Decoding The Language Of Our Kitten Is Getting Easier.

An instruction manual wouldn't have gone amiss though.

We are approaching the two months mark of being cat owners, or rather house cat owners. There is a rather humorous way that it is described in German. You get cats that are Freigängers which means that they are able to come go as they please and coincidentally, the same word is used for model prisoners...makes you think, doesn't it?

But back to our odessy of trying to understand our little Maus, which can be rather fun. She has a voice, a scraggly one at that and she could easily perform with the Stray Cats. Bob has already started a dialogue with her and it goes something like this:

" Let's get your dinner. Would you like chicken or salmon tonight? "
" Meow, meow. "
" Are you sure? You had chicken this morning. "
" MEOW! "

and she does the last meow with aplomb and irritation at the delay.

Even though we are privileged to receive numerous cuddles from her daily, she is not up for cuddling all day and either will do a dash through our legs to get away or give us the paw, and not in the way you think either.

There is one clear and perfectly understood code: when her ears are pointing back and the wild look is in her eyes, hands off and get away!!!

Langenscheidt Katze-Deutsch/Deutsch-Katze: Wie sag ich's meiner Katze? (Langenscheidt ...-Deutsch)

A few days ago she started hovering around my legs while I was sitting at the computer and letting some cute meows slide off her tongue. Oh yes, hook, line and sinker. It didn't take more than a second for me to pick her up and she managed to just about squeeze onto my lap, purring and falling asleep. Funny, how she does it every day now...

Her ablutions are like clockwork and we are starting to know when she is about to go to her throne to do the business. As one of us straight away rushes to dispose of the #2's ( for hygiene and smell purposes ) I am afraid that she might start to interpret it as a new game. For us, it is a return to using the shovel in a sandpit and Maus tends to look at us as if we were mad...

As it is fantastic that she uses her toilet ( imagine if she didn't and preferred the vast space inside our house ), we don't want to make her feel ashamed of the smells that invariably are part of it. In fact, even though Bob almost wants to lose his dinner while digging it up, he puts on a brave face and tells her what a good girls she is.

Playtime, involves either a ball being laid at our feet or a string of short meows delivered with a frisky set of jumps. Easily understood.

How to Speak Cat: A Guide to Decoding Cat Language

The best of course is the fact that we could quite easily throw out our alarm clock. Come five o'clock, Maus gently jumps on my shoulders and starts to cuddle into my neck. If that doesn't wake me, the fact that in her manoeuvring she at times has her derriere in my face, startles me awake toute de suite...

Biggi