Cat Taining

Often, when I'm writing on the computer, my wife's tomcat would come up
and start circling and rubbing my legs. If I petted him, he'd just
continue; if I ignored him, he'd sometimes start urinating. What I
wanted, OTOH, was to get him to stop and go away, but without hurting
or scaring him.

One day, I had a bright idea: As soon as he started, I got up, went to
the kitchen, and put food in his dish. That worked like a charm; he
followed me out, and stayed there while I returned to my writing. So
I've been doing it since.

I was quite proud of my solution, for a week. Then I realized that the
cat had trained me.

"George Dance" wrote in message
oups.com...
Often, when I'm writing on the computer, my wife's tomcat would come up
and start circling and rubbing my legs. If I petted him, he'd just
continue; if I ignored him, he'd sometimes start urinating. What I
wanted, OTOH, was to get him to stop and go away, but without hurting
or scaring him.

One day, I had a bright idea: As soon as he started, I got up, went to
the kitchen, and put food in his dish. That worked like a charm; he
followed me out, and stayed there while I returned to my writing. So
I've been doing it since.

I was quite proud of my solution, for a week. Then I realized that the
cat had trained me.

Yup. They're good at that.

Joy