Innocent!? Oh man these are the most destructive cats I’ve ever had. Claw marks everywhere. Santa needs to bring new Scratching posts!
Teddy is multitalented.
My favorite prison therapy dog was Pep, a lifer at Eastern State Penitentiary.
Luna’s relentless march towards sentience-levels of self-expression continues as the dog somehow trained me to read her mouth to indicate hunger. Get this: she looks at me and starts licking her lips.
I finally picked up on it: ‘Oh! You’re hungry!’
The look she gave me could best be described as ‘gratified exasperation’.
She also likes to lie down like this, with her hind legs trailing her:
Some people are better at understanding their dogs than others.
Years ago, I had a couple of people wanting to work at the farm who wanted to bring their dog with them. I said, bring the dog over first before we decide anything, I want to see how he is around the cats.
They brought the dog over on a leash as requested; I went out of the house to meet them, carrying a very dog-friendly cat. [ETA: usually, don’t do this sort of thing. I knew this particular cat very well. If I’d tried to carry any of the others toward a strange dog, I’d have expected to wind up bloody.]
The cat took one look at that particular dog, climbed up higher on my shoulder, and took a very firm grip there. I took one look at that dog, kept a firm grip on the cat, and said nope, that dog can’t come here.
The dog’s people said ‘but whyyyy? Look, he’s friendly, he’s wagging his tail!’
I said ‘yes, he’s wagging his tail. And he’s licking his lips. He’s wagging because he thinks I’m going to feed him the cat for a treat!’
If I had a dog as beautiful and intelligent as Luna, I would present her with a menu every night! 
I love those little tufts of blond hair around her ears!
Bernie didn’t have a specific indicator of being hungry. He had a specific indicator of “dinner time”. Promptly at 6:00 PM every day, give or take a few minutes, if he had not already been called for dinner he would come and lie down by his food and water bowls. If I happened to be busy with something else he would eventually give up, and go and have a nap in his room until he was called. Fortunately for him that didn’t happen often, and his internal clock was amazing.
On the advice of a trainer, I taught him to sit and wait while his dinner was dished out. As it was almost always a hot dinner, there would be a distinct aroma of food, and being a naturally slobbery Bernese Mountain Dog, he would drool at the scent of it while he waited.
Loki and Kizzy playing hard.
Sweet things! They’ll probably need some extra dinner. 
Ha! They actually got some extra treats in their dinner. I found some slightly freezer burned ground beef heart patties in the freezer which I threw on the grill for them. 
And Kizzy got (another) mole yesterday. She loves them.
Umm… This is also one of our Pets. So… Fourth? Not counting the other humans in the house:
That’s Sully, our African Grey Parrot. We had to re-home him, unfortunately, because he started tormenting the dogs by mimicking our commands to the dogs, and then the dogs started hanging around him a lot, which made him anxious.
African greys are incredibly smart. Sully learned the error beep from my computer and used to beep it at me while I was working, which always caused consternation if I hadn’t saved my current files…
Oh, that’s hysterical! Have you convinced yourself they don’t do it on purpose? How’s that working out for you? 
Beau’iful plumage. Grays certainly are intelligent, but my college roommate had a couple of parakeets that would exactly imitate the beep from the microwave. Hey, lunch is ready… oh, I guess not. The birds were dumb as rocks otherwise.
African Greys are very naturalistic mimics. Other parrots tend to mimic in a ‘Parroty’ voice Usually high pitched, like a baby talking. African greys impersonate sounds very closely. Sully also learned to mimic my wife calling me from upstairs, and when he did, it sounded exactly like her, right down to the muffled sound of calling from one floor to another. More than once she’d hear me call out, “What do you need?” and be very perplexed. Then we’d realize it was Sully.
Definitely can believe all that. The parakeets couldn’t imitate more than beeps and boops. They could manage only about a third of the old Nokia ringtone, so there was no confusion there, fortunately.
What sounds do you make to your animals? (not verbal ‘commands’)
… I do a double-tsk with my tongue when I want Luna’s attention.
… A double-kiss, however, calls her to me for pets and scratches. Unless she’s perfectly comfortable in the once-forbidden captain’s chair.
… I will growl at her to keep her away from things, let her know of my disapproval. Make my shoulders wide, the whole gig. There’s a lot of deer in the back and a lot of deer shit and sometimes I get tired of seeing my dog face-planted in some damned fresh droppings, OK? You live in MY HOUSE, Luna! I feed you well! No need to embarrass our family like this, understand? 
Oh, and obligatory pic… Luna in a standoff with the deer.
We just talk to our border collies, and generally they get it because we are careful to use the same phraseology all the time. For example, if I’m putting my shoes on to go to the store and the dogs think they are going for a walk they’ll get very excited. I’ll just say, “We aren’t walking right now” and they calm right down. If we are going out for just a short time, we’ll say ‘back in a bit’, and the dogs will wait at the window for us. But if we say, “You dogs rest”, they know we won’t be back for a while, so they’ll go lie down or play with a toy.
If they are begging for food and they can’t have any, we just say “Not for dogs”, and they go away. They key is to be ruthlessly consistent. If we say ‘not for dogs’, they never get a treat, no matter what. If you break down and reward them for persisting occasionally, they’re like pigeons in a skinner box. Intermittent reinforcement is the worst.
I think this is one of the biggest mistakes owners make with their dogs: They aren’t consistent. They’ll say no repeatedly, then give in. The dog just learned, “To get what I want I just have to be really persistent.”
Anyone else receive a gift from their pet this holiday season?
Kizzy came up to me at work with something in her mouth. Just what I wanted, a wireless mouse!!
A glorious blep from Mims
I put those tubs on the bed so I could grab threads for a new project. I always keep my thread bins covered because cats. The only thing I have left that I need is the green thread in the top tub. I guess I’m going to have to wait until tomorrow to finish because I certainly can’t do it today.
I’m thinking I’ve met entire cats the size of George’s tail!
I’ve measured our cats’ tails from butt to tip and back legs from butt to toe. George’s tail is 25% longer than the others. I know he doesn’t have more tail bones, tails don’t work that way. He’s a tail with a cat attached, which explains so very much because tails don’t have much brains.
We have lever latches on our doors (easier for old hands than knobs) and George sometimes entertains himself by standing up and messing around with the latches. We are already getting into the habit of locking the exterior doors every time we use them, even if we are just going out to our car for a reason. Gormless George has no fear and he doesn’t know about mean dogs or uncaring cars.
George likes to put his front paws on my desk to steady himself while watching me type. George approves of this message.