dragonlady7

via https://ift.tt/ePWVry6

semiramis-audron https://semiramis-audron.tumblr.com/post/692035155352846336/prokopetz-a-large-part-of-housecat-vocalisation :

prokopetz https://prokopetz.tumblr.com/post/692033406915215360/a-large-part-of-housecat-vocalisation-toward :

A large part of housecat vocalisation toward humans isn’t goal-directed communication, but rather, affiliative signaling: a simple call-and-response protocol which establishes that the participants are part of the same social unit. Amongst themselves, most housecat affiliative signaling is non-vocal, but humans aren’t really physiologically equipped to respond to such signalling in a feline fashion, and cats, well, they’re adaptable.

Which is to say that when your cat yells, and you yell back, so the cat yells again, and so forth, what you’re really saying to each other is “hiiiiii~”.

unicornduke this is what remi is doing LOL (Your picture was not posted)

via https://ift.tt/2rBwXqB

so i let my cat Chita out sometimes. i know, one shouldn’t. it wasn’t actually my choice; i wanted her to be an indoor cat, but i was away and she was driving Dude crazy so he let her go in the yard and that’s that, she’ll never be content without occasional trips outside. 

mostly she just goes out in the yard, which is a postage stamp, but sometimes she does hop the chain-link fence and hang out in the neighbors’ yards. she is afraid of cars, which is good, and hates other cats and avoids them, which is also good. she mostly likes to go out into our little tiny backyard and pee in the grass, and this is honestly fantastic because i hate dealing with the litterbox.

so anyway– she often asks to go out first thing in the morning. and she doesn’t like it when it’s cold, but she wanted to go this morning. so i humored her; i opened the kitchen door and left it braced just wide enough for her to sit in the kitchen doorway and look out disapprovingly, which is what she really loves to do. (Putting a chair in the front door so she can look out that door’s window has never been acceptable, somehow.)

I stood near the door making coffee as this was going on, and noticed after a moment that her twitching tail had disappeared; she’d actually gone out. So i pushed the inside door a little farther closed to block some of the cold air, and kept measuring the coffee grounds into the basket.

she came to the door to get back in, and seemed to be having trouble squeezing through the pushed-to inner door– she’s quite bad at doors, really, and can’t push them open with her nose, she just doesn’t get it– and so I came over to try to help her, and was like “wait why is your face white and wider than oh my god what’s in your mouth”

which was enough for her to learn how to push a door all right, so she shoved in and ran into the house and I’m like “no no oh my god what the fuck is that”

so like, good morning to dude, who was asleep and woke up and was, to his credit, instantly on his feet like what does she have

She fortunately had stopped in the kitchen, and i came around from the other doorway to block her from going into the cluttered living room where whatever she had would inevitably escape when she let go. 

She lay down her trophy on the linoleum, and it was, unusually, actually dead– the back legs were twitching a little but it wasn’t up and running like her prey usually is because she’s a terrible huntress– and oh my lord

it was a rat

I have never seen one before. Dude was like “don’t just stand there! catch it!” because he couldn’t see it, and I was like, “oh it’s dead,” and he was like, well? and came closer and was like “what the fuck is that???”

and I said “that right there is a whole-ass rat where did you get a whole-ass rat Chita Rivera” and the cat just looked moderately confused and meowed at me.

I threw the dead rat back outside, and the cat is now really excited– I don’t even think she wants it back, she’s just amped. 

I didn’t think we had rats in this neighborhood. I didn’t think my cat was capable of catching a rat. My cat is so bad at killing things, and yet.

I mean, keep your kitties inside, people, generally, but.

(ha the cat has finally calmed down because she gave up on going back outside and used the litterbox.)
(Your picture was not posted)