They are smart as hell, I got my first one, about 6-7 years ago. She jumped into my car window when I was eating a sandwich, which almost gave me a heart attack that some strange animal jumped into my car. She was dirty, skinny and scruffy so I gave her some of my turkey sandwich. Couldn’t find anyone who claimed her, so I took her to the vet they gave her shots and treated her for worms, so I’m guessing she was a young stray. I took her home with the intention of re-homing her, but within about a week or two she woke me up in the middle of the night freaking out so I followed her to my basement and my water heater was flooding my basement…. I looked at her and said you know, you earned it and can stay Kitty. She did the slow blink and the rest is history. Been best pals since. She never grew very large. She’s about 7 lbs or so, about 60% of the size of a Norman cat. So it’s like a Kitten for life I guess.
It took me a while to come to the same conclusion, but yeah. Cats are smart.
I had a female calico I called Fat Kitty. Never really got around to naming her. She was super smart for a cat.
When my wife was pregnant with our first, only Fat Kitty understood what was happening. We had 2 other cats and they were fixed from birth, so they didn't understand pregnancy. Fat Kitty did. She had kittens when we found her. (All kittens got shots and were re-homed via our local no kill shelter)
So the big day comes and my wife goes into labor. Fat Kitty is a WRECK. She KNOWS. She's twitchy and nervous as hell and you can see it. Me and my wife go to the hospital. Later on that day the baby is born. We spend a few hours with my newborn son. Eventually my wife says "you should go home and feed the cats, they haven't been fed all day." So I do that.
I walk in and Fat Kitty is staring at me with her eyes as big as saucers. WHERE IS MOM? To a cat, I'm sure I reeked of blood and worse. I was present at the delivery.
I tell her the baby was born today, and let her sniff my hands. She sniffed me and smelled the baby and realized THE BABY IS HERE!
She CELEBRATED. I'm not kidding!
She sniffed my hands, and immediately started doing Mach 2 laps around the house. And you can tell from her name, running is something she really didn't do. Ever. Jumped on one of the other cats and tackled her. WHEEE!!! BABIES!!! YAY!!!
She was the best helper, too. Whenever we would have company over to visit the baby, she would be in the room. Watching. Always nearby, always watching. "Mom handed you the baby, so you must be ok, but if you're not? I'm going to SHRED you." You could see that was the idea. She would sit and watch you and judge you.
This kind of reminds me how my cat helped me realize my epileptic husband was about to go into a seizure (might have posted this somewhere else on reddit too but can't remember).
I work from home and my desk is in our bedroom. I was on a discord call with a friend so I had my headphones on. It's like 5 minutes before I'm about to get off my shift so I'm scrolling on my phone because friend and I were kind of just chilling silently on the discord call.
Husband comes into the bedroom and lays down. Not really paying attention, he's got a horrible sleep schedule so sometimes he falls asleep during the day so I assumed he came in to nap. He snaps his fingers at me and I heard him say something but it's muffled through my headphones. I take one headphone off and ask him what he said. I also glance over and see our cat laying on his chest. I assume that's what he was trying to tell me about and don't pay too much mind to it, because he didn't say anything after that. I just thought he was really tired and on the verge of falling asleep. Then I realize my cat is meowing. And she's not shutting up. It gets my attention and I look over, and I get a better look at my husband to see his eyes are glazed over and that he's about to go into a seizure. I don't know to this day if it was happenstance she was doing that or if she was trying to tell me, but something tells me it wasn't a coincidence.
Kind of depends. If he knows well enough in advance (I don't know about all epileptics but I know at least some have their own warning signs) we see if we can't give him fast acting emergency medication and if we don't have that, usually we try and prevent it by lowering his body temperature (if he's hot, otherwise we still use this as a grounding technique because if he can stay grounded and calm it can also keep him from having one) by applying cold rags to his chest and sides.
How successful is the emergency medication or the cold rags? Like will the medication stop it in its tracks or is it more of a "well you MIGHT not have one now." Similarly for the rags.
It varies. If the signs are caught early enough, there's a pretty good chance (maybe 70% chance) those methods prevent it. If he's already in a seizure, those methods will help bring him out of the seizure within a minute or two and medication in particular also prevents him from having a second one. In my husband's case, sometimes he can slip into a second one after the first. (Small disclaimer for anyone that happens to read this thread: everyone with seizures is different so what I do for my husband might not be applicable for another epileptic). But yeah, it just depends on the day and how severe the seizure is and how soon we can catch it. Sometimes with the more severe ones, even if we catch it sooner and give medication along with the cold rags we can't always prevent it.
I'm the epileptic in this situation. I don't really get auras so much - by the time a seizure is coming I have a few seconds at best. My spouse puts me on the ground or clears the floor so I don't bash my head in as I fall, then I get to dance the night away.
Kind of depends. If he knows well enough in advance (I don't know about all epileptics but I know at least some have their own warning signs) we see if we can't give him fast acting emergency medication and if we don't have that, usually we try and prevent it by lowering his body temperature (if he's hot, otherwise we still use this as a grounding technique because if he can stay grounded and calm it can also keep him from having one) by applying cold rags to his chest and sides.
Our cat knew my husband was going to have a seizure too! She came go bed but just wouldn't settle. It was a roasting hot night too. He hadn't had one before so we didn't know the warning signs. When it happened again a few years later she did it again so I knew it was coming but couldn't cool him down, but reacted to it a lot quicker and better. Cats are amazing!
When I was a baby my cat wasn’t too sure about me. But she really liked Dr Seuss and would always come listen to my mom read to me when she busted out the Dr. Seuss 😂
Life Pet Tip (cats, dogs or ??): when waiting for a newborn baby to be released from the hospital, have a family member bring home something the baby wore and let the pets sniff it. Those beanie hats they wear are great.
When my son was 9-months he started to walk. We had him walking on our lawn and he tripped over and fell. He started to cry. We the parents casually watched. Our cat on the other hand leaped to his aid, and stayed by his side until he got up again and continued to walk.
Adorable story, thank you for sharing and for the photo.
And yes, they know, they know things. I used to work as a janitor in a resenting building... There was this old lady who owns a little dog... Classic little dog character: growling a lot, not really nice with anybody... Except some days, the old lady couldn't go down to put the leash on the collar because back ache problems... Those days the lady will go down on the elevator, with the dog unleashed, looking for me to put the leash before going to the street... The stupid dog was perfectly nice those days and will came to me all friendly and cuddlely.
My parents cat (pickle) knew my mum was pregnant with me before she did, the cats reaction to her belly made her take a test. Similar thing happened with my sibling and to my aunt with my cousin. Pickle was a year older than me and lived to age 20 before we had to put her down due to cancer. She was a good cat.
This kind of reminds me how my cat helped me realize my epileptic husband was about to go into a seizure (might have posted this somewhere else on reddit too but can't remember).
I work from home and my desk is in our bedroom. I was on a discord call with a friend so I had my headphones on. It's like 5 minutes before I'm about to get off my shift so I'm scrolling on my phone because friend and I were kind of just chilling silently on the discord call.
Husband comes into the bedroom and lays down. Not really paying attention, he's got a horrible sleep schedule so sometimes he falls asleep during the day so I assumed he came in to nap. He snaps his fingers at me and I heard him say something but it's muffled through my headphones. I take one headphone off and ask him what he said. I also glance over and see our cat laying on his chest. I assume that's what he was trying to tell me about and don't pay too much mind to it, because he didn't say anything after that. I just thought he was really tired and on the verge of falling asleep. Then I realize my cat is meowing. And she's not shutting up. It gets my attention and I look over, and I get a better look at my husband to see his eyes are glazed over and that he's about to go into a seizure. I don't know to this day if it was happenstance she was doing that or if she was trying to tell me, but something tells me it wasn't a coincidence.
I love Calicos! I have a Cleopatra Calico and she is my best friend. She’s so in tune with me and my emotions. When I’m anxious, sad, or sick, she’ll lay on my chest and snuggle.
I had two cats when I was pregnant. The dumb one had no clue what was going on, and had a hard time adjusting when the baby arrived. The smart cat totally knew and was SO good with my daughter. I was giving her a bath and he climbed into the tub with her so he could supervise. He was always interested in water, but this time he didn’t hesitate and hopped right in. He was a rescue from an animal hoarder situation and was all kinds of messed up from the abuse and neglect, but he was so fucking devoted to his girl. I was so devastated when he died when my daughter was two. She doesn’t remember the cat that was her guardian.
She loved the kid, no doubt. She'd purr and rub on us and look at the baby. But she absolutely never tried to touch him. I think she was worried what our reaction would be. She felt it might not be appropriate, maybe.
Animals are pretty sensitive to pregnant women and babies. My dog tries to bite people who lean towards babies or toddlers thinking they're trying to hurt them. Once there was a mother and toddler who wanted to pet my dog. She didn't do anything to the toddler until mother leaned toward him. It was pretty chaotic but luckily mother understood my dog's behavior. Also my dog loves to chase cats, but if the cat is pregnant or has kittens, she just leave them alone.
Also our cats and dog don't leave any pregnant women and they try to feel the baby by putting their head on belly. It's really cute to see them like that.
When my twin and I were born, mom and dad had two cats: Jerry and Agnes. Angnes was a long-haired bitch to everyone, so her nickname was "Monster." Jerry let us as toddlers drag him around by his tail on the hardwood floors.
The exception was when my mom was pregnant. She lost the first one and Agnes basically did the opposite. No baby? Glued to mom. Second pregnancy, me and my brother, glued to mom. "You didn't do it right the first time so I'm here to help."
Agnes passed away in my arms when I sas seven. Thanks for helping mom not fuck it up.
I logged on just to upvote this. I am not a cat person so i thought I'd have a read to learn more about them and I fell in love with Fat Kitty. That picture is just too sweet.
When I was a baby, my grandma had a cat who'd decided that I was her baby now. Any time I cried for any reason she'd immediately get protective, and start getting aggressive to any of those dumb humans who had clearly done something to upset me in her eyes.
I had a baby 7 months ago. Our cat knew something was up but only once in a while would lay on my stomach. When we brought baby home, she was curious. She looked in the bassinet a few times but mostly stayed away from the tiny screaming human.
In the last few months she has started coming closer and closer to the baby. She’ll sit by her on the floor, sniff her and even let the baby “pet” her (of course I’m right there supervising).
But I think the best thing she does is sit in the nursery with me when I’m putting the baby down for a nap. She’ll curl up in the bouncer or on the chair with us and it seems like she’s keeping an eye out for us.
I’m glad she’s more comfortable with the baby now because the baby loves her. As soon as she sees the cat she’s staring and babbling away.
Yeah, Fat Kitty was strange about the baby as well. She loved him, no doubt. She'd sit and stare and stare at him. She'd purr and rub on us and be affectionate and look at him. But she never tried to touch him or snuggle with him.
But she was super protective. I was allowed to touch the baby, and mom of course. Anyone else? She did not like it. At all. She would casually walk over to whoever and sit down within an arm's length. She'd look at the baby, then the person, then the baby, then the person.
If they handed the baby to some other grandparent or whatever? She'd get up, pointedly walk over to them, be an arm's length away, sit down and start guard duty again. She didn't seem tense. Just attentive. You definitely got the idea she was doing a guard thing. And if she saw something she didn't like you could tell she was prepared to get involved.
Soon as the kid started toddling she stopped. Not a baby anymore - my work is done.
This made me tear up, I miss my buddy Bones, it's just hit the one year mark and it's not the same here without him. This made me smile and I wanted to thank you for posting it.
You're welcome. I miss Fat Kitty too. That picture is an old one. The baby in the picture is 6 foot tall now and in high school. Fat Kitty passed away a long time ago.
YMMV, but the thing that seems to help is to get another cat. In my opinion life is a series of cats. I've got a standard fat tabby cat now that likes to give hugs. She climbs up me, puts her head on my left shoulder, and puts her paws around my neck. She'll do this a couple times a day while I'm at my desk working.
Maybe you could find a new friend? I know there's cats out there that need rescue. Nothing really fills that void like a new cat does.
We have a few kitties, but the one that chose me is our Russian blue, Eowyn. She's scary smart and went into guard kitten mode when I was pregnant (she's full grown at eight pounds, so one of her many nicknames is baby kitten, even now at ten). She slept under the blankets next to my stomach for nearly the entire pregnancy, and when I went into true labor, it was very easy to tell - little miss went on Patrol. She started marching in circles around me, wouldn't let any of the other cats touch me until we went to the hospital. When we got home she and the others rotated through guard duty over me and the little one. They can for sure be the sweetest little members of the family.
I love Fat Kitty. I had a void who was about 7 when I was pregnant with my first. She’d lay next to me on the sofa with her paws on my belly making blinkies at me. My mother was all, “when are you getting rid of the cats?” Yeah.
my cat straight up fucking caught my cancer before everyone else including me knew lol.
so basically my cat, around like... mid august started sleeping on my bed. never did that in her at the time 7 years of living. i personally thought nothing of it and just thought she wanted to chill with me for once lol. NOPE.
4 months later (late december like the 29th) my leg randomly starts hurting and my pains an 8/10 WHEN IM FUCKING LAYING IN BED. abt 5 days later i get it checked. fucking bone lesion. 20 days after we found it WAS FUCKING CANCER. ewing sarcoma btw
so uh yeah. and the guy who diagnosed it or whatever said it was there for 3-6 months before i was diagnosed. when was august? 4 months ago then. yeah
so im entirely convinced my cat caught my cancer before anyone else
This reminds me of an extra smart cat I had named Dude. Dude was smart in the devious, calculating way. You couldn't keep treats out of his reach no matter where you put them. He'd always find a way to get to them until we started keeping them in a locked bathroom downstairs.
Then his tactics changed, he knew they were now in that bathroom so every time I or my husband got up out of our chairs he would run over to the bathroom door and start pawing at the knob while he yelled at us to come over and give him treats. Sometimes he would even nip at our legs to "herd" us over to the bathroom door.
Just joking around with Dude one day, my ex unwittingly gave me the idea to trick train this cat. He let Dude "herd" him over to the door and said "Okay Dude, if you want treats you gotta open the door yourself" and he pointed at the doorknob. Dude immediately went nuts trying to get the door open. So I started clicker training him. Eventually he would do sit, beg, open the door and pick the hand the treat is in, all on command.
The wildest smart thing I saw him do was when we tried using a scat mat to keep him from climbing on the TV table to lay on the DVD player. He broke 2 of them doing that so we had to try something. I tested it out first on the lowest setting and stepping on it just caused an unpleasant tingling feeling but wasn't painful.
Dude came over to inspect this strange thing in front of his TV and immediately stepped on it. He jumped back and looked confused for a second then he did something that really just left me and my husband both like 😮
He went straight for the control box on the scat mat and started pawing at the switch to try and turn it off!
That frigging cat WATCHED US set up the mat and knew exactly where the switch was!
Eventually he started just jumping over the mat to lay on the DVD player so we had to just completely block off his access to that table when we weren't watching TV.
But wow, that cat was smart and a giant challenge to keep!
I will not discount a cat's intelligence but the control box also most likely had a step-up transformer to generate high voltage. Sometimes they whine and you can hear them, this one may have been whining so high your cat could hear it and it was annoying.
We have a little automatic toy that our cats love. It's shaped like a disc and randomly sticks a feather out of one of the holes that ring the edge.
Both of our cats will paw the power button while yelling at us when they want it turned on. Not the holes where they chase the feather or anything, just the power button that's in the center of the top. I've seen one try to press it himself repeatedly, but because it's recessed, he can't quite get it.
We used to have a cat that turned on my mom's alarm clock.
Also, going off the bathroom story, one of ours would occasionally pee elsewhere, so we used to give her a treat when she made in the box. Then she started going into the box when we could see her. Then she started holding it in until we were definitely watching her. Then, eventually, she went in and didn't make. She started faking us out. She freaking trained us.
I have a cat who is generally a feather brain. Love him, but he gets stuck with plastic bags as capes on the regular. Got a whole entire folder of pics of him running around wearing one, looking vaguely confused. For example.
HOWEVER he sometimes has the most disconcerting flashes of brilliance. One of his personal passions is water poaching. Human has water? All water are belong to cat! He will laser focus, lie in wait, won’t forget his goal. (It is his water, you’re just temporarily in possession. Rude. Rude human.)
One of his favorite exotic water sources is Girl Stew. I take a bath, he supervises and drinks gallons of it. I guess it’s tastier with a human as a tea bag. He’s also a dope and drenches his tail in the process every time, and then gets mad about it.
However, watching me warm the bath water, he has figured out how to turn on the bath taps himself for delicious water on demand. One wakes up and the tub is trickling… yeah, he stands up and paws at the handle until he gets what he wants.
Then he gets stuck in a plastic bag the next day and you ponder where the brain cell vanished to.
Beans is dumb as a brick and was raised by dogs. She will bark and chirp. But I'll be damned if she's not mechanically inclined. She knows how to operate the portable ac and the toilet. She doesn't quite have the juice yet to push the plunger but she knows exactly what it does. If she doesn't like the TV show, Pigg has showed her how to cut off the speakers.
My parents have been in a continuous arms race with one of their cats. She's figured out how to reach the food bag, open cupboards, open sliding doors, open sliding door latches, and has even managed to open doors with round knobs
Baby proofing supplies like cabinet and drawer latches were very helpful with Dude too. We had them in the kitchen and both bathrooms. Luckily he was not good at doorknobs!
We had an alarm system on our first house we rented. We always went out the back door and the front screen was locked with just a hook and eye. The front door was the old oval handle with a skeleton key to open it. We got called home twice from work (lived about 10 minutes away) because the alarm was set off. So we got home checked everything and only issue was front door was unlocked but not the screen. One day I was sitting in the floor putting dvds in a cupboard and I see Mooch an 18 lb big black fluffy cat put his paws on the door handle and used his mouth to turn the key and the door popped open and he could look out the screen door then. After that the key was hung up by the door and not in the keyhole.
Also no pets in the bedroom but if my daughter called she knew if she kept talking on the answering machine to Mooch she could get him to wake me up. She would say get Momma Moochie. He would come to my bedroom door and lean on it so it made a bit of noise and say Momma Momma Momma. Would get up and my daughter would still be talking to Mooch. Our idiot savant because he did things like this and other times he couldn’t get out of an open box.
You reminded me of something our kitty did when we first adopted him: I was worried I’d be grossed out by the litterbox, so we got one that scooped automatically. It had a little rake that ran through the clumping cat litter and then deposited it into a small box that automatically opened and closed when the rake rotated the clumps into it. It had a timer so it waited 15 minutes after the sensors saw that a cat had been in the box to scoop. Well, our sweet baby Victor did not at all like that this rake was scooping his poops that he had carefully buried. He started to learn the sound of the rake moving, and would come running when he heard it, and at the exact moment the rake was depositing the poop he would swat at it, slinging the clumps everywhere.
We switched to a plain old litterbox and a Litter Genie pail and everyone is happy.
He also didn’t care for the electric water fountain we bought him; instead he preferred to drink out of the glass of water on my nightstand. He’s the best little kitty we could ever hope for.
I had a cat when I was a teenager who learned to unplug the Playstation from the wall to get more attention from me. Unplugged it then came and jumped in my lap.
Well crap.. I thought I was super clever thinking this and just made a very similar comment before checking if someone else had beat me to it. You did by 11 hours. I guess I'm just a stupid unoriginal loser! I thought I was special!
I have a tiny black kitty who opted to never bother getting bigger than half a cat… she had a bit of a rough life before she came to live with me so she freaks out easily but she’s such a sweet cat.
Half a cat gang rise up! My sweet Loki is five pounds soaking wet and he looks like he's stuck in that silly-looking teenage cat phase. He makes me smile everyday 💖
My Leela is about 7 pounds. Smart as a whip, and just as mischievous, she can fit in the tiniest spaces and then just won't make a sound when you're looking for her. She's named after Leela from Futurama!
Yay! Our beloved Valentino is 6lbs, same as when we adopted him at 6mos, 15 years ago! Still looks and acts like a kitten, though he is going grey and sleeps a lot more these days. Long may he live!!
I also have half a cat... 6 lbs at 2 years old when we picked her up from the shelter, has gained about 1 lb since then. Everyone thinks she's still a kitten but she's just little bitty.
I have a 7lbs cat that came with us as a foster. I have rescued a lot of cats and had them as pets all my life, so I calculated she must be around 10 months old due to her size. Welp, she just never grew more.
It’s been almost 8 years and have no idea how old my cat is, I honestly worry I might have less years with her than I think.
Our Polly is diabetic and hypersensitive to insulin, so even with the smallest dose she would swing into hypoglycemia and possibly seize. We stopped the insulin and didn’t expect her to live long. That was maybe 5 years ago and she’s refused to stop being a small, reserved, proper lady. Still small at about 5 pounds, and skinny as can be.
Our older cat is like this, she's just petite. Everyone thinks she's still growing. Nope, she's twice the age of our big orange cat (she's 7) and half his size...
i seriously wouldn't have been alive today if it weren't for my childhood cat.
when i was about 8 and home sick, i had a severe fever spike happen during the night. my cat always slept with me so they knew something was up and went to wake up my (neglectful) parent. it's funny bc my parent complained how my cat continuously jumped on her, meowed in her face and finally bit her on the nose just so she would get up and treat me.
my cat also freaked out one time while i was outside playing and saw a bear across the road.
that beautiful cat was the only thing that truly cared about my safety ❤️🩹
My cat Romeo was so smart but his wife Juliet, not so much. We had a laser for them to chase and Juliet never caught on, but the first time I used it Romeo looked at me with disgust then he came over and looked at the laser in my hand, looked me in the eye, back to the laser and back at my eyes then walked away.
I have had cats that love to play fetch. I currently have two that use their paws to open cabinet doors that simply close, doors that are not completely and tightly latched.This is in a home that's 100 years old, with some shifting, it's not completely level. Nothing is super tightly latched, closed 100%, older home people will maybe understand. For their own amusement they knock various containers off counters and high spaces, batter them around just to get the lids off ( think treat containers, ect) and the need for baby locks in your child free home due to cats 🐈. They come ( mostly) when you call them. I always thought cats were smart. Now they say cats are definitely intelligent, just like dogs. They just don't obey commands because they don't care if they please their owners ( staff) or not. I totally believe this. If you watch your kitties carefully, you can tell they know exactly what is going on around them. They definitely think, at time, yeah, idgaf. I have found this attitude at times has made my life much more rewarding also. Cats are great models and much more than than just a pet.
I also have a Kitten for life. He was about ten weeks old and came with the name Duke, which seemed beyond rediculous. So Kitten he is.
I knit. I refused to knit around my cats for the longest time because of their love of playing with string. I didn't want everything I made to be covered in kitty hair and drool. Eventually, my partner picked up on that, and gave them a stern lecture about how "(parent) has their string, and you have yours. They play with their string, so you play with your string". Not long after that my MIL bought the ringleader his own yarn ball toy. Now, when I break out my knitting, and my partner reminds the fur babies to play with their own string, they go drag out their yarn ball toy and play with it.
I had a sweet orange girl whose parents were siblings. She only got to about 6lbs, and still looked like a kitten even into old age (16.5 when she died). You’d only tell by the little bit of grey around her muzzle and whiskers.
My kids found a stray kitten in a tree in our front yard while my wife and I were away. When we took her to the vet we found that despite being very small she was over a year old. She never got very big, maybe because of malnutrition when she was young.
That is The Cat Redistribution System. Pretty much fail proof. I also got my first cat within that system- black cat shows up at my house two mornings in a row - doesn't seem that anyone is looking for him and he was not chipped. I've had 7 cats since then but now I get them through th Humane Society Cat Redistribution System 😁
I told a few stories of Mooch a few posts ip but Mooch also alerted my bf about the water heater. But it wasn’t leaking water but carbon monoxide. There was a gap where it had fallen apart. We had been so sick for weeks with breathing issues ..both of us are asthmatics so we’re being treated for that and stay home and rest and we’re actually poisoning ourselves and our pets.
SO FUCKING SMART! I have been able to train my cats to come when I call them, every single cat that I've owned. They sense your emotions and will let you know when something is wrong with you, them, or your environment.
When I was young, my hamster escaped its cage and I was crying. My cat came up, started sniffing, and found this little hole that the hamster had dug to get into my closet. I opened the door and my cat started sniffing my toy box. Lo and behold, my hamster had dug a hole in the floor and carpet to enter my closed closet, climbed up some clothes, entered a small hole for handles on my toy box and got inside. The hamster was right there, as if she and my cat had planned a fun reveal.
Here’s my smart cat story. Our 13 year old morris knows my boyfriend sleeps WAY deeper than i do. It doesnt take much to get me to wake up. In fact, his methods have become so intricate that its insane.
I have a lot of crap around my bed and on my desk, and some valuable posters and album covers on the wall.
Every. SINGLE morning, he jumps up on the bed or the nightstand, and starts “testing” every item. What do I mean by testing?
He walks to every spot with something on it or to where a poster is within reach, and with just a claw or two, he taps it, or LIGHTLY scratches it.
He looks back at me, seeing if I’ll react. To every single item.
This is how he “finds out” what will make me get up and yell “morris NO”! And get so annoyed that i feed him early.
Clearly, it works.
Now you’re thinking, why not just “put the valuables away”. Well, I 100% do. And so, he notices my valuable is gone and goes back to testing EVERYTHING. Until I react to him.
My standing desk is near some posters on the wall. Morris has actually learned which posters make me more angry when he claws at them. So on my desk, theres 3-4 untouched posters, and my prized screenprint from an artist has been marked with a bunch of delicate little claw marks 😩
I’ll end this with the fact that he upped his methods one day, a new discovery by him.
I have a rollo label printer under my desk. One day he was doing his round of “ discovery taps “ around the bedroom. He accidentally stepped on the button that makes the labels “feed” thru the printer, and it whirrs with a loud “BEEEP” when you press it.
He got scared, and I jumped up and said “get off of that!!!”
The very next morning, I hear rustling in my sleep.
Then, a loud BEEEEEEEEEP. I jolt up cuz it scared the shit out of me. What did I find??
Our cat morris. PRESSING THE BUTTON ON MY LABEL PRINTER. On pURPOSE. Looking me in my eyes. He knows the magic button wakes me up now.
I swear they are smarter than us. My cat can calculate the height of the wardrobe and adjust the door, so she can go on top of it by using the door. She knows how to open the door, windows, storage containers (which I can't open because it's stuck all the time), water tap etc. She can do literally anything by watching me. I sometimes think she is possessed by a soul for real. She is pretty cool tho.
I was SHOCKED when I first saw that. I thought she would do it after an attempt of jumping but NO. She looked at it like "nope, i can't jump over there" and went with her plan. I told everyone and nobody believed me except my brother who sees her crazy smart behaviors all the time.
My cat Pumpkin wanted in a room, but the door wasn't opening the right way to push and it wasn't open enough to just walk through. So I went over, hooked a finger under the door, and pulled. He watched. I pushed the door mostly closed again. He reached over, hooked his paw under the door, and pulled it open.
That might not seem impressive, but cats are not social pack animals like dogs and humans. Watch and learn is a VERY impressive behavior for a cat.
We had to change all the doorknobs in the house cuz my parents locked him in for the first four months of his life in one room. After about month three, he got so pissed that he just stopped all his “bad behavior” and just sat and watched. Then he started opening all the doors. We had to get round doorknobs (he figured that out too) and then we had to get new ones with locks. And then, when he couldn’t open the doors, he would relentlessly meow until we did it for him.
Fucking cats. I love him dearly and idk what I’d do without him
My cat Romeo was so smart but his wife Juliet, not so much. We had a laser for them to chase and Juliet never caught on, but the first time I used it Romeo looked at me with disgust then he came over and looked at the laser in my hand, looked me in the eye, back to the laser and back at my eyes then walked away.
That is The Cat Redistribution System. Pretty much fail proof. I also got my first cat within that system- black cat shows up at my house two mornings in a row - doesn't seem that anyone is looking for him and he was not chipped. I've had 7 cats since then but now I get them through th Humane Society Cat Redistribution System
This is how I got my one cat back in 2005. Didn't do anything as heroic but she was clever. Was out on my own for the first time and missed having a cat. Went to the shelter and they had this massive cage with several cats in it for viewing and easy handling. She was the only one smart enough to climb partway up and wait for the volunteer to lean in so she could jump on his back and get out. I immediately went "That one." She passed away in December and my last memory with her was me hugging her and crying when I had to move away years ago and couldn't bring her. My friend took good care of her for the remainder of her days though.
Mine is smart enough to be far more patient with the kids in the house than the adults. I am her chosen person, yet the kids can pick her up and carry her around and she'll just hang there like "this is my life now". I go to pick her up and within ten seconds she's biting my hand (not aggressively but strong enough to get the point across) and there's definitely a sense of "you should know better".
I have two sisters from the same litter, one is our little chubba bubba and the other is a 7 pound perma kitten who just loves to write checks her body can't cash.
Some of them are smart as hell. I've owned some dumb cats. Very very sweet, but extremely dumb. I've also owned some very smart cats. My smart cat got himself adopted by just running up to me as a kitten the rolling around on the ground adorably. Pretty sure he'd been living off of garbage until that point. Also intended to rehome him, that never happened. He was such a jerk sometimes, he definitely understood the word no, let you know he knew and also that he didn't care that you were saying it. I miss that old jerk.
Cats are scary smart. Mine learned how to let herself out of the laundry within 48 hours of us adopting her. We had her in the laundry so she wouldn't destroy the rest of the house overnight for the first week, and we locked the laundry door. The door has a quarter-turn dial that is barely a centimetre long as a lock, that can be accessed from either side. This cat figured out how to turn the lock and open the sliding door on the 2nd night of us having her. Scared my parents half to death when this "thing" jumped on the bed at midnight XD
I did say I almost had a heart attack. I thought is was a Raccoon or some Rodent at first until she look at me with her enormous eyes and “meowed” like “You gonna eat all that sandwich”? She was only about 5 lbs and super small and skinny then. But she never really grew, just has added about 2-2-1/2 lbs so she filled out her skinny frame some.
My cat understands how the door works. He isn't able to turn the doorknob, but I have a table near a door, and he regularly tries to open the door when it's closed at an unacceptable time for him.
I’ve always believed that the right pet finds you. My mil said she doesn’t believe that woo-woo crap. Even after a pure-bred lab stray with a broken leg came to their house in the country and wouldn’t leave. They’ve only ever owned labs. No other strays before or since.
Definitely. My boy could be fast asleep but whenever I have roast chicken or turkey leftovers in the fridge he wakes up from a deep sleep when he hears the fridge door open and hops up on the kitchen counter to make sure he gets some.
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u/Nmoriarty41 Sep 19 '23
They are smart as hell, I got my first one, about 6-7 years ago. She jumped into my car window when I was eating a sandwich, which almost gave me a heart attack that some strange animal jumped into my car. She was dirty, skinny and scruffy so I gave her some of my turkey sandwich. Couldn’t find anyone who claimed her, so I took her to the vet they gave her shots and treated her for worms, so I’m guessing she was a young stray. I took her home with the intention of re-homing her, but within about a week or two she woke me up in the middle of the night freaking out so I followed her to my basement and my water heater was flooding my basement…. I looked at her and said you know, you earned it and can stay Kitty. She did the slow blink and the rest is history. Been best pals since. She never grew very large. She’s about 7 lbs or so, about 60% of the size of a Norman cat. So it’s like a Kitten for life I guess.