Dear Sparkle,
I hate the holidays! Sure, I get lots of gifts and treats, but there’s a very high price to be paid. My human forces me to wear really stupid outfits and little hats and expects me to pose in them. Now, some cats may think this is okay, but I really hate it! Humans need clothes — they don’t have any fur to keep them warm. But I am a fluffy kitty and that extra padding makes me very uncomfortable (not to mention the fact that these silly holiday outfits make me feel extremely foolish). Is there any way I can get my human to stop dressing me up?
Signed,
Clothing NOT Optional
Dear CNO,
Oh, the dress up thing is a very bad human habit! And every year, more and more humans are doing it to their cats. It seems like every pet store has racks and racks of pet clothing these days. Fortunately, if you prefer to go au naturel, there are ways of discouraging your human from bringing home “cute little outfits” whenever she goes off to buy cat litter. You just have to understand human psychology. See, it’s not enough to just dress us up — even more important, you human wants to take lots of photographs so she can share them with her friends. So if you are a bad model, then your human won’t have any photos to share and she will be less inclined to fork out her money for costumes that nobody ever gets to see. Here are some tips that are guaranteed to ruin your human’s photo session:
- Don’t look at the camera. Giving grouchy looks is pointless. For some sadistic reason, humans love photos of grouchy looking cats in costume. Instead look down at your paws or turn your head away from the camera. The less your human — and her invasive camera lens — can see your eyes, the better.
- Be extra fidgety. If you sit still for even a second, your human will take the opportunity to snap a photo. Instead, work on getting out of the costume — shake your head to get the hat off, wrestle your way out of a shirt. Any photos your human takes will look very awkward and not-cute.
- Escape the photo session completely and go hide under the bed.
- When all else fails, throw up, either on your costume or on a nice outfit that belongs to your human. The only thing that will bum her out worse than not getting a good photo of you in costume is having her own clothing ruined.
With frequent repetition of the above tactics, your human should finally give up and stop trying to dress you. I know from experience — the more I use these tricks, the less I’m stuffed into costumes against my will.
Nice posting and thanks for very useful information.
omg love this! wish i had seen it last year as i would have posted this to the I HAVE CAT facebook fan page for sure!
Pooooorrr kitties that get dressed up!
T
And I thought my humans were dumb. At least they can see that my fur looks better than anything they could put on me. Maybe the rest of you are less fortunate in your markings….hmmm….perhaps I should suggest a Santa costume for Princey next year.
There are actually kitties out there that don’t like clothes? O.o I feel so sad for them and here I thought Denali was the only odd one. I could never do that to my Mommy, she doesn’t buy me enough clothes as it is!
Hee hee, I wish my kittens had read your advice when I was a girl. 😉 But dress up or no, they always seemed very willing to throw up…
Brilliant advice!!! We’re lucky, our humans have at least not moved to putting costumes on us… I think they know if they do they’re gonna be getting the bitey on their toes in the night… but we’ll keep this in mind.
O hai. I try to pretend to go to sleep if I see my hooman walking up with the camera. If my eyelids are skwooshed good, she usually decides to let me be.