Advice—April 2007

Dear Sparkle,
My human has no sense of humor! She gets upset at the stupidest little things. For example, the two of us live by ourselves, so whenever she goes into the bathroom she always leaves the door open. So unlike a lot of you other cats, I’m not faced with a shut door. Cool, right? So I always take advantage of the situation and walk right in after her. Usually she doesn’t mind, except when she’s using the human litter box. I have this game, see—whenever she’s sitting there, I sneak around the back and whap at her from behind! This always makes her scream, which is really fun, but then she gets mad at me like I’ve done something wrong. What’s the matter with her? Why can’t she just laugh it off along with me?
Signed,
Playful But Perturbed

Dear Playful,
Letters like this one only prove that there’s always a downside to even the most fortunate of situations. True, you never have to face a shut bathroom door; on the other hand, your human takes your little practical joke with less than good humor. But honestly, maybe your behavior isn’t all that funny—how would you feel if you were in your own litter box and your human decided to sneak up behind you and pull your tail? You wouldn’t like that, would you? In fact, it might even cause you to stop using your litter box altogether. This is just a roundabout way for me to say it’s a good thing you haven’t put your human off her litter box—imagine how awful that would be!

In addition I should probably remind you of another thing: for all their size, humans can be surprisingly fragile, mainly because of their lack of a fur covering. When you slap at your human from behind, you might actually be slicing into her and drawing blood. And your claws hurt bare skin, where they would barely make a dent in another cat. So your little joke comes as an unpleasant surprise to your human on several different levels.

I’m not saying, however, that you should stop your mischievous behavior, just that you should consider the implications of your actions before you carry them out. If you’re going to keep whacking at your human when she’s indisposed, you may want to keep your claws retracted and make it more of a tap than an all-out whap! Of course, even with this modification she may start doing the unthinkable and shutting the door when she’s using the porcelain litter box. My suggestion is that if you’re really addicted to your little game, indulge in it only sporadically. Let her forget about it for a while, just to make sure that door stays open like it should. As you know, one of a cat’s most charming traits should always be her unpredictability.