Your situation and mine are quite the same, down to the yowling. And commercial “treat” food is EVIL. It’s gotta be real food. In any case, I don’t leave treats for her unless she asks for them.
But any time I’m in the kitchen, she’s almost always in feeding mode. Anything for a handout, however small. I have to submit to her demand to check out the peanut butter and coffee and oranges just to remind her for the umpteenth time that she doesn’t want them. But that’s cats, for you: one never knows but the Jameson might be finally made of tuna.
We have a sign language for when I’m done with giving her bits of beef or whatever: I open both palms facing her to show they’re empty, and she takes the cue right away and, satisfied, goes off to do something else.
We used to have 2 cats, one of which was bonded to me, and the other to my
husband. My husband’s cat adored him so much that she would wake him
up every morning by licking his ears very roughly and rubbing her face
against them, all the while purring at the top of her lungs. We called this
“snozzling”.
So, I don’t know about the good taste thing…I thought that was rather
over the top
My wife’s cat, “Lady” lived to a ripe old age. She was something of a matriarch, and knew a trick or too. She was well used to people pretending to stay asleep when she wanted fed. She would quietly stalk up to the bed and sneak up to the pillow. Then she would lick the sleeper’s eyelids. Try and sleep through that!
You know, this is off the topic, but do you think maybe you should sweep your kitchen floor? I don’t know how long the kibble bits have been spreading or how far they’ve spread, but I think it’s not really good to have animal food just all over the place—it might attract rodents or insects.
When the cat starts sniffing the bushes, I figured she is just checking her messages. I’d rather that then have her figure out how to use the phone and answering machine…
Worse, it might attract other cats. In fact the worst creature we’ve known to come through the cat flap after catfood were ducks. Mallard ducks (and drakes too) like catfood. Not the dry stuff, so much. Mallards are cheeky, but they poop when they panic. They poop a lot.
Were I to encounter a panicky pooping mallard in my kitchen, I’m quite sure I would express my anguish by repeatedly uttering a particular word which would simultaneously and unintendedly serve to exhort the mallard to carry on. The word would be both an expletive and a command. That would seem to be an unusual situation as far as English usage goes.
Well, okay then, it might attract raccoons! We’ve had numerous threads about the dangers of raccoons—that ought to scare you a bit, if pooping mallards haven’t done the trick.
