My female cat used to flip her plastic water bowl, just because she liked to play in the puddle it created. I had to get a heavy ceramic big-dog type of water bowl for her. Didn’t stop her from trying to flip it. Damn cats…
My wonderful husband taught Maxx to fish ice cubes out of his water dish so they, (hubby & Maxx) could play “Hockey” in the kitchen. Yes, he puts ice in their water, but they aren’t spoiled, just ask them!
Our kitten thinks she can speak English. She’s an extreme talker- the chattiest cat I’ve ever met. She doesn’t usually complain, she just talks.
“Merrroow. Meeerrrrrow. Mrow! Merow Mrw. Meeeeerrrrrroooowww!”
“Hello. There are birds outside. I want your lap. Have you noticed that I’m fuzzy?”
Because she talks so much, Mr. Lissar and I translate for her into what we figure cat stream-of-conciousness chatter sounds like in English. This encourages her to talk more. I must sound absurd, especially when there are other people around. It’s becoming subconcious, to translate for my cat.
Elvis swears a lot.
Just like his momma. 
He’s usually does it when I kick him out of my room at bedtime. I’m moving in a couple weeks so I’m unable to close my closets right now. Since he considers any open door a makeshift playground, he’s banished from my room at night until I move.
But I digress.
After we play the run-and-hide-from-momma-when-she’s-changing-for-bed-because-I-know-she’s-gonna-kick-me-out routine, and he’s out, he’ll cry for a couple minutes outside the door.
Then he walks away mumbling. That’s right. Mumbling. I’ve never heard a cat mumble till Elvis found me. And mumble he does. I know he’s talkin’ mess.
One of these days, I’m gonna be forced to wash his little kitty mouth out with soap.
We have three kitties - Zippo, Simon and Phoebe. They all have ways of communicating exactly what they want. Sometimes it’s uncanny how they demonstrate how intelligent they are!
The first time I saw this in action was just after we got married and were living in a small apartment with Zippo. One day we were in the kitchen making dinner, and behind us, we heard ‘scrape, scrape, scrape…’ Turning to look, Zippo had pushed his empty food dish out into the middle of the floor, with his nose. Since that day, we have never failed to make sure the food dish was not empty! He thinks his name is Baby, and all I have to do is call “Ba-a-a-a-by!” and he comes running from wherever he was. He knows exactly what “Want to have a sleep?” means, and if he wants a tummy rub, he knows that lying on his back, spreadeagled and looking wistful will get him what he wants. If he thinks I’ve been sitting at the computer for too long without petting him, he’ll put his front paws on the chair and head-butt my elbow and meow this pitiful sound that says “Hey! You’re neglecting me!”
Simon has a specific meow when he wants to go outside, and another one when he wants to come in. And if he doesn’t get his way with something, he’s got a meow that sounds just like a little kid whining, and he’ll trot down the hall, meowing a constant sound that changes in intensity with his footsteps, sorta like “raowwOwOwowOwOwOw…”
Phoebe always meows “Hello!” to me when she comes into the room. If I come out of the kitchen and walk down the hall without noticing her in the living room, she meows at me, and will usually perforrm this movement where she bends down to rub the carpet with her face and flop over on her side for rubbing. Phoebe also thinks the sound of the can opener means Food For Phoebe. “But kitties don’t eat beans / corn / soup / what-have-you” is a common refrain around our house.
Don’t ANY of these animals let you know when Timmy has fallen down the well?
Yeah, but it’s a cat I’ve got so it usually transpires thusly:
“Oh, hey, forgot to mention… Last week sometime… Maybe Monday or so… This kid asked me to tell you something. Wasn’t really paying attention. Had something to do with a ‘well.’ Sounded kind of important… Whatever.”
My dog, 11#, expects to go thru the drive thru teller at the bank. She gets a little dog biscuit out of the drawer but ignores the paper work. Has to get a second one when the receipt come out.
Lets me know when we have to go thru lane with a pneumatic tube transport as she has to wait of the capsule to come back and only gets one biscuit.
We haven’t had an emergency situation yet with our shepherd mix, but she does communicate like that. If she wants something, she will come and get us and bark / whine, then run to what she wants and bark again until we follow her. Sometimes I don’t know what she wants, so I tell her “show me” and she will continue to point, scratch, whine at what it is until I understand. Sometimes I have no clue what she is talking about and am convinced she is whining about nothing, but so far she has made me understand every time, eventually. It is a very Lassie type behavior, so often when she comes and gets me, I ask her “what is it girl? Is Timmy in the well?” Usually it is just that she has found a treat or toy hidden away somewhere and wants it, or else there is something going on outside that she wants me to see, but I await the day she leads me to Timmy in distress.
She is very upfront when she wants her belly rubbed, also. If I pet her on the head and she wants a belly scratch, she will firmly push my hand down with her paw until it is on her belly. I of course comply for a while, then scratch her head again or pull my hand away, and she will take my hand and put it on her belly again, looking at me like “are you a little slow? I clearly showed you what to do.”
I can usually tell what her barks mean. She has a play bark, a bark that says Alert! There is a dog / squirrel / mailman outside, a happy bark, frustrated, etc. Last night I woke up to her barking around 4 am and thought
“that’s funny - it sounds like she wants something and is sad - not like when she sees something outside. It also sounds like she is far away.”
My husband got up (she doesn’t bark that often at night and there have been break-ins in our neighborhood lately, so he has been checking when she does bark) and couldn’t find her at first. Finally he traced her bark and opened the basement door - she had been shut up in the basement all night! She must have followed me down when I got some clothes up from the laundry right before bed
and I shut the door, thinking she was sleeping on the couch upstairs. We couldn’t believe she had waited all night before barking to let us know she was trapped! We got quite the indignant look when she came upstairs.
Oh! You too? All 3 of ours swear at us behind our backs, well, actually, to our faces as often as not.
Maxx will even “show me the claws” He never, ever uses them, in fact, he obeys my “No claws” orders. So the show is just that, “I could hurt you if I wanted. I just don’t want to right now.”
Buster gave me one Lassie-esque moment a few years ago (I may even have started a thread about it, but alas, I am a lowly guest and am thus unable to search the board to provide a link). I was sitting at my computer when Buster came in the room, very agitated. I figured that maybe he wanted to go outside, but that wasn’t it, so I said “What is it, boy?” and he led me out of the computer room, through the master bedroom and into – the bathroom?!?
It wasn’t a well, and there wasn’t any Timmy, either, but that’s as close as I can expect to find in my neighborhood.
It turns out that the last time I had flushed the toilet, the flapper valve hadn’t seated properly. The tank was empty and the inlet valve was hissing and squealing. I fixed the problem and praised Buster for leading me to the problem. Of course, I suppose it may have been disturbing his sleep, since he naps out on the bed while I’m online.
–SSgtBaloo
Postscript: There have been no obvious recurrences of Lassie-like behavior from Buster since – that I am aware of, anyway.