Do You Speak Cat? I Need Your Help.
I'm going to need someone to figure out what goes on inside this little head:
Can I hire a cat translator? Or a feline mind reader? Something?
Little dude is baffles me in so many ways. Max is the sweetest cat we've ever had (Sadly, that's saying something. We're all Cat Lady Freakish up in this place and always have been). He's also the most defiant? Devious? Kerfluffling? I don't even know the word for what he is. I just know that when I walk into a room, he looks at me and waits. I imagine he's thinking, "Will she notice that I'm on the kitchen counter? Will she care? Do I care if she cares? Does that rule still exist? It does? OK, then." He is constantly doing things he knows he's not supposed to do and he only stops when you call him out on it. He instantly complies, but you have to tell him.
So he's like almost like a toddler except that I don't have to wipe his butt. That makes him better than a toddler, don't you think?
Anyway, I need to know what's going on in his head. Then perhaps I could figure out how it is that the kitten (he hasn't had his first birthday yet, I don't think) (I'm a bad Cat Lady who doesn't know the cats' birthdays.) who fears nothing found himself in a bit of a predicament.
Our cats are not allowed outside. Ever. Not at all. The others respect this fact. Actually, Ali is scared to death of the great outdoors, so I don't even have to tell her. She runs and hides any time a door opens around here because she doesn't want to know if something big and scary will come through the door. Powder wants to escape, but I can glare him right back inside. Max, however, just saunters right on out the door as if he was a shoplifter casually escaping Target with a bag full of loot.
Walk.
Walk.
Walk.
RUUUUNNNNN!
Every time.
He doesn't run because he's scared, though. That cat is not scared of anything. That was evident when we had a whole bunch of people over a few weeks ago. He casually lounged in the middle of the chaos the entire time. At one point, he was surrounded by a half dozen kids who were running and screaming as they had a foam sword fight and Max was all ::yawn:: "Hey, anyone want to pet me? I'm right here, just chillin'."
And he was just chillin' when I got home from work yesterday. Just sitting up on the window sill chillin'. I'm guessing that he broke out of prison that morning when Alexis went out the front door to get on the school bus. Her getting out the door in the morning always involves a lot of flying elbows, papers shuffling, backpacks falling, and ridiculous amounts of confusion. I could get Taz from Looney Toons in a jacket and out the door with less chaos. I don't know why. It just is.
So he must have escaped when Alexis opened the door and then spent the entire day outside.
Which is exactly how our neighbor's cats spend every day. They are outdoor cats who are confined to their yard by an electric fence, which obviously works really well considering the reason Max was sitting on the window sill was that the neighbor's cat was acting as his prison guard and not letting him move.
Here's what I know.
- Max escaped.
- The neighbor's cat must have been highly motivated to leave their yard. That's actually the first time I've seen it not in their yard.
- There was some sort of scuffle that knocked over some pumpkins.
That's it. That's all I know. Oh, wait! I also know that Max was scared out of his skull. He was shaking in terror when I pried him off of that window sill. The other cat was all, "Hello! That's mine! Put him down, please!" as I tossed Max into the house. The other cat had no intentions of leaving Max unattended and didn't care what I had to say about it.
There's a story there and I don't know what it is. I want to know what it is. Somebody send me a cat psychic, please.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Reader Comments (15)
Obviously the neighbors' cat knows your rules better than Max. Maybe you can hire him to cat-sit (and train Max) the next time you travel!
Our 2 cats are so lucky they are sweet. They never hissed/bit/scratched either of my boys. Ever. Not even when they are rough with them. They just take out their anger on my couch. But never when we see them. They wait til we are sleeping.
Cats are neurotic, but so smart! They know how to play humans very well.
Is he still your favorite? ;)
He does those badboy things because, well, he's A) a cat! and B) because he can. There's a slim chance he won't be wanting to go outside again for awhile. But don't get your hopes up. He will eventually want to again, and he probably will get out again. Because he's a cat. And because he can.
Is Max neutered? If he isn't, that could definitely explain his attraction to the outdoors. Once male cats are sexually mature, they're usually highly motivated to wander in search for a mate. I lost more than a few great boys like that when I was a child.
@mumple--He tried to saunter outside an hour later when I took Alexis to dance class. He doesn't learn lessons EVER.
@Twist--He is neutered. He just does things to do them, I think.
I seriously would love to know how long he was sitting there with the other cat tormenting him.
I'm not a cat person so I can't offer any advice but I'm dying to know - is that Dora with a pumpkin head? Brilliant!
@Lisa--It's actually just a generic princess body that I found at Target years ago, but I like to pretend it's Dora once I put a carved pumpkin on it. Usually the puking pumpkin ends up there.
This post just made my morning. I couldn't stop laughing... I have 2 cats of my own - one of which, like Max, tries to make the great escape every time the door opens. I found him one morning wandering around outside in the snow with his tail bushy as can be... perhaps he had an encounter with your neighbors prison guard.
I also wonder how long he was there. Poor Max, but not really because he doesn't learn. We had a cat like that, ran out the door all the time and I would have to pry her out of bushes or make loud noises to chase her back in. It was the joy of the escape for her.
I don't speak cat so, I'm useless to you. Sorry.
I had to comment, though, because dude....the pumpkin jammed on Dora the Whora's body? BAHAHAHAHA! Love it!
Is the neighbor's cat female? My initial reaction was that he wandered over to see her (and maybe "play"?) but she was having none of it. I used to have a female cat and 3 male cats, and even though she was the smallest, she could kick the other cats' asses any day of the week (and did).
I have an orange cat now that sounds exactly like your Max. He's the most mischievous, curious, and loving and affectionate cat I've ever had. He's kinda my favorite too. :-)
Poor thing. I'm guessing he will stay inside for a few days, until he forgets this incident ever happened.
You should see our trouble maker cat when one of the stray cats wanders too close to the house. I have never heard a human or animal scream that loud in my entire life. She flips the heck out. Cats have some weird territorial thing going on that I have never seen in a dog.
I was planning to answer your first question, "what goes on inside his head?" with a single word: TROUBLE.
But after reading your post (and laughing) something else occurred to me. According to most "experts" the equivalence of cat aging goes like this: First year equals 15 years, second year equals 9 years, and every year after that equals 4 years. Maybe Max is just an ornery, rebellious, adolescent brat and he'll outgrow some of this in another year or so...
My cat is terrified of the outdoors and usually hides behind a chair when the door opens. Now that he's 20 years old (in real years - almost 100 in cat years) he's gotten a little braver. He'll creep up to an open door and look outside. Every once in a while he'll creep a little outside but he never goes far and it doesn't take much to scare him into running back behind the chair again.