult to get on with. She is tired and worried. Christmas really makes humans stressed.

At least this year she won't be able to fill the house with screaming kids and ageing parents. The fewer people the better for us cats.

And there may be more turkey leftovers!

PS. Don't eat the wrapping paper or ribbons. It usually means a trip to the vet.

Poetry in motion - the cat walk

This is the cat walk. Watch the purrfect co-ordination of our four legs. We walk on our toes. We move both legs on one side of the body before the legs on the other side. 
But the legs on either side do not hit the ground at the same time, so that most of the time three legs are still on the ground. So our gait is both fluid and stable.
Unlike the ungainly two legged gait of humans. As a famous human writer admitted "Four legs good: two legs bad."
As for their feet.... almost useless toes on a flattened large pad. Pathetic.

• For more about ungainly humans get my book here.

Human feet - enticing but useless

Naked human feet are tempting. They have an enticing scent, a mixture of body odour, sock, and leather shoe. Sniffing them is fun. Licking them - which some cats do - is usually not very rewarding, unless you have a human who goes barefoot and picks up interesting smells from the ground.
Those little piggy toes, which can wriggle, are fun to pounce on. Particularly in the middle of the night when your human goes to use its strange water-based litter tray. Try it. The human scream is really thrilling.
The strange thing about human feet is how useless they are for humans. True, they are flat so that humans can walk on two legs (not an advantage), but most of modern human feet are too soft to walk without the protection of shoes.
Despite being soft, flat sole of the foot is very insensitive compared with our paws. Humans cannot feel the earth vibrating through the soles of their feet. Feet are useless, therefore, for warning  about predators. Just occasionally there is a single hair or two on the top of the foot among the elderly. But there are no charming little tufts of fur between the toes like ours.
The toes can wriggle a bit but are relatively immobile. They can't grasp anything. They don't have claws, either retractable ones like us or ordinary claws like a dog. Their nails don't DO anything. They can't open cat food with their feet.
In a word, human feet may be tempting to play but they are otherwise useless.



* Coming shortly, my guide to human management and training...
I am blogging early because I have sent my human to do an update day at Lincoln University.