I’ve been repainting the kitchen. Early this afternoon I pulled off some painters tape and saw that about 1/4" of an inch alone the baseboard and about 1" along the cabinets hadn’t been reached by the paint sprayer. This is not a long task, less than 10 minutes for sure, and they were otherwise occupied already so I decided not to capture the cats before I did the touch up with a small brush.
I was about halfway though my task when there was a polite “mrph?” behind me. I turned and found 2 pairs of very concerned eyes staring at me, obviously aghast that their monkey was sitting on the floor and doing something to the wall.
I should’ve known that I’d attract attention, they do like to watch me do mundane tasks that apparently seem quite odd from their pov.
Reminds me of when, at age 7, I brought home a Sheltie puppy to join the pack. We had two male Dobes, among others, already in residence. They both sniffed the puppy over, then decided to mark him as their territory. Almost drowned the poor baby. Lovely welcome to the family. (That puppy was firmly convinced throughout his life that he was a Doberman himself.)
Then there was the time our free-flying bird landed on our previous cat (Felix had zero hunting urge, so they got along fine), then dropped a big bomb on his side. He gave her a remarkable “Are you SERIOUS?” face, then glared at ME with the “Mom, FIX this” face. I couldn’t help laughing while I was cleaning him up, and I don’t think he was happy about that, either.
I brought home a puppy once, to a home already supplied with cats but with no other dogs, and after giving her a few minutes outdoors put her in a prepared blocked-off corner with bedding. Which she promptly pissed on.
I took her outside again and cleaned up her bed area. She pissed on it again.
After the third round of this I suddenly realized: the poor pup, who’d lived up until then in a tangle of her littermates, had probably never been anywhere in her short life that didn’t smell at least a bit of puppy pee. She was trying desperately to make her new quarters smell familiar. I left the third batch of pee alone and went to bed. By the next day she was willing to piss outdoors, and I was able to clean up the indoor bed without her feeling the need to re-scent it.