Here is a story I must share about one of the cats that lives in our house. And his enlightenment or dare I say the discovery of what I call “The Roger Principle-cat food in bowls/cat food on the floor, are they the same?” The particapants of the story:
Roger (aka:the monkey dog) a Russian blue type of cat with no tail, very stocky, looks like a monkey dog. Not the brightest animal in the world. My roomates cat.
Frank a grey any white cat, looks like an ordinary cat but is a really smart cat. My cat. It should be noted our house is a low-tech black and white cat house, one day I hope to afford a Hi-res color cat with 2 million colors all in orange.
The situation: It’s one hour after I fed the cats, yet they are hungry again. I keep the cat food under the sink so they can’t get to it. Frank has been studying the placement of the cat food and has figured why he can’t get to the cat food. There is a door.
Frank tries opening the door…“YAY! It works!” Proceeds to dump the bag of cat food on the floor. I hear this run down the stairs and I see Frank shoving food in his face ala- Garfield style. Roger hearing this runs into the kitchen and sees Frank eating and me standing there. It should be noted that as a guy I decide to just put the bag of cat food up on a shelf that the cats can’t get to (I hope) and I decide to let the cats clean up the mess.
The discovery: When Roger runs in and observes Frank eating, and me standing there with a bag of cat food, he comes to the conclusion.
“AHA it’s feeding time again let me check my bowl.”
Roger walks across the pile of cat food past Frank trying to put as much food in his mouth as possible, and checks his bowl.
“What?!!? there is no food in the bowl let me ask the feeding god.”
Roger looks up at me and says “Meee…”
Getting no response from the feeding god except laughter he has another idea.
“If Frank is eating there must be food in his bowl, let me check out his bowl.”
Roger walks back across the food, past Frank who is now trying not to laugh and eat at the same time, and checks out Franks bowl which much to his surprise and dismay is empty.
To the food god “Meee…Meeee”
Roger in deep thought (ankle depth for him) walks across the food to his bowl and starts pondering. You can actually see the one gear in his head slowly turning.
“Frank is eating…there is no food in his bowl…the food god has food in his hand…I’m not eating…there is no food in my bowl…hold on, hold on…I walked on food…it’s on the floor…can I eat it?”
Roger paws a single piece of food towards him siffs it, eats it.
!!! “IT’S FOOD, WONDERFUL FOOD! I CAN EAT IT!! WHOO HOO!” Turns into an eating machine, Frank stops eating wanders off letting Roger enjoy his discovery “The Roger Principle”