I went to Pike Place Market for lunch yesterday, and there was a guy with a small stall set up on the sidewalk. (Basically a counter with a couple of uprights with a sign on top.) His group had a cat shelter and he was looking for donations. One of the signs said ‘Socialized Cats’. On top of his little counter was a brownish-grey striped tabby wearing an orange down jacket. The cat sat perfectly still, but had a bit of a grin as people scratched its head. It seemed to be enjoying itself.
But the way it just sat there was a little creepy. It was as if it was glued to the spot. At one point the guy got in front of the cat and got its attention by holding his finger in front of its face and telling it to look at him. Then he gave some variation on ‘shake hands’ and the cat raised a paw. The guy picked up a few pinches of wet cat food and fed them to the cat. Not a particularly impressive trick; the busker at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica has PsychicCat and puts on a fun show.
I wonder what the deal is? Unlike Psychic Cat, this guy in Seattle was apparently working at a no-kill shelter. How do they treat the cats? Are they training all 13 to sit stock-still and shake hands? How would such a cat behave if it’s adopted? It just seemed a little sinister.
That is a little bizarre. Though I suppose it is possible that the cat is the “shelter cat”, and not actually one of the ones that needs a home? Or the previous owners had trained it, and the shelter guy just found out about it and is using it to make the cat seem more social? Maybe it is just a boring cat otherwise!
I loved Pike Place Market. It’s pretty much never gonna happen, but if, in some bizarro world, my husband and I had to move to the US, I think I’d seriously consider Seattle. I was there for 6 days back in December, and I just loved it.
Another weird cat thing like that from when I was in Malaysia (6th paragraph & photo). The cats all fell asleep whenever he played Hindi pop music. He rode around town with cats asleep all over his motor scooter.
I’m not sure why people are always surprised when they see cats trained to do various things. They’re trainable. Not in the same manner as dogs, but they can be taught.
My cite?
Tigers and lions at the circus. They’re cats, and they can KILL YOU if they don’t cotton to your training methods. Housecats? Pshaw… easy by comparison.
I should also mention that I managed to train my breathtakingly stupid cat to ‘beg’ like a dog for food. It took months, but it’s amazingly cute: she sits up straight with her paws held out in front of her, drooping at the wrist.
I taught my cat Smokie to “shake” for a treat – while waiting for his reward he would sit and wait for his treat with a peculiarly dog-like expression of hope that onlookers generally found disturbing.
We wouldn’t be surprised by a service dog trained to sit very still for long periods of time or suspect anything sinister in its treatment. shrug Sure it seems uncatlike but as others have stated, cats ARE trainable.
I’ve seen that cat guy in Seattle. I gave him a donation, too–for the entertainment he provided (me loves kitties). Somehow, I sensed that his “Cat shelter” was a fraud, but at least he was putting in an honest day’s work to keep both his cats and his audience happy.
I agree that it was a little weird, but not necessarily creepy, the way the cats sat so calmly. I think part of it is training, and part of it is clothing. Cats feel secure in tight, confined spaces (mine loves a shoebox), and I think the tight sweaters he put on the cats has a similar calming effect.
Have any of y’all ever seen Dominique’s Cat Circus? I caught it once and it’s really impressive: a whole bunch of cats who do things like jump through flaming hoops, etc. (and the guy is kinda interesting too, with proceeds from his street show he put his daughter through UCLA for a doctorate in physics)
My dad taught Lenny to do all sorts of stuff. He got him to “beg” like a dog, “speak”, but “roll over” didn’t work out, Lenny just turns around in a quick circle.
The secret is cheese doodles as a reward.
Lenny desn’t do any of the tricks for me, except “beg” and only when I have some seriosuly cat-coveted morsel.
That’s not much of a trick to teach to a cat. And nothing creepy. Cats as predators will sit by a mousehole completely still for hours, but jump immediately if a mouse come out. It was common to see that in our barn cats at home – completely untrained (or only trained by momma cat). And if you came clomping thru the barn making noise, after they had been stalking the mouse for hours, you got such a look of disgust directed at the ‘stupid human’!
