So a few years ago, my wife received a modest inheritance, and she used it to buy a small vacation house. It’s about an 11 hour drive from our home, and she will use it several times a year, and I will go once or twice a year. Our cat doesn’t really travel well, so he hasn’t been there. And every now and then, I realize that our cat has no idea that we have a second home.
Anyone else keeping secrets from your pets?
We usually take our dog everywhere we go, even on road trips, but when we have to fly somewhere we hire someone to stay home with him and he has no idea where we’ve gone and it we’re ever coming back. After a few days, for all intents and purposes we are dead to him. When we do get back and walk in the house he acts like we’ve been resurrected, which in his mind, we were.
I haven’t told my cat he’s adopted.
I don’t think my dogs know my name.
We have no secrets from Pluto. We openly discuss what a stinker he is and how we should trade him for a better dog, but he just tunes us out.
There are 2 closets in my house that I don’t think I’ve opened since I adopted my younger cat - they’re storage of things I rarely need, to the point that I’m not certain what’s in them.
Because I’m on a “hunt for how the mouse got in”, cleaning those out is on the agenda for next week. I expect Juno’s mind to be BLOWN by them.
We can’t keep secrets from the dogs. When we get our suitcases out, they immediately know something’s brewing. When I get out the big cooler on wheels, they know we will be boating. When we switch from collars to harnesses, Kizzy and Simi know a brewery is in their future.When I whisper to Loki, she knows I’m going to take her out solo and she can hardly contain her glee.
Our two cats are under the mistaken impression that they own our house and everything in it and that my wife and I are servants. We’ve elected to never tell them the truth. The outcome would be too messy.
“Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals.” - Winston Churchill
Our dog has no idea our house has a third floor. He’s never been up there.
…and we treat them as breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Well, have any of your pets ever asked? If they asked and you didn’t tell them, then it’s a secret. But if the conversation just never came up, that’s no secret.
Not secrets, but lies. We used to have tenants downstairs. Now we don’t. But we do joke a lot about the murder basement, which our cats have never seen. It’s renovated and nice now, so I was down there, and I could hear a lonely yowling cat at the top of the stairs. So I picked her up, which she doesn’t mind, and thought I would let her explore.
Four steps down, I learned that she actually thought it was a murder basement. So she stays upstairs. I feel a bit guilty, but the damage is done.
Or it was actually a murder basement, and your cat is in on it.
A few years ago, my wife found a badly injured puppy, and managed to catch him and take him to the vet. Of course, we adopted him, but his leg was so messed up that we didn’t want to deal with introducing him to the other two dogs in the house. So, for a month or so, we kept him in the bedroom, and put the other dogs away when we took him out to walk him. I think the other dogs knew that we were gaslighting them, but they could never prove it.
I haven’t told our cat that I’m wise to his keen desire to kill all of us. I consider this secret a small tactical advantage in my favor.
My gf’s mare Gracey (aka Grapeseed) is too efficient at grazing and gains weight on pasture. Therefore, she wears something called a grazing muzzle from ~4 pm to ~7 am which makes it a bit more difficult to graze.
My gf puts a treat in the muzzle and Gracey eagerly allows the muzzle to be placed on. When I’m asked to put her muzzle on, I skip the treat, but Gracey falls for it every damned time.
There’s more than one farmer who got et by the hogs. Payback is fair play.
I don’t think your cats are the ones who are mistaken.
As a result of divorce and the resultant financial issues, I have neglected to tell my dogs that I am not coming home.
Sorry, this might be a bit rough in an otherwise light-hearted thread.
They still love me when they get to see me.
Or it’s about to be a murder basement, if she can ever catch her human unawares…