Move over Koko, here
comes Ningee.
Koko is a guerrilla
that was taught human sign language and now communicates with her
humans quite well, well enough to even request a kitten as a pet.
Ningee is a cat I raised from day 3 of life with her 6 siblings. She
has created her own sign language to communicate with me and it
really is sign language.
You must consider
that Koko has fingers, a thumb and two hands which makes learning
sign language easier than having paws and no fingers to move. Our
venture into sign language started when Ningee developed an addiction
to the cat treats known as Temptations. You might want to never give
these things to your cat as they are designed to addict a cat from
the crunchy outside to the soft insides to, I have discovered, the
super loud noise the package makes when handled. You will never touch
the package without your cat knowing.
One night as I was
minding my own business and everyone elses' on Facebook, Ningee
jumped up between me and the computer with am empty bag of
Temptations in her mouth. It was particularly endearing because she
is a very low to the ground and little kitty and could barely drag
the bag without tripping over it. She also has, somewhere amid that
long fur, several high powered amplifiers hidden connected to a voice
box powered by the cutest little hot pink tongue you have ever seen.
While I was marveling at how cute she was and wondering where the
heck she got the bag, she shook it at me. This very human act
startled me into inaction and that resulted in the your brain will
bleed volume of her meup. She has a large vocabulary, even bigger I
suspect if I had equipment that could measure sounds in the
ultrasound range and perhaps much lower. She never meows. She meups.
That was when I realized this was no cute trick, this was
communication and she wanted Temptations.
This is real
communications and it continued for several weeks but with no real
expansion of her vocabulary until the morning I awoke blurry eyed and
brain fuzzy to realize something was on the pillow next to my
eyeballs and behind it was the dreaded sitting Ningee staring at me.
That sitting position and staring means I had better get my sorry
body up and do her bidding but what was on the my pillow. As my eyes
slowly focused I still could not make sense of what was on my pillow
and if I didn't do that soon, the dreaded bleeding from the ears meup
was sure to happen. It was an empty aqua pod, a little half sized
plastic water bottle. Now, I haven't had an aquapod in the house
since they were last on sale 2 years ago, but I do admit to
occasionally throwing empty plastic water bottles at an out of reach
cat because it won't hurt them and it scares them out of the spot
they are tormenting me from by testing gravity.
Cats refuse to
believe gravity is not some sneaky thing that may at any moment cease
to function so they have to knock breakable objects off high surfaces
to test it.
The aquapod is the
only plastic water bottle a short little Ningee could possibly hope
to carry in her tiny mouth, but what on earth was she communicating.
I was certain she had not run out of her supply of empty Temptations
packages. On my way to the bathroom, first stop when awakened at my
age, I happened to notice her personal water dish was empty. Could it
be? COULD IT???? I stopped and filled it and she ran over for a long
drink.
Oh my, she had added
a new sign to her vocabulary. I examined the aquapod and discovered
that it must have lodged somewhere that would afford a coat of dust
or I would have noticed it and retrieved it but it had been cleaned,
dusted and was in pristine condition. A few minutes later when I
wasn't watching, it disappeared into where ever Ningee keeps her
supply of signs and toys.
No, it doesn't end
there. I have two things. One is a bag of knitting hanging on the
wall way out of reach of all cats because you know what happens when
yarn and cats get together...neither may survive. Swallowed yarn
causes intestinal blockages requiring surgery. Bag 2 is hanging in a
accessible location on my door and gathers things to be sorted later.
It is in Bag 2 that I usually stash the Temptations bag. However,
Trouble AKA Stoner discovered the location and in all his heftiness
jumped up for the Temptations and ripped the side of the bag out. I
spent several minutes inserting the Temptations only to have the bag
land on the floor before my brain registered the back of the bag was
missing. So, in an effort to hide the bag of Temptations, I causally
stuck it in the yarn bag and forgot about it.
In the middle of the
night I awoke to the most horrible sound that would scare even the
bravest of people as it was totally unidentifiable and getting closer
and closer. I turned on the light and managed to focus my eyes just
as Ningee slid onto my feet and walked up the expanse of my body
which I admit isn't far because I am short and sat down holding the
Temptations bag in her mouth. I thought it was her regular sign bags
until she shook it.
Okay, this is
impossible because she must jump (her little short legs do not make
jumping easy) onto the laptop case on the crafting area, hit the
window sill, jump to the entertainment center, jump down to the
storage boxes, up to the curio tower and over to the boxes
strategically placed on the other curio tower to prevent a cat from
getting on it as they only have about 5 inches clearance to the
ceiling, squirm on her belly across them, slither down to the narrow
black bookcase and then dangle by her hind legs off the edge, grab
the Temptations package in her teeth that is lodged in the knitting
bag, pull it up, manage to slither through the 5 inch gap with the
full bag of Temptations in her mouth retracing this impossible route
until I saw her jump from the laptop bag onto my feet and walk the
length of me to deposit the bag on my chest. She really need the
Mission Impossible theme playing but instead, the bag was making a
horrible, unearthly noise as she dragged, pulled, jumped with and
carried it at least 40 feet. And then she shook it. I opened the bag
and gave it to her, on the bed, because something like that deserves
a great reward.
This cat's IQ is in
the human range.
You may ask how this
happened. What did I feed her? What did I do?
It is called
enrichment in psychology. Sadly it is the reason why inner city
children do not develop as quickly as country or wealthy children and
provides a lifetime of low IQ and poor reasoning ability. The two are
not the same. Inner city children were found to be confined to a bare
room as there was no money for toys or even bright pain and pictures.
Because of this, their brains did not develop the same as children
getting constant stimulation and new things to look at and touch and
examine. Experiments with rats showed that if they were raised in a
enriched environment with plenty of toys, colors, new experiences and
attention, they were almost twice as smart as the average lab rat.
That's it. Same nutrition, same cage just lots of toys and attention.
Attention didn't work alone. They needed the colors, toys and
stimulation.
The Furry 7 were
delivered of a wild mother who ran in the house at the last minute
and hid. To be fair, I wasn't certain a raccoon hadn't breached my
defenses. We live next to a park teaming with wildlife. That night, I
heard a kitten scream, a sound after years of raising cats I am
attuned to hear even though I am mostly deaf. I think you could
scream for help at the top of your lungs all night and I would
peacefully sleep but one peep from a kitten and I am wide awake and
on my feet. I found the feral mom on the top of the upright freezer
with one little red kitten, now known as Fire, dangling off the south
side by his little feet. I am pretty sure he meows with a southern
accent. I tried to move them to a box and it seemed to work but a few
minutes later mother and kits, two at that point, had disappeared. I
figured I would find her the next morning because after all where
could she hide in the house I couldn't find her.
That will be your
first mistake. When I opened the front door to get the morning paper,
she was gone in an instant and I never would have found those kittens
if Rusty had not stuck a paw out and waved it two days later. Feral
kittens are trained instantly to not make a sound so they don't
attract predators. Domestic kittens will scream their little heads
off at feeding time. This little lady had found the most inaccessible
location in the house and stuffed them under a bookcase. If I didn't
have long narrow hands, I would never have gotten them out of there.
And then it began. I bottle fed them and diapered them and set a trap
with babies as bait to catch mommy.
Ah but now there was
a problem. How was I going to prevent her from escaping and enjoying
the Vida Loca outside while I raised her little minions? The big
kennel would only work for a couple of weeks, so George bought them
the Cadillac of cages complete with three shelves, a cushion and
four doors at the pet store for a small fortune though it was
discounted as the floor sample was all they had left. This is when I
am thankful I have a commercial van. Once installed, I cut up fatigue
matting so their little paws and bodies would have soft surfaces on
every shelf and the floor and because of the size of the matting,
different colors. Then came the toys every time I went shopping and I
guess they quickly evolved into the grandkids we would never have as
they were constantly taken out and played with and cuddled and even
fed. Next thing I knew, I had 7 cats with IQ's equal to little humans
and the ability to climb anything and no hope of finding homes for
them as everyone I knew had been suckered in by a pregnant feral cat
and now had an instant crazy cat lady kit they were trying to find
homes for....I guess we could have just exchanged kittens for variety
but we were all stuck, even my vet. As soon as mother was spayed, she
managed to escape leaving me with 7 half grown kittens and she never
looked back. Now they really were spoiled as we took the place of
their mother.
How spoiled?
Everyone has their own bowl, their own special food they want, their
own spot and they have even picked out which of the humans they will
con. Oh, and now we even have to buy two varieties of kitty litter.
Ningee will eventually teach the other six sign language. They all
talk and seem to consider us the slow ones as we don't jump on
command. We get the “what is wrong with you, slow ones” look
several times a day. Nothing is done until the Furry 7 are attended
when we awaken. I, however, demand coffee and since my coordination
is not good until the second cup and they have tails, they have
learned to sit by the coffee maker and wait for me to get that first
cup down before beginning the to do list for my day....feed me...wash
the water bowls and refill the kibble dispenser...pet me...open my
special can...pet me...I need teeth cleaning kibble...where's my
catnip mouse????? Meanwhile, in catdom, Ningee's IQ continues to
climb. The final domination of the world is not far from her reach as
soon as she learns to use the computer. She may have already done
that. How do you know who is really writing this?
