12 February 2010

Feline Friday: Bad Behavior

Lily is a very vocal cat. She has a loud voice and is not afraid to use it, especially when she wants food. Which is pretty much all the time.

She's also a very smart cat. (Remember, I taught her to ring a bell for food. Now she rings it incessantly.) If she can't get someone's attention with bell-ringing or vocalizing, she resorts to more drastic measures, as shown in the photo below.

She drags her claws down the wall verrrrrry slowly:
S-C-R-I-T-C-H!


(I cannot begin to describe what an irritating sound this is, especially at 3 in the morning. Just like nails on a chalkboard, only infinitely worse.)


LILY! We (that would be Daughter and me) scream. NO!


S-C-R-I-T-C-H!


And then (this is the only cute part) Lily turns her head ever so sweetly to see if anybody is looking at her.

S-C-R-I-T-C-H!


LILY! NO!


S-C-R-I-T-C-H!


This routine is punctuated by Spouse uttering various expletives and threatening to put Lily up for adoption (or worse). Sometimes he even clambers out of his chair like Archie Bunker, waving a newspaper around wildly.

But Lily is undaunted.

S-C-R-I-T-C-H!


And so it continues until someone (that would be me) responds. Of course, I know better than to feed her when she scratches the wall, so she has to go into time-out in the basement until the scratching stops.

But night after night, this Bad Behavior continues. Lily is smart. She knows that by scratching the wall, she may not get food, but she'll but she'll always get attention. Especially at 3 in the morning.

Amazingly, it works every time.:-)


8 comments:

Daisy said...

Wow, Lily! That is a great idea. I am going to try it myself. You are smart!

Debbie said...

Smart cat!

KarenSue said...

good thing she's cute!!

Kristina said...

That little stinker...lol!

Janet said...

lol Yes, if she weren't so darned cute, she'd be in big trouble!

Jill said...

Oh my gosh - if her and Sugar ever got together it would probably be the end of humankind as we know it. Or cat kind. Or both.

Maureen said...

Daisy don't you dare!

My Dakotah has this trick at precisely 8:30 every weekend / holiday day. She figures I have slept in enough and it is time to eat. She always scratches in the same place too; until I yell at her enough to get up. She has trained me well ;)

Cheri said...

Oooooh, lovable kitty or not, if it were my house, she'd get sprayed with a water bottle for that!

We've been so fortunate to have animals who like to sleep and even sleep in in the morning. I have a friend with a dog that wakes up at 6am everyday...yep, even weekends. DOH!