Why? aka Practicing with Otis

I mentioned before that Otis is a certifiable lap fungus these days.

Well, I was practicing my (loud) french horn last night and Otis was
incorrigible. Every time that I would stop, his head would appear around
the corner, he'd leap into the room and try to jump on my lap. I'd
eventually pick up my horn again, and he would run out to just around the
corner (though sometimes he would stay).

Eventually, to his great relief, I finished, put the horn away, and curled
up with a book (I love it now that its dark at night and the kids go to bed
earlier). He immediately claimed not my lap but my chest. He put his paws
on either side of my neck and cuddled in purring. There he remained as I
craned my neck above him to read for over an hour.

Why?

I've always had this pat theory that we're like mothers to their kittens.
When they're inside, we provide them food and groom them and they get to be
like kittens again. Though, even outside yesterday, Otis was yowling and
coming up to me demanding affection constantly. Is it just the warmth of
our bodies, the yummy massaging they get, the free food? Why do they get so
attached to us? Even Chester did that wobbly wheelie when I called his name
after his surgery last week. He was excited to see me. This whole
interspecies thing is pretty amazing.

Susan M
Otis and Chester
Pondering larger questions

On 2005-10-09 12:29:11 -0500, "Susan M" Susan_not said:

I mentioned before that Otis is a certifiable lap fungus these days.

Well, I was practicing my (loud) french horn last night and Otis was
incorrigible. Every time that I would stop, his head would appear
around the corner, he'd leap into the room and try to jump on my lap.
I'd eventually pick up my horn again, and he would run out to just
around the corner (though sometimes he would stay).

Eventually, to his great relief, I finished, put the horn away, and
curled up with a book (I love it now that its dark at night and the
kids go to bed earlier). He immediately claimed not my lap but my
chest. He put his paws on either side of my neck and cuddled in
purring. There he remained as I craned my neck above him to read for
over an hour.

Why?

I've always had this pat theory that we're like mothers to their
kittens. When they're inside, we provide them food and groom them and
they get to be like kittens again. Though, even outside yesterday,
Otis was yowling and coming up to me demanding affection constantly.
Is it just the warmth of our bodies, the yummy massaging they get, the
free food? Why do they get so attached to us? Even Chester did that
wobbly wheelie when I called his name after his surgery last week. He
was excited to see me. This whole interspecies thing is pretty amazing.

Susan M
Otis and Chester
Pondering larger questions

You are lucky. If I practice guitar, unless she is sleeping, Pearl
comes over and bites my hand!

"Susan M" Susan_not wrote:
I've always had this pat theory that we're like mothers to their kittens.
When they're inside, we provide them food and groom them and they get to be
like kittens again. Though, even outside yesterday, Otis was yowling and
coming up to me demanding affection constantly. Is it just the warmth of
our bodies, the yummy massaging they get, the free food? Why do they get so
attached to us? Even Chester did that wobbly wheelie when I called his name
after his surgery last week. He was excited to see me. This whole
interspecies thing is pretty amazing.

Susan M
Otis and Chester
Pondering larger questions

We must be like parents to our kitties. I figure that with us, they
have a choice - they can be grown-up and independent, which is their
natural, feral state, or they can be docile and kitten-like all their
lives, which is their domesticated state.

When we love our cats, we think of them as being our babies, and we
treat them that way. Cats are about the size of a human infant, and
can even make similar sounds. For survival reasons, cats are
programmed to recognize when they're being mothered, and fall into our
pattern. They begin to defer to our judgment and come to us for
comfort - all kitten behaviors. And there's no love like a baby's
love for its parents.

Karen wrote:

You are lucky. If I practice guitar, unless she is sleeping, Pearl
comes over and bites my hand!

Cats are not good for a guitarist's amour propre. My previous
two, if awake when I began, would quickly leave the room. If
they were asleep, their poor ears would start twitching in
irritation.

Heidi also leaves the room. But Will has a different strategy.
He's figured out that I normally stand with my guitar just above
bed level. So he pretends to be very loving and comes rubbing
up against me, but in the process he gets his tail against the
strings and mutes them.

--

Wayne M
(indulged by Will and Heidi)

We must be like parents to our kitties. I figure that with us, they
have a choice - they can be grown-up and independent, which is their
natural, feral state, or they can be docile and kitten-like all their
lives, which is their domesticated state.

Our bitties, despite being 2 years of age, are much more kittenlike in
their behaviour than Nox and Smokey. We suspect it's because they view
DP as their "mother" (he raised them from age 3 weeks) and since he
never chased them away from the nest as a mother cat will do, they are
continuing to act as kittens and seek his attention/affection/care,
which he gives.

Nox, meanwhile, attempts to tend /us/...when she isn't nipping us to
keep us in line. And Smokey, for all he is an adult ex-feral, does get
clingy since we are his Godlike Bringers Of Food And Providers Of The
Couch.

--Fil