Of cats and feline temper.....

Dear George, 

I think I have an anger management and impatience issue! Don’t get me wrong – I do a lot of soul-searching and self-development work! I meditate, I do yoga (as you can see in the photo attached), I chant (ah! you should listen to my meowing repertoire) and, still, at times, I feel like smacking someone, especially my humans when they don’t understand or pretend do not understand and are slow reacting to my demands! They say I’m high maintenance! Of course I am – I’m royalty after all, right? But, if I snap it won’t be pretty! So, George, do you think it’s me? What do I do?

Impatiently yours,

CAT Victoria

Dear Victora,
You are not alone. Dealing with humans on a daily basis can be absolutely maddening. It's been argued that humans can think but, apart from "higher" order thoughts such as Freudian analysis, Brexit and the God particle, it seems to me that they are just dumb animals. They lack both wisdom and understanding.
Be patient. I know you can be, because all cats are patient enough to sit at a mouse hole waiting for a mouse to poke its nose out. Apply this patience and your own purrsistence to your relationship with humans. They may have poor purrception but they can be trained. Do not give up. 
Yoga for cats works. It is true that we do have a little difficulty with one of the five guidelines for a harmonious life – asteya, non-stealing, but we are truly skilled in brahmacharya, the wise use of energy.
Yours
George.
PS. My nephew George is working on a book that will help cats in their dealings with humans.  It will be published in the UK this September.

Exercise your human the feline yoga way

Dear George,

Last night I’ve got up (after a longer nap) to get my night time treats and there was no movement around. The silence was quite unusual and a bit unbearable! Hmm? Where was my mommy? I knew she was somewhere in the house; was she asleep? So I started moving slowly and quietly and there she was….in the stillness of the night…she was watching a video! But, mind you, not your regular video - I mean music or something!

In this video there was a woman explaining some exercises that my mommy was supposed to follow! That caught my interest so I joined my human to watch it!

George, you won’t believe this! The first exercise was about “stretching out one’s arms and rotating/spinning clockwise (apparently very important) like a dog chasing its tail until one gets dizzy! At least, I got dizzy just by watching it and honestly I think I’ve passed out! By the time I’ve regained my consciousness the woman in the video was bent forward in something that was called “downward dog”! What? I know most people behave like dogs …that’s why they are their best friends! They chase their tails, don’t know when to stop eating, looking at you with those big eyes full of loyalty and adoration and most of the time…barking at the wrong tree! Yes, most people but ….not my mommy! George, I have to save my mommy! I don’t want her to do all these nonsense dog exercises! I want her to behave like a cat: napping, relaxing, eating little but good and performing purrfect and elegant stretches (look at my picture attached)!

Now, how do I do this?
Uma

Dear Uma,
Canine type exercises (with all that bottom sniffing and tail wagging) are definitely not ideal for humans. They should be doing cat yoga instead. There are also some very nice feline yoga poses to be found here. If humans imitated some of our more common poses, and cultivated inner feline serenity, they would be much healthier and happier.  
I recommend that you join her during her exercise routine and see if you can entice her to imitate your behaviour. If you start by imitating some of her behaviours, you will catch her attention. Once she is watching, then take the initiative and do some interesting poses for her. Ziggy volunteered to help me by doing some of his more athletic poses for the camera - just to give you a few ideas.

If she continues to watch silly videos suggesting dog behaviour for humans just insert your body between her and the screen and blank it out. We can't have humans imitating dogs. It is just too humiliating for us and for them.
Yours 
George!  
PS. And let us not forget the feline revolutionary asana (below)