How can I wake up my human?

Dear George
What's the best way to wake up a human? Mine has naps when she should be playing/ stroking/ feeding me, especially at the weekends. She finds touching noses endearing, so sometimes I indulge her. Most of the time she hides under the covers and puts them over her head. Then I have to reach down and stroke her face gently (at first).
Most useful to share training tips, I've taught mine some voice commands for "I want to go outside" and "I'm back now". There is also one she takes as "thank-you", when in fact it means "about time/good" - I'm with the Bear on being too polite to our carers. I also find that it helps to get your rest. My humans are always running around and come home tired, then they attempt to train me (the cheek!) I think we both know who's best placed to have the energy for that!
Keep up the excellent blog!
Smudge

Dear Smudge,
I can think of several interesting ways of waking up a human and I invite other cats to share their favourites. Try some of the following.
1. Purr loudly near the ear. Normally this doesn't work very well but if your human had spent a night on the tiles, your purr will chime in with his hangover and intensify it very effectively.
2. Jump on to the head set of the bed (if your humans have one) and leap down on to their chest. A variation of this is to climb on to the feet end, then make a flying leap towards your human's groin. This works best with male humans.
3. Sit on their face.
4. Merely turn your back and, using a flirtatious backside presentation, move back towards their face. As their eyes open slighty, they will see your backside VERY close to them. Something about that seems to upset them!
5. Open their eyelids gently using a sheathed paw.
6. Bite the nose.
7. Go down to the bottom of the bed, lift the duvet with your head, and bite their toes. This is useful when they are cowering under the duvet and you can't reach their noses.
8. Jump on to the dressing table and swipe down their brush, comb, face cream etc one by one on to the floor. Pause between each crash, to make sure they have noticed.
9. The sneaky snoozy method. Lie very close with your face touching their cheek. Rub gently. Poor deluded creatures, they think that you just love to soooo much.
10. Sit on their chest and use the command stare on them. Believe me, even if their eyes are closed they will FEEL that stare and have to open them. A further development is to sit on the chest, and if they don't stir, to roll over and wave your paws in the air. This makes them laugh and laughter wakes them up.

Under the Paw - where humans belong.

Dear George,
My humans, Tom and Dee, are constantly voicing "my" thoughts for me. It's not just that these thoughts are largely inaccurate (I have never said "Please" or "if you don't mind awfully" before being fed a tin of Applaws chicken and cheese cat food - because I view receiving it as my right) that bothers me, nor even the humiliating fact that some of them will soon be available to the populus in a book that Tom has written called Under The Paw (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Under-Paw-Confessions-Cat-Man/dp/1847371418/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204462140&sr=1-1 ). What really gets to me is the voice in which said thoughts are delivered, which is somewhat upper-class and simpering - the kind of voice you might have found Willie Rushton using whilst narrating a 1980s children's TV programme, and - I think you'll agree - utterly unbecoming of a cat who started his life in a plastic bag on the side of a motorway and has braved some of the tougher parts of South East London and Norfolk. I am neither a) a character in a Beatrix Potter book, or b) a slightly effeminate aristocrat fallen on hard times. I am a warrior, who has slept on the world's sofa and fears no-one, with the possible exception of my pygmy grey half-sister, Bootsy, when her back's up and her breath is particularly fishy. How can I explain this to my two-legged dimwit housemates and get them to stop patronising me in front of my step-siblings?
Yours sincerely,
The Bear

Dear Bear,
Or should I say Dear The Bear? Forgive me if I have addressed you incorrrectly. We cats need our dignity, and I would not like you to think I had diminished yours by one jot. I am not a human. I do not do the indignities they inflict on us cats.
Which brings me neatly to your letter. I entirely sympathise with your dilemma. I too rely on a human secretary. I have tried to type, but frankly my paws are ill fitted to the keyboard. (Why don't Macintosh make the feline version? They could call it the IPuss. And it would come with a mouse, of course.)
I have trained Celia intensively, using rewards and punishments like standing on the keyboard repeating one letter for about 20 lines, to be sensitive to my voice. Most of the time she realises that she should not put in her own sympathies and feelings. She is MY ghost, not a writer in her own right. Even so, I have to watch her closely, particularly at times when I am being frank about human deficiencies. She has a tendency to turn to me and say: "George, you can't mean me to type this?" I say "What exactly is difficult about typing dysfunctional, stupid or clumsy? Get back to the keyboard. You are there to type not to give your own opinions about the human race."
It's a question of discipline, Bear. You have got to assert yourself as the Alpha Male of the household putting your humans in their proper places which is in the kitchen, the bedroom and in front of the computer. Don't let the male one think he is writing the book. He is your ghost, nothing more. A good ghost should be only a shadowy figure in a book. However, I congratulate you on getting the title right. "Under the Paw." I like that. Short, snappy and accurate. That's where humans belong.
Have you thought about spraying on the first copy that arrives in the household? Just to show them what you think of the style.
Yours George.
PS. I like the photo too. Nice to see an online brother.

Why does my human keep inviting other humans into the house?

QUESTION; My human keeps inviting other humans into my territory, the house. I don't like it. They turn up at all hours. She encourages them by feeding them cups of coffee and they vocalise endlessly. It seems like hours, and sometimes it is hours, before I get any privacy. It's my house, my core territory, and I wish I could stop her doing this. I don't invite stray cats into her territory. I keep them out. What does she think she is doing?
Ziggy

ANSWER
You have to try and be compassionate, Ziggy. A good pet owner, and I am sure you want to be one, tries to understand the needs of their pets. Human pets are obligate social animals. They have a dominance hierarchy (a loose one normally) and they spend a lot of time interacting with each other. It sounds as if your human lives alone. She will literally NEED other human company.
We cats don't do this. In wild conditions we hunt alone. We don't share our prey (like mice) with other cats, except when we are feeding our kittens. Sometimes we live in groups, if there is enough food going. But even in groups, we stay in little families. Some of us are true loners. But on the whole we are flexible. We can usually live with other unrelated cats, - maybe not as friends but as friendly acquaintances. But we don't need feline friends.
You have got to accept your human as she is. She hasn't got family in the house so she goes out and finds substitute family, brings them into the home, goes through the behaviour pattern of feeding kittens with them, and vocalises. Vocalisation for humans is a bit like grooming. They go in for mutual vocalisation. This motor pattern is part of the human ethogram.
The social company, kitten-feeding and vocalisation motor patterns are hard wired into them, Ziggy. You've got to allow her to do her instinctive behaviour. Just count yourself lucky that she's not seeking a mate. When humans go calling (for sex) it's incredibly difficult and embarassing for us cats! More on that later.
George

Why does my human pull my hair every day?

QUESTION:
Every day I have to run and hide behind the fridge. My human then hauls me out, dumps me on her lap, and starts pulling out my hair with a metal implement. Why does she do it? It hurts? Of course, I try to wriggle free but I can't. So I freeze with misery and just let her do it. Why do humans torture cats in this way?
Jasmine.

ANSWER:
You have to assert yourself, Jasmine. It's not enough to run and hide. Take back your power as a cat. Have pride in yourself. This is a claw and order situation. Claw her. Bite her. Hard.
Why does she do it? She thinks she is grooming you. Have you bothered to look how she grooms herself. She uses the same metal implement or something like it. She pours water on her head. She then puffs hot air on it. Some humans even use hot metal combs. Then they hiss sticky stuff. It's almost unbelievable, except for the fact that they haven't got hair in the right places. They can't use their teeth and tongue on themselves. Can't reach those pathetic few tufts of hair, you see. It's really very sad for this highly dysfunctional species.
But if they had any consideration, they would use tongue and teeth like we do when they groom us. They could easily lie on the floor and lick our fur. Use their teeth to tease out a few knots. Why don't they? It's just too much bother. The servant problem for us cats is really difficult. Humans are lazy creatures. I don't know that I have ever heard of a successful training method for this problem.
Which is why I recommend use of teeth and claw.

Cat Question: What if my humans move house?

Dear George
My primary care giver has been talking about "moving house". This has been going on ages now and they may not get round to it but I'm not sure I approve. I have everything I want here, although the large garden which is mentioned sounds good. What do you think?
I would rather not dump them as I am not going back to the streets and like the regular meals, cat flap, litter tray at this cold tie of year and sit down cuddles/ treats on the sofa. Plus I got tuna for breakfast and a new toy recently - a flat mouse shaped leather tag on a leather string, it came with a "work/documents" file which is useless for playing with so the human got that, I think my end of the deal is best. The flat mouse is good though, and smells nice and animal like, so the humans are worth holding onto.
Smudge

ANSWER:

The human obsession with moving house shows their complete inability to grasp the meaning of territory. "Territory is security" is a well known saying among wise cats. We need core territory, a place to eat, sleep and if necessary hide. We also need the home hunting range. We know the home range intimately - the patch of ivy near the garden shed where a family of wood mice hang out, the box shrub that smells like cat pee so we mark on it, the garden wall next door where we can sit and terrorize next door's smaller cat, the frightening front steps near the pavement where passing dogs leave THEIR marks. We know it. We love it. We feel happy in it.
Moving house just ruins everything for us.
Consider your options. Is there a friendly neighbour you could move in on? Is this the time to develop a huge and very visible series of panic attacks? Run from even the slightest noise, hide under the bed, make strange wailing noises? This might persuade your humans that you are going through a nervous breakdown and should not be moved. Also pee on the property pages of the newspapers NOW. Show them what you think of the idea. When they are consulting websites like Prime Location jump on the keyboard with all four paws to make them disappear.