My cat is a genius. Ok, not a genius, but he’s like the Dick Grayson of felines.
Morty is very clingy to me. Always on my lap, or my chest, or sitting on the back of my big wing-back chair when I’m sitting at the computer. He loves perching on my shoulder when I pick him up and put him there.
Yesterday, he was sitting on my wing-back chair (the seat part, not the back where he usually lays) just looking up at me like he wanted to be picked up. I was busy standing there like an idiot while surfing through some channels on the TeeVee. All of a sudden … SPROING … up jumps Morty, a good two or three foot leap, perfectly perching on my shoulder with all four paws.
I was so shocked I didn’t even have time to freak out as I felt his claws gain purchase. But just as quickly, he sheathed them and just sat there like big furry meowing parrot.
Of course, I couldn’t get him to do it again on command, but dammit if I wasn’t impressed by this little feat.
What can your pet do that you didn’t train them to do?
I had a siamese who liked to play fetch. I used to have one of those dog treat dispensers–the kind made like a gumball machine. The dog could press a bone-shaped lever to dispense kibble. My dogs, smart as they were, never got around to using it. One day, I hear kibble dropping out of the dispenser. Lo and behold, my little tabby kitten had figured it out. So I put kitty kibble in it instead of dog treats. She went on to teach the other cat how to use it. She would get so frustrated when it got empty–she would just be pumping away on that lever like a grandma at a slot machine!
Can you have your cat talk to my cat? Cuz my cat tries to do this, but fails. He tries to jump on me when I’m not paying attention to him. One time he made it but lost his balance and decided to use his claws on my shoulder to hold onto his perch. Twice now he’s not made it and used his claws to slow or halt his descent on his way down my back. I’ve explained to him calmly that the next time he does he’s going to be very cold on account of my having new gloves made from his oh-so-soft fur, but I don’t think he believes me.
One of our dogs, Tera, used to belong to my sister. Tera is a slightly neurotic chihuahua mix who, as far as we knew when we adopted her, didn’t know any tricks beyond “sit”.
During a family visit a couple of years after we adopted Tera, my niece stood up and said in a commanding voice, “Tera, play dead!” and damned if that dog didn’t roll right over onto her back and play dead. My sister and I looked at each other and said at the exact same time, “Did you know she could do that?”
Apparently my niece taught it to her in secret. Poor Tera was missing out on lots of doggie treats for a couple of years, but now she gets regular “Play Dead” cookies.
We adopted our Lhasa Apso from a family that no longer could keep her. When we fed her the first time, she stood up on her hind legs and danced around, pumping her front paws in a “gimme ten” manner. We asked her previous people, and they said, “We didn’t teach her that. She just does it.” Layla is also obsessively fond of ice cubes, especially from a bourbon-and-ginger-ale.
My cat does two tricks I didn’t teach her but I’m sure she is just mimicking me after seeing me do a similar thing.
When she wants into a room where the door is closed she will put a paw up on the door and meow to get my attention. I think she just watched me use my hand on the door knob and figured that by putting a hand/paw on the door will make it open but it doesn’t so she meows to get me to do it for her.
The second thing is when she wants to groom me she sits up straight and lifts one of her paws off the ground and keeps held up until I kneel down and let her lick my head. I think she picked this up from me petting her.
Mr Spock, who is a 25 lb flamepoint Siamese mix, sits up and begs. This is weird enough, but he doesn’t just beg for attention from humans. He has been known to beg the ceiling fan and the bookshelf for attention.
I once told him if the ceiling fan came down to play with him, I was leaving and not coming back.
It’s a basic cat rule that the cat is always on the wrong side of a closed door. If a door to the outside is opened for the cat, the cat may stop, halfway out, to think about a number of things.
I’m starting to figure that out. For example every once in a while she will want to go into the closet so I open the door for her and she walks half foot in pauses for a second and then turns around and goes back out into the living.
I was amazed to learn that our cat can climb a ladder. When we first bought our house, there was a ladder that went to a sleeping loft. The first time Gryffin saw it, he went right up. We had always been in a one-level before that, the cat had never even climbed stairs before. It’s really funny to watch a cat climb a ladder, too. It wasn’t the kind of ladder where he could sit on one rung and then hop to the next – it’s the kind where each rung is like a dowel, and he had to go paw over paw like a person going hand over hand.
One Christmas I put a jingle bell on our doorknob. Gryffin rang it one day, and we thought this was so funny we opened the door so he could go into the other room. Pretty much immediately he figured out that he could use this as a doorbell, and routinely rings when he would like the door opened. So I guess in that case, our cat trained us to open a door when he rings.
On rereading, that came off as a little snarky. No offense to Blake, honest. It was just the first thing that came to mind when I read the OP and that thread in my mind is one of the “classics” of the dope that I like rereading, because a lot of good points about how to argue and what arguments we accept around here were brought up during it.
In regards to the OP, my dog had the amazing ability to fart and then look around very quickly to try to discern the source of the noise. Not the brightest, she wasn’t.
Molly (cat) will jump down from the roof onto your shoulder. Jasmine (dog) will put her head into the choke-chain attached to her leash if you hold it up for her (she knows it means walkies.) Sunshine, the lovebird, will take a bath if you tell her to (and she’s not feeling contrary.) Rio (cat) taps on the patio door with his claws to be let in/out the door. Punky (cat)…well, he’s cute. The cats all know when I tell them it’s time to go out, and unless it’s raining or cold, will go on command (herding cats–it’s not as hard as you think.)
With the exception of Sunshine’s bathing, NONE of these were things we were TRYING to train the critters to do.
My oldest cat learned how to open a door in a previous residence. I think it was the circumstances because it was only this one door that he could open, although he did try to open others in the same way. There was a small table near the door that he could stand on and turn the knob with both his paws. He could only open it because the door never really latched tightly.
Ernie, the now expired Best Cat in the World used to play goal in our living room soccer game. We played with a Nerf basketball. He would guard the area between the end table and lamp in the corner of the room. I would line up 8 - 10 feet back, and make a free kick. He. Was. Amazing.
He would leap and dive, or if I kicked it right at him, he would actually trap it with his paws and hold it. I would go wherever it ended up, take the ball and he wait right there in place and go again.
It started by accident one day - I kicked the ball to get it out of the way, he was in the corner and did his thing. Then he just stood there waiting, until I - the stupid human - figured things out. He would only play when he felt like it, and the games usually went no more than 6-7 kicks.
I trained my cat to jump onto my shoulder. I’d put him on the table then pat my shoulder and up he jumped.
My mother started saying darkly that “something would have to be done” about that cat - that his behaviour was sinister. Finally I got her to explain that the cat had been stalking guests at a drinks party, climbing up on the table and attacking them - ooooops! We had to keep guests away from his launching pads for a few months and he stopped doing it.
The ancient but agile Mother Cat would wait patiently under the table during meal times until someone got up for some reason. On their return they’d think some of their food had disappeared. Rubbish we’d all shout - you ate it! One day I noticed a furry paw reaching deftly up from an empty chair and flicking a piece of meat onto the floor … She must have been doing it for years before we noticed. This cat could also open doors with knob handles and a heavy latched window.
