I wish I had a tally of how many times I profusely apologize to Rooney's stuffed animals when I accidentally trip over them.
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| Can easily be mistaken for a real creature, right? |
When you say, "Come here." to a dog, they hear "come" and "here." Now, they may choose to ignore you for awhile. But make no mistake, they know exactly what you want them to do.
Saying those same words to a cat gets you a very different outcome. What they hear is, "Come here. But be forewarned, I may trick you if you do and put you in a horrible place. Or I may be asking for you to come here but what I really want is to rip out your precious claws - er - trim your nails. But whatever you do decide to do, under no circumstances should you trust me. I am a human and we can be very tricky."
This is why a cat will never come if you call them.
I should add that, a surefire way to get a cat to hang all over you, is when you really don't want them to. Like, when you are trying to go to the bathroom and she who shall remain nameless just "wuvs you so vewy much" and must sit on your lap and give you lots of kisses. Or Finn wants to "help" you type your blog. Or, you are using a sharp knife to chop food and somebody's nose gets in the way....
A dog is a fairly simple creature. They like to eat, poop, play and sleep. Period.
A cat is a fairly complex creature. They like to eat - p e r h a p s; poop when you really wish they wouldn't, like just as you sit down to eat; play - when you least expect it - like at bedtime. While your dog will beg you to go to bed, your cat is most likely WIDE AWAKE and either wanting to be fed for the twelfth time that day, because you tried to feed them poison all day and they were smart enough to know it - or wanting to PLAY. You are the one who is clueless and on the wrong side of normal sleeping time. The middle of the afternoon is the correct time, you stupid human.
To a dog, anything that floats on the air is nonsense or edible. Give them a good old fashioned ball to play with and they are good to go.
A cat will find enjoyment in the strangest things. One of the first things you learn when you live with a cat is to never take the odd stuff for granted. A cat can be attracted to a balled up piece of plastic wrap more so than a fancy schmancy, expensive, catnip toy. But don't think for one minute what works today will work again tomorrow.
In an effort to get Dash to come out from under the bed in the spare room, I waved an artificial tulip at him. It was the first thing I could find. I also found plastic wrap that made a cool crinkly sound. Nothing. In a last ditch effort I dropped to my knees and started blowing lint around. That worked. It occurred to me that, if I was unable to get back up, I would have an interesting time explaining to the paramedics why I was down on the floor blowing on dust bunnies...It also occurred to me how very different my life is now than - oh let's say - ten years ago.
Make sure when you buy live crickets to have them seal the bag properly. As you can probably guess, I learned this lesson the hard way. When I got home from the pet store, I had a plastic bag filled with one hundred live crickets and another one filled with one hundred cricket corpses. One hundred dead as doornails crickets. (I need to Google doornails and find out if there are live ones.)
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| Apparently, this seal is incorrect. It should look like a nipple.... |
Anyway, I called the pet store and the guy who answered is the pain in the ass, smart ass (you know you're bad when you are a pain and a smart ass) who gets on my last nerve when I shop there. He said the person probably didn't use a "nipple" seal. For the love of all things holy, I just want live crickets. I don't need to have a descriptive explanation of how a bag seal should look like an anatomical part. yeesh.....
And finally, out there in the real world, are contractors and handymen, laughing over their beer about the crazy lady with all the animals they met yesterday, today or a week ago. To their credit, they all humor me but I know - with all certainty - as soon as they get into their truck/car/van they hit their wife/boss/buddy's number on speed dial and start the convo with, "You will never believe this lady I met today..."
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