Posted on by CG

A Question of Cat’s

Cats are highly curious creatures. When they are awake, they do seem to spend a lot of time examining things when they aren’t just contemplating their fabulousness. Mr. Man and I spend a lot of time wondering what our cats are thinking about and making up dialogue, but we don’t generally tend to phrase it in the form of a question – except Sally wondering, “Mom, why are you bothering me again?”

Well, it turns out that Ruth Roy and Thomas Roy of wellcat.com thought that cats have questions that should be answered and they decided to make up National Answer Your Cat’s Questions Day, which is this Friday, January 22. Their idea was that it would give people an opportunity to understand cats better by finding answers to the questions their cat has.

I wondered what the internet would say a cat’s questions are and found some websites with “Your Cat’s Top 5 Questions” or some such thing. These listicles had questions that don’t really apply to Anabel and Sally. They would never ask “Why do you get mad when I scratch the furniture (or fill in the blank bad behavior)?” because they don’t do that.

When I tried to think of questions that Anabel and Sally would have for me, I could only come up with a few:

  • Why haven’t you fed me yet? (Sally)
  • Why don’t you give me more crunchy food? (Anabel)
  • Why are you bothering me? (either of them at any time)
  • Why don’t you come over here and pay attention to me? (either of them at any time)
  • Why did you wake me up? (at 2pm)
  • Why don’t you get up right MEOW? (at 2am)
  • How can I get my paws on that birdie?
I wonder if that bird is as tasty as crunchy food?

Then I started wondering what questions I would want Anabel and Sally to answer about being a cat. I came up with:

  • What is the line between warm enough and too warm? *I feel like it is around 80-85 degrees.
  • How annoyed are you really by that collar? *Not much, I like to be accessorized.
  • How hard is it to actually leap 6’ in the air? How fun is it? *It feels AMAZING. I am a graceful and powerful creature and I love all the ways that I can move and manipulate my body.
  • Does it hurt when you land on the ground from a 5’ height? *Not really, my paw pads and the way that my body is put together does a good job at absorbing the shock.
Why are you always taking my picture?

So, what I thought might be fun this week is for you to post your questions and I will attempt to answer them. Either a question you have about cats, or you can pretend that you are a cat with a question about people.  I’ll send an email on Friday morning to remind you to check back at this post and to see the answers to your cat questions.

12 Replies to “A Question of Cat’s”

  1. I would think that a cat’s inner monolog would be less questioning. They are very zen and just exist in the moment.

    1. Yes and they are very curious. I think there is a lot of wondering things like, “what is this?” “do I want to attack it?” “do I want to eat it?” “would I like to take a nap here?”

  2. I think cats are driven by 3 things: curiosity, hunger and fight/flight instinct. They dive headlong into whatever takes their attention and deal with the outcome however they can. I did not list sex as a drive because most of our house kitties have been denied that instinct by their protecters. Their best ability, in my opinion, is to just lie down and take a nap whenever and wherever.

  3. Why do you run when I want to sniff you? I’m just saying hello. Question from Danny Boy, the dog.

    1. Dear Danny Boy, it’s not that we are opposed to butt sniffing, it’s just that your head is as big as our whole body and I’m not about to let your teeth get that close to my body. If you would just lay down and let me come sniff you, we might be able to hang out, you do look like you would make a cozy place to take a nap after all.

    1. It mostly all boils down to sustained eye contact, with perhaps quick glances toward the desired object. Sometimes a big stretch or reaching out with one paw helps. And if none of that works you just have to speak up! “Mrraup!” “Prrruprrruprrup!” and sometimes a good old-fashioned “MEOW!” are all very effective.

  5. Answering the last question:
    “Why are you always taking my picture?”
    Because you are such a beautiful model, and I am such a great Cat Photographer.

    1. Yes indeed. Also, it seems important to document all of the various sleeping postures/locations and even more notably the non-sleeping activities.

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