11/03/2014

Training Your Human by Chessie

  Hey there my furry friend, Frankie!

  Greetings from the beach.  Life is good here, as my world is mostly back the way is has always been.  My Mom has restored all the things that she had packed and put away during the great re-carpeting adventure and so I am now happily ensconced in my cozy home with all the familiar places for me to gaze out at the garden to see the little birds and squirrels.  It is too bad though the days are getting less light – so Mom has to get up in the dark, ‘cause my tummy says its breakfast time!  And it gets dark by suppertime too – she has to put the lights on to feed me.  I can see my food dish fine, especially when I can smell the yummy food in it, but I guess she doesn’t have the same vision skills I do.  Anyway, I wanted to tell you something I learned about getting Mom to do exactly what you want her to do: sometimes you have to encourage human behavior, with a little skilled and repetitive training.

  When Mom was putting back everything in the house, she decided to change-up the locations of some of the furniture and books in the bookcases.  That rather annoyed me, ‘cause I like things just the way they’ve been situated since we moved here!  So I started my own campaign:  the bookcase was easy, I have a favorite spot on top of the set-top box for the television, it’s nice and warm without being hot, and it has just the tiniest hum that vibrates the box, even I can barely hear it.  I could sleep on it for hours.  Well, Mom decided to make use of the space and stuck some big old artsy books on it so I couldn’t sleep there anymore.  Yep, that didn’t last.  I took my paw and shifted them slightly and ‘me-owed’ loudly until she paid attention and came to see what was up... purrfect... just as I knocked a whole bunch on the floor!  Didn’t really have to shove them off, just turn the books a bit so they were tipped off balance and they fell – all by themselves!  Smart kitty – me.  I won – books gone!

  We had a similar tussle with the big, old ruffled pillows on her bed.  I like one of them very much and often choose to sleep on it during the day – it’s a soft, comfortable place and I can barely be seen napping.  Well, my Mom decided to wash the covers to the pillows and then to put some of the decorative pillows away for ‘a new look’ – so she said.  I sat and watched her intently, I couldn’t believe that she was going take one of my favorite sleeping places away.  After a couple of days of being without my pillow, I decided to take action:  I pounced on the bed and ran all over it - flipped the remaining pillows on the floor and when Mom came home, she found a pile of rumpled pillows all over the floor and a messed up bedspread!  Chaos reigned!   Mom wasn’t happy with the mess, but I guess she got the message – some of the pillows are still packed away, but others, including my favorite napping pillow has returned.

  All this talk of naps, has made me sleepy, going to my favorite pillow – Chessie

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