My cat, Frances Mittendorf, is very responsive. He knows his name and nicknames and answers to them. And in case you think he answers to just anything, he doesn’t. I called him Steve once to test this, he ignored me. I called him Bruce Boxleitner, nothing.
This morning we hit a whole new level of creepy cat smarts. As I mentioned, Frances knows his name and nicknames. He answers to Frank, Frankie, Franzo, Mitts, Mitzi, buddy, and one or two others. If you look directly at him while saying it, he also may or may not respond to “hey you” ““ he doesn’t like terse language, so generally he ignores this variety of address. Because he knows his name, he knows when you’re talking about him. He doesn’t like being talked about. I used to get around this by spelling his name, but this morning, I discovered for the first time that he knows the spelling of his name now too.
This discovery went something like this: Frances was being a cranky turd. When he finally stopped being a meowly pain in the”¦ear and curled up on the foot of the bed with his head down, I wanted to make a comment to my mate, Gary Blonde, about Frances being a pain in the”¦ear but knew that if I said his name, he’d raise his head and start meowling at me again. So I instead said, “F-R-A-N-C-E-S” is being a pill this morning.” As soon as I got out “F-R-A-N” Frances’s ears were perked. By the time I finished saying “”¦is being a pill this morning” he’d jerked his head up and was glaring at me, his pesky hooman. He contined to glare at me until I backed slowly out of the house.
So the reason I write this is, does anyone know of a highly capable cat curriculum? This cat needs some intellectual stimulation or he’s going to do something regrettable.