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Saturday, November 12, 2011

Writer's Block


My son's cat, a big white cat (8 kg ) named Mario, is a special case. 
He's like a Great Dane among the cats, and yet he has his fears... 
He's afraid of most men.  It's because of this habit that the vet gave the cat to my family 3 years ago. My son was 10, so my household was considered 'manless'.  Only an occasional visit from my brother disturbed the tranquility. It took Mario over a year to get used to my brother.

Apart from this fear of human men, Mario has an eating disorder and a drinking problem!
The cat's afraid of drinking water from a bowl, He can't see the level of the water and of course it varies at times. I've seen him stick his head in too deep. Causing him to inhale water through his nose and causing panic..  
However, Mario came up with a solution, single-handedly: he pushes his bowl across the floor with one paw. At one fell swoop. It makes the water dance  -and  me run for a towel.   When the movement of the water is somewhat subdued and regular, he looks for the surface by the changing reflection of the light. He peers and peers into his bowl and suddenly starts to drink. Without dipping his nose in!

My son witnessed the birth of the eating 'disorder'. When Mario was with us only a couple of days he almost choked on one of his cat cookies. He was rescued by my son. 
I didn't know that. But I noticed some odd behaviour.... whenever I came out of the bathroom, Mario would be sitting close to the door. On seeing me, he'd rise and walk to 'his' room, mewing. Looking over his shoulder to check if I was following him. At his bowl with cookies he would stop, mew and check again if I were there and only then he would start to eat. The amount of cookies in the bowl hinted that he hadn't eaten them all day.  As if he had been waiting for someone to be present when he ate. 
When my son and I 'compared notes' we could only conlcude that Mario is afraid of choking on his cookies and therefore wants one of us to be present when he eats them.

Don't tell me that animals can't think. This cat came up with solutions for his own fears. He even knew how to recruit others to help him. A completely different species. 



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