BlackChampagne -- no longer new; improvement also in question.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Cat Treats
Jinx eats only dry food. Friskies, usually. I've read enough about the crap (by product cereal filler and sprayed on grease for taste, mostly) they put into commecial pet food to wish I could feed her real food, like they tell you how to make on those hippie organic they-are-our-companions pet sites. There are recipes to blend up raw meat and cereals and animal organs and all kinds of other stuff for optimum nutrition. You can make a ton and freeze the extra for later feedings, so it's not like you're spending more time (maybe $) on your ass-licking feline's meals than your own, but it's still a far greater effort than just opening a 50 pound bag of Friskies and pouring it into a self-refilling feeder. Maybe someday when I can afford it, etc.
She eats the dry food happily enough, and gets table scraps semi-frequently, though not as often as in her first couple of years, since I eat meat far less often than I/Malaya did when we lived together. She's gotten pickier, too. (Jinx, not Malaya. Well... her too, I guess. Hence me here, and she there.) Jinx used to eat bread crumbs, popcorn, soy milk, ramen noodles, and virtually any kind or quality of meat we'd give her. She still enjoys some of those, but these days she'll often beg for something she ignores once a morsel of it is provided. She also gets a can of tuna, or just the juice from it, once in a while, and enjoys that quite a bit. Oddly, she's not a big fan of actual wet cat food. She won't eat the usual foam-rubber looking canned type at all, and when I give her one of my dwindling supply of cat food in a pouch, she'll lick up the juice, but generally ignores the shaped meat-chunk pellet things. Not that I can much blame her on that one. They look awful.
One thing she does love, without reservation, are cat treats. She loves the Temptations variety, in any flavor, but has never failed to prrffff and chirp about and leap for and run after any other brand I've picked up at the $.99 store. I usually feed her 10 or 12 at a time, every other or third day, and she loves it. I shake the jar I keep them in, and she perks up and runs over and rubs anything nearby. She'll bark of brrrowfff a bit if she's especially excited. When I feed her I do it one treat at a time, and always by throwing them. She loves to chase them down and chomp them as quickly as she can, and she'll run back to me after each throw if I make her wait. Her swatting instincts are displayed to good measure during this ritual, and quite often I'll toss one over her head, she'll leap and bat at it, and knock it across the room like a drunken volleyball player.
A typical session has her knocking away and losing 2 or 3 of the 10 or 12 I toss her, and I'm sure when I move out of this apartment and pack up all the furniture, I'll find a good handful of these things behind the bookcase and couch. Often I'll see Jinx digging under some piece of furniture, or pawing around a corner, then happily chomping the treat she's just located and dragged into biting range.
She eats Friskies too, and can easily be tricked into running after one if I throw it like a treat, but when she catches it she sniffs in surprise, then turns and withers me with a glare of disgust; fair payment for my treachery!
So, two questions. What's in the treats that makes them so much more delicious, and why don't they just make Friskies (or other bulk cat food) taste like treats?
Personally, I think it's a conspiracy. A kind of mutual non-aggression pact between the cat food companies. They all make some basic model of cat food, and they all sell treats, which are about 50x as expensive, by weight. Obviously the treats have a vastly higher profit margin, so it's in their interest to have treats taste much better than regular dry chow. After all, if Jinx didn't bark and run around and leap for them, I wouldn't keep buying them to feed her.
All the cat food companies know that cats like treats better. They clearly have the technology to make tiny dry pellets of food that cats like, and that cats love. Why doesn't one company just make their regular bulk food taste like the treats? Cats would love it, would refuse to eat other brands, the company would sell more, make more money, etc.
Two reasons: First, it would be a short-lived coup, since the other pet food companies would follow suit. Second, it would destroy the treats market, which is, as formerly noted, far more profitable than the dry chow. Therefore, it's in the best interest of Purina and Nine Lives and all the others to keep their dry chow just good enough that cats will eat it, but not so good that it approaches treats quality, since that would bring their whole house of cards crashing down.
On the other hand, it's possible that cats only like treats so much since they're scarcer. If I poured a whole bowl full of them Jinx would gorge, but after a day or two would she get sick of them? Maybe they're like chocolate or ice cream or dessert wine; incredibly tasty in limited quantities, but overpowering (for most people) in volume.
Alternatively, the treats might actually be better quality food. Maybe they've got more meat by products in them, maybe they're less chemicals and fat spray, and as a result cats like them better, and they cost most to manufacture. Surely not 50x more, but enough more that selling them in 25 pound bags would make them cost far more than current cat chow. Of course there are "gourmet" types of dry cat food that do cost much more than Friskies and other generic bulk bags, but I always figured that was just marketing. Same crap + boutique brand name + fancy label = perceived value. Like Grey Poupon; dijon mustard isn't much more expensive than regular yellow mustard, but by selling it in tiny bottles for $5, rather than big bottles for $2, people decide that it tastes better. Gladwell has a fascinating chapter on that in Blink (or maybe it was one of his speeches I read, and I'm conflating the two.)
And with that, I going to give Jinx some treats and go to bed.
Thus was the lesson learned this afternoon, when I dared lie down my head for a few minutes. I'd been up since 8, an unreasonably early hour I was set upon by the need to take my mom out to breakfast before driving her to the Oakland airport for her return flight to San Diego. Not that I didn't enjoy said activities, as much as any passage down the truck-clogged 880 freeway can be enjoyed, but I was a bit tired, after getting less than 6 hours of sleep 6 days running (and less than 3 on a couple of those days), thanks to various visiting-relative/graduation-related activities.
I'm much better at getting up in the morning and functioning on too-little sleep than I am at going to bed at a reasonable hour. I'm even worse at falling promptly to sleep on the rare occasions when I manage to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Pity there's no reverse-alarm yet. I want a device that is capable of using its stridency to force instant sleep. Oh, and while you're at it, whip up reverse-microwave that cools food instantly. I'm forever overheating soup and leftover Chinese, thus forcing myself to waste valuable seconds heating food, and then more seconds pawing at it and blowing ineffectually over it, in hopes that the issuance of my lungs will work a chilling magic upon it.
(On that topic, that's always bothered me about the second Superman movie, when he fought the 3 Krypton criminals, clad in their black plastic trash bags, in Times Square. I can buy Kryptonians possessing laser vision, by somehow not just seeing into the infrared band, but emitting those waves as well, but how did Kal-El blow cold air to freeze the truck's gas tank? Super powerful breath, okay. But how does he make it colder? Can he modify his internal temperature at will? Can he piss icicles or shit Chipwiches, if need be?)
So, Mom and me enjoyed a lovely breakfast, during which I encountered (and devoured) the novelty that was raspberry pancakes, and she got to the airport on time and returned safely home. And since I was way down in the East Bay already, I ran a few errands, then dropped by Malaya's work and took her out to lunch. By the time I returned home it was well into the afternoon, and my energy was flagging. I wanted to get in a bike ride though, and didn't think that would be a problem. It wasn't yet 4pm, its light here until well after 8 this time of year, and Jinx was in a blitz of activity (she got a lot of rest over the weekend, hiding from my various visitors), racing furiously from room to room (which is less impressive when you remember that my apt only has two rooms), leaping up onto the bed, running out onto the back patio, etc. I waited until she was not actually cavorting on the duvet, then took the opening to stretch out. I didn't close the blinds or windows since the wind was keeping the temperature from feeling oppressive, and since I figured the light would keep me from sleeping too long, even if Jinx somehow didn't manage that herself.
Predictably enough, the next thing I knew it was a quarter til 7, the sun was descending in the sky, it was way too late to go for a proper bike ride, and Jinx was curled up on the bed beside me, snurring away.
I've experienced the awesome alarm clock abilities of cats in the past, but 1) not with Jinx, and 2) not during an afternoon nap. Mercifully, the Jingles has never been one of those cats that share a dawn-calibrated chronometer with various forms of barnyard fowl, and cleverly, I've never gotten her into the habit of being fed at any particular hour. She's got unlimited access to crunchies, but she only gets wet food on special occasions, and never at dawn, so daybreak means nothing to her, and wandering around yowling to be fed is equally foreign behavior. She's good at begging for tidbits on the fairly-rare occasions when I'm cooking or eating something flesh-based, but she's best at sleeping for long hours, propped against one of my hips, in bed. And that's a talent she'll get to put to use fairly soon, since even with my long afternoon nap and the first two sodas (and first doses of caffeine) I've "enjoyed" since last week, I'm about ready to return to the scene of her earlier non-crime.
It's been a largely pointless night, with only minimal work accomplished, but it was enjoyable to spend some time alone and on the computer, after several days of nearly constant human interaction. As a friend remarked to me upon being appraised of my situation and hearing my relief that I hadn't forgotten how to use the Internet. "It's like riding a bike." To which I replied, "But with more porn."
Not that I was actually partaking of the flesh-based format that has done so much to shape the Internet we all know and love, but like most humans of my gender, I find it useful to drop in allusions to and jokes about porn whenever possible, especially when speaking about the Internet. No wonder they had female speakers at my graduation ceremony.
These are very cute and somewhat painfully true, to a cat owner. The first one, Let Me In, is a bit OTT in the cutesy humor, but I like Cat Man Do quite a bit. That was so Dusty. Thankfully, Jinx is usually pretty content to sleep on my ankles as long as I want to stay in the nice dark bedroom.
I got my grad school application package sent out today, approximately 22 minutes before the post office closed. It had to be postmarked today, and after nibbling at it for the past couple of weeks, I spent about 12 hours straight working on it yesterday, running straight through the night until 9:30am. At that point I sent the 5-page Statement of Purpose off to my mom, dad, and Malaya and asked for some comments/ideas for improvement. I then went to bfed for 3 hours, got up at 1, read some useful suggestions by my correspondents, and made a bunch of changes. I also finished up the required resume, did a last time over the 15 page writing sample, and then frantically filled out the various forms while the printer was working.
I very nearly forgot to put in the check for the application fee, but remembered that just as I was sealing the manila envelope. I'd set out my checkbook for that purpose yesterday, but had forgotten to write the check and have it ready. Just imagine if I'd sent everything off, and then returned home and seen the check book and realized my error, 5 minutes after the post office closed for the day? Oh, how I would have laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed.
At any rate, it's been submitted and my fingers are crossed. I don't want to say where I've applied, but I will say it's a very good writing program, that it's expensive, that they accept fewer than 10% of applicants, that admission is based almost entirely on the writing sample and Statement of Purpose, and that I wont find out the good (or bad) news until at least April. Now let us never speak/think of it again.
While I'm not going to school this semester, my friend and very imaginary girlfriend is. I really need a nick for her, since we're friends and we hang out, but she's not "dating" me (or anyone else) in a romantic sense, so calling her the IG is misleading. Neither she, nor I, imagine that she is my GF. Anyway, she's started her semester at one of the many fine colleges over in The City, and as usual, tons of guys are hitting on her. She's very cute and personable, but is too nice for her own good, since when some guy comes on too strong and makes a fool of himself *cough*, she doesn't tell him to fuck off, but is polite and tolerant. As a result, she ends up with various mental patients, sad puppy dogs, "nice guys," and plenty of others trying to get up the nerve to ask her out, or asking her out and refusing to take a hint, or even a direct "No." for an answer. This causes her no end of exasperation, but does give her some funny stories to tell.
Last week some guy in one of her classes latched onto her like a remora, and followed her around for a couple of hours after class, while she was killing time before her next class began. As she said to me, "I stupidly told him I didn't have anything to do until 2 when he asked, so he stayed beside me the entire time. I've never been so eager for my theology class to begin." I of course made a joke about her thanking God that it was time for theology.
Anyway, here's the list of the expert dating techniques he displayed during 90 of the longest minutes of the IG's life. Keep in mind that this guy had just met her that day, and the extent of their experiences together were sitting all-too-near each other for a 2 hour college course.
Sitting way too close beside her.
Breathing on her with his stank breath.
Staring at her from about a foot away thanks to the circular chair arrangement in the class.
Waiting literally a foot from the bathroom door when she went to pee after class.
Taking a big uninvited sip of her fruit juice, through her straw, when she went to get a drink after class.
Repeatedly putting his arm over her shoulder, or around her waist, or over her back while walking next to her, despite her shoving him off each time.
Asking if her dad let her date.
Asking if she was a virgin.
Asking if she did one night stands or had boyfriends.
Inviting her over to his place for lunch, since he claimed to live very near campus.
Saying his girlfriend experiences involved a lot of one night stands. "You know, just the 'in and out.'"
Saying he sells a lot of pot, but that it's okay since God made plants for us to enjoy.
Asking repeatedly if she wanted to come over and get high.
Asking what religion she was, proclaiming how totally devoted to Christ he was, saying he was very tolerant of all religions, and then going on a vindictive rant about how Muslims are the root of all evil in the world.
There was even more, but you get the idea. I guess the moral of this story, and it's not one you need to be reminded of if you've been reading my coverage of The Evolution of Desire, is that the behaviors men think women will like are very seldom the behaviors women actually like. Also, guys... just because a woman doesn't come out and tell you that you're an asshole and she'd like to see you eaten by a tiger doesn't necessarily mean she's enjoying your company or you constant sexual comments and innuendos.
It's quite interesting to me to hear the IG's stories, since every guy she goes out with or gets to know, who is anywhere near 21, is just impossibly stupid, sexist, sex-obsessed, ignorant, rude, crude, uncouth, etc. And when I think back to myself at that age.. I wasn't much different. I can recall the burning need to put a sexual comment into virtually every sentence, when I was talking with a girl. After all, how else would she know that I was, you know, interested in sex?
To all the 21 y/o men out there... trust me, girls know. They're not nearly as stupid or oblivious to social clues and cues as you are, and you're not the first 21 y/o to come slobbering after them. You do not need to mention sex, blowjobs, how hot her ass is, how nice her tits look, pubic hair shaving vs. waxing techniques, etc, etc, etc. She's quite aware that the vast majority of your thoughts stem from about 2" of dangle between your thighs, and the more you bring it up, so to speak, the less interested she's going to be in engaging in the behavior you so desperately want her to engage in. There's this thing called "subtlety," and if you know a guy who isn't rich or a big jock stud, and still seems to get laid a lot, he's got it, and you don't.
This is kind of an awkward transition in subject, but is there any possible connection or correlation between date rape, and a cat sleeping on you when you're asleep? See, Jinxie and I have a bed-sharing arrangement. I sleep on the left side, by the window, and she gets on the right. She never sleeps on the left anymore, and when I go into the bedroom and find her already on the bed, she's invariably on the left side, up near the top of the comforter. About neck height, on the invisible person who might be sleeping there. She occasionally sleeps leaning against my side, but most often she's at chest height and arm's length from my right shoulder.
The date rape part has come lately.I've had some sudden nap urges in the evenings, since I'm not sleeping very long at night (which is usually in the day), since I keep waking up after 5 hours with financial worries and thoughts about all the work I want/need to do, and grad school ideas, and story ideas, and more, that I can't get back to sleep. Nor do I want to, when I can get up and start working.
Unfortunately, my inferior meat unit of a body can't go indefinitely on 5 hours of sleep, especially not when I'm working out 90-120 minutes every other day, plus martial arts. Hence... naps.
The weird part is that if I nap on the left side of the bed, jinx sleeps right beside me, whether I'm under the covers or on top or just rolled up in the comforter. But if I sleep in the center of the bed, or on the right, I invariably wake up with Jinx sleeping on top of me. My position doesn't matter either; she'll get on my back if I'm face down, or my stomach if I'm on my back, or perch awkwardly on my hip if I'm fetal'ed. And she's never there when I fall asleep; she only comes in once I'm out, and settles herself down on me.
The worst was a few days ago when I woke up from vaguely sexual dreams with a boner and a desperate need to pee, only to find Jinx hunched right on my groin, in a reverse cowgirl, with her back end right on my bladder. I had on pants, and was rolled up in the comforter, thankfully. I was lucky I didn't piss myself, she was so creating a simulation of male pregnancy kitty, and that's not the kind of wet dream I'm interested in experiencing. Not for another 40 or 50 years yet, anyway, until they're feeding me full of dog food and rolling me onto the rubber sheets.
So, I'll repeat my question. Is a cat taking advantage of your (or my) unconscious, helpless, yet apparently desirable and welcoming body, the equivalent of feline date rape? I did not grant consent for this activity, Mrs. Jinxles!
Finally, can someone pass a law allowing for the sport shooting of any really, really loud motorcycle? Especially when the same asshole rides it slowly around your block, like ten times in a row? All young men on motorcycles are just organ donors anyway, and anyone who makes that much noise in a residential area, without involving dynamite, deserves to die. My only concern is that stray bullets might strike innocent, deafened bystanders, or that people with poor aim would land a gut shot, and ruin the valuable chest meats that human pinata is riding around with. Still, I think it's a fair trade off, given the level of disturbance those Harley-riding assholes create. I'll be happy to co-sponsor any appropriate legislation in the upcoming congressional session.
I check out LOL Cats most every day, viewing them from two principle sources, and usually get a laugh or two. I didn't really notice this one at first, preferring the floor buff cat which was posted immediately preceding it, but once Malaya pointed out that this basically is me, I took another look and yeah, pretty much. So here's Flux's personality in feline form.
That said, if you still retain doubts after viewing this presentation, I certainly can't blame you.
I've seen a lot of recent mentions of the angel of death feline from a Rhode Island nursing home, and couldn't resist posting about it myself. A quote should sum things up nicely.
Like any feline, Oscar gives a hefty portion of his day to sleep. He likes to doze on stacks of patient reports. Or on the desk at the nurses' station. Or in the linen closet.
When awake, however, the mixed-breed cat shows a solemn dedication to duty, making regular "inspection" rounds of the unit, sauntering in and out of patient rooms -- as if checking on the condition of the occupants.
When death is near, Oscar nearly always appears at the last hour or so. Yet he shows no special interest in patients who are simply in poor shape, or even patients who may be dying but who still have a few days. Authorities in animal behaviour have no explanation for Oscar's ability to sense imminent death. They theorise that he might detect some subtle change in metabolism -- felines are as acutely sensitive to smells as dogs -- but are stumped as to why he would show interest.
In any event, when Oscar settles on a patient's bed, caregivers take it as a sign that family members should be summoned immediately.
"We've come to recognise him hopping on the bed as one indicator the end is very near," said Mary Miranda, charge nurse on the surprisingly cheery floor that is home to 41 patients in the final stages of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, a stroke, and other mentally debilitating diseases. "Oscar's been consistently right."
The cat's been written up in an article in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, and while none of the media coverage touches on it, I hope there are some actual stats and figures in the journal article. Total patients who died, Oscar's attendance %, false positives, etc.
Another issue is the established medical fact that cats have an affinity for the human soul. They're notorious for asphyxiating babies, (and who can blame them?) but I've long believed that's largely related to opportunity. Healthy adults can fight off the worming tentacles of a cat's nocturnal predations, but babies are weak and easy prey. The sensation is kind of enjoyable for adults, really. I've awakened many a time to find Jinx and/or Dusty crouching upon me, their sickle pupils gleaming in the ethereal light shed by the soul dust they are eagerly lapping up. It tickles and makes me dream in watercolors.
Oscar here is no maternity ward cat; he's stuck with old people, but that's not entirely unlucky, since the dying old people provide a lovely crop of defenseless, senile delicacies. Granted, their withered souls are leathery and taste faintly of camphor and other astringents, but perhaps Oscar has learned to like it? Besides, no human can ever hope to fully understand the vagaries of the feline palate.
Cat People is not a cheesy 80s horror movie, but instead a pamphlet-sized hardcover book about people who own cats, and the particular form of madness that grips many of us. Why would we tolerate, much less enjoy, living with animals that frequently ignore or injure us, that do not leap up to meet us at the door, that deface valuable furniture, and that do nothing to deter burglars or other unwanted guests?
Good questions, and ones you won't find answered in this book. What you will find are a bunch of short anecdotes about people who own cats, none of which (the people, the cats, or the anecdotes) are particularly memorable or amusing.
Cat People, by Michael Korda (2005) Plot: 1 Concept: 6 Writing Quality/Flow: 4/5 Characters: 5 Horror: NA Humor: NA Fun Factor: 5 Page Turner: 2 Re-readability: 3 Overall: 4
There's nothing wrong with this book (unless you consider the 156 small pages and $20 price) but there's nothing special about it either. The opening is the best part, with a brief and mildly-informative history of the domestication of felines. The book points out that dogs were domesticated when people needed hunting companions and guards, and cats once we'd developed agriculture and needed a way to protect our storehouses of grain against mice and other pests. It's obvious once you think about it, but I'd never heard it stated that way before, and that, at least, I'll remember from this book.
Other than that, it's just a bunch of short vignettes about rich people and their cats. A few are about society people, batty old women who took their cats with them when they flew from New York to Paris, or who demanded their pets be served at the table in fine restaurants, etc. After those the book moves on to short tales about the multiple wild cats and half dozen pet cats the author and his wife have entertained at their horse ranch, over the years. These cover the last 2/3 of the slim tome.
I enjoyed some of the stories, but none of the events were out of the ordinary, and they all started to blur together after a bit. A good writer could have pulled it off, infusing the mundane anecdotes with enough wit and humor to keep the reader's interest. As it is, the writing is okay and the cat stories are unremarkable, so cat lovers might find some fun, but I was frequently bored and found myself skipping paragraphs in this very brief book.
Cats have different likes and dislikes, cats puke on their carpet and sharpen claws on expensive furniture, cats sleep in different places, cats get old and die, and new cats come in to replace them. It's kind of a hamster wheel of a book, with no plot or theme or rising action or resolution. Just short pieces about a lot of interchangeable cats, written without any special insight or wit.
The authors (Michael Korda's wife is co-credited and contributes some of the material, but the writing voice is uniform throughout) aren't very clever about their cat stories, and they're far less clever about actually owning cats. In their country estate, the little dears are apparently treated as furry forces of nature, and are not controlled in any way. There are innumerable passages bemoaning the cat damage done to expensive, name-brand upholstery and fabrics, but there's never a single mention of training the cats not to scratch things. Most of the cats leap up right on the table, knock over knickknacks, chase and fight viciously, wake the house at dawn, act finicky about their food, and so on. And why not, when neither of their owners ever do anything to discipline them? Cats aren't dogs, but you can certainly train them in a few basics.
Neither Malaya or me are big on training the beasts, but our two are not allowed on my desk, a living room shelf covered in bamboo plants, or the kitchen counters. And they don't go there, a rule reinforced by clapping and shouting and chasing when (very occasionally) needed. More crucially, I clip the claws of our cats every couple of weeks, and we therefore need nothing more than some water and soap when we get a scratch from a leaping cat. The authors of Cat People mention at least half a dozen emergency room level wounds from their animals, and that's wounds to people, not just to the other cats, of which there are dozens more detailed.
Our cats get dry food, with very occasional wet as a treat, and they're happy and healthy, and they don't wake us up at dawn yowling to be fed. Dozens of pages in Cat People are spent bemoaning dawn wake ups, cats getting very fat and lazy, cats getting finicky and refusing to eat what they'd previously enjoyed, and so on. I'm not a cat training expert, but I found it hard to believe the two rich, educated adults who wrote Cat People would allow their pets to so control their lives, and to run so wildly out of control through their house.
It's certainly not a book for aspiring cat owners to learn from, but despite my criticisms, it's not a horrible book if you like cats. I got it from the library and read it in two idle 20 minute sessions, mostly with Dusty in my lap, and enjoyed it for that. If it were $5 I would give it an okay for a gift to a cat lover in your life. At the outrageous $20 hard cover price, it's simply not worth it. Find it used or wait for paperback.
This article about an upcoming reality show featuring cats in a Survivor-type contest had me... right until the final line.
The fur really could fly on TV's latest reality entry: It stars cats. Ten felines, picked from animal shelters nationwide, will live in a New York house to vie — a la "Big Brother" or "Survivor" — for a grand prize, in this instance an executive-level job with Meow Mix cat food.
...The project will be shown in three-minute segments in the 9 p.m. EDT hour Friday on the Animal Planet channel for 10 consecutive weeks, starting June 16.
...The Meow Mix House cats, from shelters or rescue groups such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in New York, Touched by an Animal in Chicago and Kitten Rescue in Los Angeles, will themselves be gaining new homes.
As the cats are put through their weekly paces in contests including best purr and top post-climber, a panel of judges will decide who stays and who goes. When a cat is voted out, it will move to a permanent home and get a year's supply of Meow Mix as a consolation prize.
Okay, cute concept, good cause, homes for all the kitties on the show, etc. What's the catch?
In voiceovers accompanying the kitty action, the cats will be given personalities as crafted by advertising copywriters. Some may be shy, but the Los Angeles and New York cats could turn out to be real glamour pusses, Cohen said.
NO!! Dear God no! In one line it went from this brilliant marketing scheme with the potential for lots of funny video and cat antics, to a debacle. I would have taped shows to see these commercials, and now? All I can imagine is Bob Sagat doing his, "I'm a cute little animal." squeaky voice that ruined so many other potentially-funny clips on America's Funniest Home Videos.
Tragically, this show might be even worse that that, with the promise of nauseating regional stereotypes. So we've already got LA and NY cats confirmed as attention whore. Gee, wonder if they'll have a dumb and clumsy cat with a Southern accent, a tough cat with a Brooklyn accent, a spaced out cat with a hippy voice, etc? It's like a live action version of every non-Pixar CGI film.
There's always that moment; you find yourself awake at 4am, hanging off the side of the bed, cold, and with a knot in your back nearly big enough to replace the covers you're positive you went to sleep beneath. It's then that you experience the humbling that is sleeping with cats; the realization that you've been outwitted and outpositioned, albeit in your sleep, by a pair of animals with less than 30 pounds and 20 points of IQ between them.
Sleep lethargy is usually sufficient to complete your humiliation, when you scootch back over as best you can, without disturbing the cats, and try to make due with a tiny slip of sheet and just enough mattress to keep your knees from falling off.
A simple four foot chain leash for a dog can provide valuable personality insight into your cats. No, really.
Last week Malaya got a dog (beagle mix, about 10kg and very friendly) for her mom, who's lonely and bored with her husband so often out of town. Plus, a dog gives her something to care for and a reason to go out and walk and such, and it "keeps her strong for the apo." The hypothetical, future apo, that is.
Malaya's mom doesn't know too much about keeping a dog yet though, and when she left out the nylon leash they had, the dog took it for a chew toy and did what dogs do with chew toys. Hence Malaya and me heading to PetCo after dinner last night, and picking up a chain leash.
The fun began when we got home, and wondered just how the cats would do on a leash. The dog's got a chest harness thing, while the cats have just collars, but it wasn't like I planned to take them outside; I just wanted to see how they'd react. I found out.
Dusty went first, and he simply went limp. He hunkered down on the couch and passively resisted, and then when my steady pull got him to ooze down to the floor, he flopped onto his side and remained motionless. I'm talking road kill kitty; I was pulling him like a sack of mail, until after about half a meter I took mercy on his pathetic state and unhooked him. He was on his side, his legs out and limp, and his head back. It was really quite a pathetic sight.
Jinxie was next, having watched Dusty's humiliation without much interest. I clipped the leash around her collar, and never even got to pull, since the weight of the chain was enough to cause her to dig in her claws and brace herself. A second passed, and when the pull no her collar didn't cease, she basically turned into a wild stallion fighting a bridle, whipping her head around in circles and rearing up and pawing. Her collar was no match for that, and in maybe two seconds Jinx won, as her snap collar popped open and flew off with the leash still clipped around it.
As the title of this post suggests, the leash incident prefectly demonstrated their personalities. It was a feline Rorschach test, and just as with the real inkblot test, there were no right or wrong answers; just insights into the testee's personality. As we already knew, Jinxie meets conflict with combative ferocity, while Dusty is a big "lie still and hope nothing bad happens" pussy. Feel free to conduct similar research on your own test subjects, and report the results here.
