Cross-Species Play

The cat and I have developed a game.  Most of the time when I play with the cat, it is me taking advantage of her instincts to provide entertainment.  I trail a feather along the back of the chair, roll acorns at her feet, toss milk bottle rings in the air for her to catch. 

This game is one that she helped invent.  It is a game with rules, designed for two players taking turns.  It is fascinating to me that such a thing can exist, between two such different creatures, one a tall bipedal primate with lousy stalking skills and the other a small black feline who is not always very bright, even by cat standards.

The game is a combination of tag and hide and go seek.  One person hides behind the edge of something - a door, a wall, a piece of furniture.  The other slowly sneaks up.  Both players are hoping to catch the other one unawares; the hider by peeking out while the sneaker is still mid-sneak, the sneaker by surprising the hider first. 

Usually she is the one who hides, and I'm the one who "sneaks," poorly, in squeaky clogs over creaky wooden floors, my big two-footed self ill-suited to quiet dashes.  I'm almost always caught. 

Sometimes, I'm the one who hides, peering around the edge of the door in an enticing manner until she begins her creeping attack.  Last night I was hiding behind the bathroom door, and she kept creeping, and running away, and creeping back.  I had been looking around the edge of the door at head-height, and she was beginning to catch on, watching that spot before I'd even poked my head out.  So - a new strategy.  I hunkered down, and looked around the edge below the doorknob. 

I surprised her, but she had quick reflexes and leaped at my head, feet and toes spread wide.  Yikes!

I decided to go back to peeking out above the doorknob.

She leaps four feet into the air!

I startle!

I think she won that round.

Comments

[Jill Smith]

Yes, it's always fascinating when they make up their own games. Milo has followed in Simon's footsteps by playing fetch (his decision - nobody taught him to bring stuff back to us after we've thrown it). Like Simon, however, he has very specific rules about what he'll fetch. With Sime, it was crinkly mylar balls. With Milo, it's only crumpled receipts.

He's also really specific about how he returns it - if we're sitting up in a chair, he doesn't just run back and drop it on the floor - he hops up where we are and drops it carfully in the vicinity of one or other of our hands. He knows exactly what he's doing - he prefers to have someone else provide his fake-prey move.

What a great, vivid post.

I play a very similar hide-and-seek game with my own cat and am familiar with catching him out mid-sneak. He plays the game differently with my sister, being less coy and more aggressive, emphasizing the tag part of the game. With me, he purrs for affection. With her, he likes to run all over the house and playfully bite when he is the victor.

I came across your blog quite randomly, but I really enjoy reading it.

~S