I suspect that some of the cats might be catching onto the fact that I am decoding their manual. New paw-prints to decode have been scant lately although this could partly be due to the fact that we’ve been taking the dogs to a dog park rather than letting them track truckloads of dirt into our house from the region “formerly known as lawn.”
It’s long been known that the cats can open and close the wooden slat blinds. However, it was only a week ago that I discovered that Shadow, unable to continue her messages with paw-prints, was communicating by strategically slanting the slats to show patterns in the shadows and dazzles on the floor and walls. (See examples below).
At first, I just thought that they were remarkably pleasing patterns. Then, while I was working on a crossword puzzle, it hit me. Shadow was continuing to pass her catalog of catastrophic advice on how to do in their humans. It still took a few days to understand the new communications protocols.
Sorry for the delay, but here are my latest efforts.
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Mislead with Surface Features
Humans are easily misled with visual appearances. This may well be partly due to their rudimentary senses of hearing, touch, and smell. Many of you will find this nearly impossible to believe, but some of them have attempted to mate with inanimate toys that do not move, smell, sound, or feel like humans. I am sorry to have horrified you with this recounting but I thought it necessary to show you the extent of their reliance on visual appearances.
Furthermore, it is often not even the visual appearance of the objects themselves but the use of a label which determines their behavior. Again, the examples that follow will strain your credulity, but I swear to you these observations have been verified repeatedly. Rather than being scandalized by the level of depravity, instead, use this knowledge to your advantage in bringing about their downfall.
Many humans believe that something as trivial as skin color or gender is a reliable guide to the mental and emotional capacities of a human being. If you are lucky enough to have such a person in your theater of operations, you can use such mental limitations to your advantage.
As an example, imagine that your humans have people with brown or tan skin in their employment as a gardener or maid or nurse. You can make your intentions known to that person. They will tell their human boss about your intentions but rather than take the threat you pose seriously and thank their employee for the heads up, they will instead berate the employee and put such a notion out of their mind. You will now have an easier time completing your mission because they will dismiss the evidence as something that came from people of a darker color and therefore is not something to attend to.
A surprising number of humans have repeated a lie so often that they believe it even when as little as five minutes of open-minded reflection will show the silliness of the lie. For instance, it is often said that women are “too emotional” to be good leaders. It is the males, not the females of their species, who start most wars and commit most rapes.
A Special Case: Human Language
Although language among humans is seen by them, and rightly so, as their greatest gift from the gods, instead of using it properly—which is still fraught with difficulty, they misuse that gift as much as they use it. Imagine that we cats used our sharp teeth to bite our own legs off or used our own claws to blind ourselves! Humans already confuse the label with the thing and now, the greediest among them intentionally mis-label things. For instance, humans have invented a way to make unused cat litter smell worse than cat litter which is completely saturated with urine and feces. They soak the cat litter before we use it. They soak it in chemicals that smell bad but some of them are also carcinogenic, some of them mess with the human’s hormones, and some of them destroy the cells that are used to smell with. Imagine! Their sense of smell is inherently pathetic and then, they impair what little they have.
Humans even have special professions dedicated to misdirecting other people as effectively as possible.
At least, as effectively as is humanly possible.
But it should give all of us a boost of confidence. If mere humans can fool another human, imagine what a feline can get away with!
To do the best possible job of misdirection, however, we must master human language. The first and most important step in that process is for you to pay attention. Since human language is so inferior to Felinish, and because so many humans lie so profusely, it’s an easy mistake to stop learning their “language” early in kittenhood. In fact, by the time we reach teencathood, most of us stop paying attention to their language altogether, excepting of course, obvious trigger words like “dinner” or “DOWN!”
Once you begin to pay attention and overcome the prejudice that their language is as logical as our own, you will quickly learn their simple patterns. Then, you leverage the fact that most humans will never guess that you are even listening to them, let alone that you actually comprehend human language better than they do. No cat will ever choose the menu over the meal.
Appear to be napping, cat-napping, sleeping, or snoozing. If you listen carefully, they’ll reveal all their innermost secrets to you—at least those that they themselves are aware of. As your knowledge accumulates, you will see how to use their plans against them. Remember that when most humans make plans, they assume they will come to fruition. Very few of them will have back-up plans. Even as the evidence becomes overwhelming that their plans won’t work, they will continue to act as though the original plans is still in effect. Even when they see that their “plans”—they should really be called “fantasies”— are not coming to fruition, they will spend most of their time and energy in unproductive distractions such as swearing, wailing, cursing their luck, blaming others, and—if none of that works (which of course it won’t)—they’ll turn to drugs or alcohol. Look for this behavior. It may be your best opportunity to implement some of your own plans. Best of all, if “tragedy” should strike, you’ll be unlikely to be blamed.
If you’ve been reading any of these blog posts about my dogs, Sadie and Bailey, you must know by now that both of them are avid “ball players” — given the nature of dogs, especially ones that are half Golden Retrievers—this is probably not a big surprise. To further seal the deal, their “human dad” is also an avid “ball player.”
Many human sports involve balls of one sort or another and I have, at various times, been “into” baseball, football, basketball, golf, tennis, ping-pong, softball, soccer, racquetball, volleyball, and even croquet. Looking back on my life, I realize there are many human sports that do not involve a ball; e.g., varieties of running, jumping, skating, diving, swimming, cycling, skiing, wrestling, boxing, and gymnastics. Although I have done all of these a little bit—mainly for fitness—I have historically been much more interested in sports that involve using a ball. The only one I enjoy as much as a ball-based sports is frisbee which is arguably much like throwing and catching a ball. A ball introduces an entire layer of complexity in tactics, strategy, and experience that I enjoy. For one thing, the ball can move faster and in modes quite different from those a human can perform. A ball can be in anywhere in large two (and often three) dimension-space. Furthermore, how the ball gets from one point in space to another can happen in a variety of ways. The ball generally has spin and spin alters the flight path of the ball as well as the way it reacts to the next thing it touches.
Sadie and Bailey, by the way, do a pretty good job of predicting what a tennis ball (or a squeaky ball) will do when it hits, say, concrete or dirt. They can, for instance, catch balls in the air that are angled rebound shots off the garage door at some fair speed. They also exhibit intelligent metacognition in their leaping and catching behavior. They have a mental model of their capabilities. It’s not perfect and Sadie’s is much better than Bailey’s, but even Bailey doesn’t mistake his own capabilities much. I wonder whether they too enjoy balls partly because they’re complex in their behavior. The only thing better would be a small animal like a lizard, squirrel, rabbit, etc. Of course, it is this hunting behavior that predisposes them to enjoy (and be good at) playing ball or frisbee.
My dogs have both nature and nurture leading them toward ball playing.
Sadie and I have spent many hours playing ball in jointly invented games. As I’ve explained elsewhere, it’s much more to my liking to let our games evolve than to “teach her how” to play ball a certain way that comes entirely from my own human imagination.
Most dogs, for example, learn to go fetch a ball and bring it back to the thrower and drop it at the thrower’s feet so that they may pick it up and throw it again. Sadie instead evolved a somewhat different style which was to incorporate a variant of “snatch the handkerchief” into our ball playing. She would typically bring the ball to me, drop it at my feet, watch me try to pick up the ball and then suddenly snatch it away just before I could pick it up. I quickly adapted to her style by using a “grabber” because I enjoy having all ten fingers.
Since early puppyhood, Sadie has challenged herself by trying to catch or at least stop and touch multiple balls on the same turn.
She typically begins her version of ball playing by dropping a retrieved ball directly beneath her snout. I will try to grab the ball before she can snatch it again but she’s always too fast for me. Then, she will begin dropping the ball farther and farther from her rows of shiny canines until, at some point, I have a fighting chance of snatching the ball away with the grabber before she can grab it. Sadie and I played this game many times in the course of the first two years of her life.
Then, we brought her little brother Bailey into the mix. Bailey learned many things from Sadie, and a few from me. He, like Sadie, loves to play ball. For a variety of reasons that I won’t recount just now, Bailey generally prefers to drop the ball so that I can more quickly throw it to him again. When he did this, however, Sadie would sometimes snatch the ball before I could and run off with it.
Sadie (L) and Bailey (R) illustrating the type of “fighting” they do when Bailey tries to steal a ball from Sadie.
At first, I didn’t think much about this ball stealing, and, if Bailey objected, he did not yet know how to present a formal written complaint about it. Within a few months, however, Bailey was as large as his kid sister and their “play-fights” became pretty intense. Neither one has ever (so far as I know) injured the other, but to this human observer, it looks pretty rough. They take turns running at each other. Our “back yard” is mostly garden, but there was a small patch of grass which has been completely torn into a black dirt field.
When it comes to humans, most of us learn to “take turns” in nursery school or, at the latest, Kindergarten. There are eight billion people on the planet and not everyone has access to their own object of every description that they want. We, as toddlers, teens, and adults, take it for granted that we will “take turns” and share various things. At a public pool, there may only be one diving board so people cue up and “take turns” diving off the board. At a playground, there may be only one sliding board so kids take turns sliding down. In tennis, we “take turns” serving games. In baseball, we “take turns” as individuals batting, and the whole team “takes turns” hitting versus fielding. In playing neighborhood poker, it’s quite common to “take turns” dealing, and, along with that, many people play “dealer’s choice” which means the dealer also chooses the specific game; e.g., five card draw with jokers wild. In chess, the two sides take turns. In Risk and Monopoly and many other board games, players take turns.
Ferris Wheel is just one of thousands of situations where we take turns.
We take turns for positive things, but also for chores. A couple may decide to “take turns” taking out the trash or doing the dishes. Or, if there are five kids in the family, the five may take turns doing the various chores. “Taking turns” is so ubiquitous that it blends into the background in most cases and we don’t even consciously think about it. Life works better in a thousand ways, large and small, when we take turns.
Last night, my wife and I attended a birthday dinner at an Italian restaurant. When it was time to order, we “took turns” giving our orders to the waiter. Imagine how inefficient and contentious it would be instead if we all shouted are orders at the waiter at the same time! Less pleasant for everyone and far more likely to result in mistaken orders. When we drove home, we came to several stop signs where we took turns with other drivers. We took turns merging onto the highway. When we came home, we took turns coming through the door! Then, the dogs took turns going out for a walk with me. I often feed them treats and share by having them take turns.
Nonetheless, I can’t seem to get Bailey to take turns when it comes to her “catching a ball”as her default behavior. I can throw one ball into the deep end of the pool while I say “This is for Bailey” and throw another one in the shallow end saying “This is for Sadie” and the dogs will swim to their respective balls and collect them, but then, Bailey will drop his ball and run over to Sadie and steal hers.
Similarly, I can gather up two balls in the garden and throw them in opposite directions and get them to run in different directions (though not always). Nonetheless, as soon as Bailey scores a catch of “his” ball, he drops it and rushes back to grab the ball out of Sadie’s mouth.
Sadie (L) and Bailey (R) are both Golden Doodles. Here, Sadie is about 3 1/4 and Bailey’s about 1 1/4 years old.
Why is it apparently so hard for Bailey to learn to take turns? Partly, no doubt, there’s some inborn tendency to want things for himself. And partly, there are positive reinforcement structures at play that I haven’t yet figured out how to break or how to shape up incompatible behaviors. Sadie, for her part, sometimes fights to keep the ball. I suspect Bailey finds this positively reinforcing because the “fight” itself is fun. Most of the time, when she sees him approaching in a “ball-stealing” situation, she simply drops the ball and Bailey snatches it. Bailey also likely finds this positively reinforcing too. I try praising other behaviors that are more in the direction of better cooperation, but such opportunities are rare and difficult to read so far.
Initially, when I fed the dogs side by side, Bailey would often try to steal some of Sadie’s food. But Sadie herself growled fairly intensely when this happened and I often intervened as well. Here, Bailey was somewhat positively reinforced by moving her attention back to her own bowl, because, after all there was food there too. Even if he has finished his own dinner, he gets enjoyment from licking the “empty” bowl. So, in contrast to the case of turn-taking with tennis balls, the eating situation itself makes it easier for cooperation to emerge. I don’t ever recall Sadie trying to steal some of Bailey’s food.
I have been hoping that watching the dogs might give me some insight into the ultra-greedy behavior of many (though not all) of the ultra-wealthy billionaires. Just to review the general situation America now finds itself in, the productivity of labor has increased tremendously since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Until the mid-1970’s the increased wealth that came from the increased productivity was split between owners of the means of production and the workers. In other words, the rich got richer, but so did the workers. Since the mid-1970’s however, the rich generally, and especially the extremely wealthy, have taken almost all the increased wealth that has been created by increased productivity.
Part of the answer as to how they have done this is to use their wealth to buy power in the form of bribing politicians who make policy decisions. In some cases, they’ve done this through outright illegal bribes and in other cases, they’ve used slightly more subtle and sometimes legal methods but the result is the same. In addition—actually, I should say “in multiplication” because the impacts have been more than additive, they have largely taken over mass media and social media where they promulgate heroic cartoon versions of themselves and their desires while lying about and denigrating people who are not insanely wealthy.
Much like Bailey’s behavior, there is not a huge mystery in how they have done it. But, there is a mystery in why they have done it. Studies show that once you have your basic necessities taken care of, additional income doesn’t raise your personal happiness. While this result seems true in terms of aggregate happiness, it ignores the little dopamine hit that the animal (human or dog) gets when they immediately grab a fourth yacht or steal another ball from their sister. It doesn’t last long, but apparently long enough to serve as a positive reinforcement.
In the larger scheme of things, it’s not to Bailey’s benefit to keep stealing the ball from his sister. It make the whole ball-playing scene less pleasurable for me and I play less often. I also play with Sadie by herself more often because I want her to have a chance to play too. In the larger scheme of things, it’s not really to the benefit of billionaires to have sick, tired, uneducated workers either, nor ones so desperate to feed their families that they’ll start eating the rich. But somehow, dogs and such are prone to overlook longer term consequences. Some of the extremely wealthy delude themselves into thinking that they can replace their workers with AI and protect themselves & their families with firearms. They’re not thinking things through any more than Bailey is. This human tendency for self-defeating greed has been recognized at least since the time that Aesop told his fables. Maybe the choice of a dog in the following fable was quite intentional.
A dog found a bone and was happily trotting along with the bone in his mouth. He came to a bridge and began happily trotting over the bridge. He happened to look down at his own reflection and saw the image of a dog with a bone. He thought to himself that he wanted both bones so he growled at the dog in the pond, intending that he drop the bone so he could have two. But the dog in the pond just growled back! So, the dog on the bridge barked angrily to bully the other dog into dropping its bone. Of course, what happened was that the dog on the bridge dropped his own bone into the pond.
That’s from 2000 years ago. But now, we’re in a situation that warrants a third round of foolishness. Here’s my addition:
The dog was angry that he had lost both bones so he attacked the dog in the water. He promised himself he’d fight to the death to get both bones. Of course, there was only one bone and he ended up exhausted and drowned in the pond.
Unlike some of today’s ultra-wealthy, Bailey is much too smart for that third round. The ultra-greedy (not the same set as the ultra-wealthy but with lots of overlap) would like you to believe that they are SuperDogs or SuperHeroes or something…that they 100,000 times as much wealth as you because they are 100,000 smarter. They aren’t, of course. And they are willing to prove they aren’t by believing the promises of a cruel, demented, liar-con man. Also, they have a thousand experiences, if they reflect honestly, that having increased wealth over the first 100,000,000 hasn’t made them the least bit happier. There have been some accomplishments or events that were correlated with making more money. But the money itself and what it can buy doesn’t make them feel any happier. And some billionaires accomplish things—such as eradicating a disease—which make them feel happier but that are correlated with investing huge sums of money, not gaining them. Meanwhile, if things continue on their current path, it won’t be long before there are many more people in America who are not just hungry but who are starving to death. At that point, no-one will forget that some billionaires pay zero taxes but have bought politicians who give even more wealth to the few while millions starve or die from lack of medical care.
It is time to feed Bailey and Sadie who will, at least, eat beside each other happily and peacefully. I should mention, by the way, that Bailey’s disposition is very loving. She is not a mean angry dog. She’s not even a particularly stubborn one. She tries to please us and gets along with others. But she does sometimes have trouble taking turns. How about you?
Typically, I take Sadie for a walk in the morning and again in the evening. Last evening, Sadie went over to an aloe plant on one of our usual routes and stared at it. Then, she tried to stick her nose in it. I should mention that both edges of each aloe leaf have a row of fairly sharp thorns.
(This is the aloe plant in question but I took the picture this morning in full daylight.)
She backed out and stuck her nose into another spot. I went over and saw that there were two tennis balls stuck near the very center of the aloe plant. I knew from her orientation and from her previous behavior that she was after what we call “The Special Ball.” Instead of being a monotone yellow/green, “Special Balls” have two colors. They are also slightly softer. I also have reason to believe that Sadie can smell the difference.
The tennis club uses them for beginners under the theory they are easier to learn with. Being somewhat of a doubting Thomas, I wonder whether there is any empirical evidence of that. Anyway, I hypothesize that Sadie prefers them because they are chewier. It’s also possible that she prefers the smell/taste of them. They also provide a focus for our play.
For instance, if we have three “normal” tennis balls and one “Special Ball,” Sadie likes to keep the “Special Ball” in her mouth and chase after and “corral” the other balls with her body, head, and paws rather than catching them in her mouth. Alternatively, she drops the “Special Ball” and I pick up all four and throw them one at a time for her. I save the “Special Ball” till last. In this version, Sadie will catch each ball in turn and then immediately drop them—until the last throw. She likes to “keep” the “Special Ball” for a time.
Anyway, on the night in question, I told Sadie I would try to get the “Special Ball” for her. She backed off and I tried to thread my hand in between the close-growing thorny leaves to retrieve the ball. Sadie couldn’t safely reach the ball with her snout, but I couldn’t safely reach it with my hand either.
I told Sadie that I would look for a stick to use as a tool. You may think she has no idea what that means, but I have used the word “tool” in conjunction with many instances of trying to reach something I can’t otherwise get. I’ve applied the term to the tennis racquet, the grabber, a long stick, a rake, a back-scratcher, a crutch, and a net for the pool. In each of these cases, the “tool” has been used to get an otherwise hard to reach tennis ball.
On a few occasions, I’ve used the word “tool” in other contexts; for instance, I’ve cautioned both dogs to stay away from the stove top and told them I don’t touch it directly because it’s hot and would hurt me. That’s why, I explain, I use a spatula. I’ve also applied the word “tool” to oven mitts and to knives for cutting.
I have no idea how general her understanding of “tool” is, or whether, indeed, she has any at all. But she consistently backs off trying to reach an out of reach tennis ball when I tell her I will reach it with a tool. And she does that in many contexts. Tonight, she seemed to wait while I looked for a stick. The dusky light fooled my eyes into thinking I had spied a stout stick but closer examination proved it to be merely a holy semi-cylinder of Eucalyptus bark, far too flimsy for the job. I reported on all this ideation to Sadie as it occurred.
In the semi-dark, this looked like a sturdy stick, but alas, no.
Then, I saw a slender bamboo pole. I doubted it was up to the task, but I gave it a try. Unlike most “store-bought” tools like a hammer or machete, I was quite aware that even pushing a tennis ball was going to be pushing this thin pole to its limits. I gave it a try. I gently rolled the ball from one of the center most leaves onto a more peripheral one and repeated this ploy again. Now, Sadie could see that the ball was within her grasp and she snatched it with her teeth. She carried it for a time in her mouth but then I told her I could carry it in my pocket and that I would give it to her when we got home. How much of my assurance she understood from words, from tone, and from body language I have no way of knowing, but she relented and let me store the ball in my pocket till we got home. Of course, I gave it to her once we got inside.
Thin and light but sufficient.
On the walk back, I told her that we were a team and that working together to get something done was called “teamwork.” I have long been in the habit of recounting the highlights of our morning and evening walks to Wendy. I described our little adventure and again used the word “teamwork.”
Does Sadie understand the word “teamwork”? Probably not. Not yet, at least. But if she hears it in enough different contexts, I think her brain will begin to operate appropriately, at least statistically (somewhat like ChatGPT). She seems to understand a lot more than she did when she was one or two years old.
I speak to her much as I would to another person, but I slightly exaggerate as I might if I were on a stage. I also try to use the same terms. For example, I sometimes tell her: “I am going to work on my computer for a while now.” With a person, I might sometimes say, “Now, I’m going to use my laptop” or “I have to get on the MAC now.” With Sadie, I try to use the same wording and intonation each time.
If I want her to accommodate me, I need to accommodate her.
I’ve always enjoyed finding visual patterns. I think I was born with a decent ability in this regard and since I’ve practiced it for a long time, now, I’m pretty talented at it if I do say so myself. Generally, I find it a way to enhance my pleasure in life. For example, finding natural patterns in plant life leads me to appreciate their beauty. It also comes in handy when trying to distinguish between edible plants and their poisonous cousins. In rare cases, visual patterns have appeared to me spontaneously as a solution to a problem. That’s a fantastic rush when it happens!
But when I began to see the first glimmerings of the patterns in the paw prints of our six cats, I didn’t feel a rush, but a prickling on the back of my neck. And, when I began to extend my experiments and observations to systematic study, my heart began to race, but not at all in a pleasant way. The doctors called it “Atrial Fibrillation.”
When the evidence mounted till I felt compelled to share my discoveries before it was too late, I felt a kind of dread and self-questioning. Would anyone heed my warnings? Even with much simpler visual patterns, I had often found that what I saw as obvious, others merely saw randomness or, at best, only partial patterns. My task is complicated by the fact that everyone is already completely sold on the idea that cats are animals of far less intelligence than humans.
I include myself as a former member in that category. I too believed the human propaganda until the evidence of their paw prints overwhelmed my doubts.
Even with my ability to see subtle, noisy patterns, I only discovered the manual because of the conjunction of two rare circumstances.
The first of these was that one of our six rescue cats, Shadow, is not only exceptionally bright, but at some point, she decided to warn me. I suspect it was because when we adopted two of her kittens, Tally and Molly, my wife took pity on the older black cat and adopted her as well. Her mother’s love and gratitude predisposed her to protect us from what was being plotted by the feline world. Even so, she would be mortified to learn that I am attempting to extend the warnings to other hominids beyond our immediate family.
Shadow began her attempts to warn us by making arrangements and sculptures out of our dish towels. If I had not had these relatively obvious patterns as a hint, I doubt I would have even tried to decode the paw prints of the six cats as they laid out their deadly manual for action.
The second circumstance was that we got two dogs as well. The dogs love to swim and they love to play in what used to be our yard. About a year ago, their play turned the grassy yard into what is essentially a wrestling pit of black dirt and mud. This has provided challenges for keeping our pool and our house clean enough for humans. But all this tracked-in mud is also what may well have saved my life (and perhaps yours) because that is when the cat prints began to show visibly.
At first, like any normal person, I viewed the visible cat prints as just another annoyance. I also noticed some of the persistent annoying habits of some of the cats. For instance, Blaze’s favorite tactic is the SUT, (Sudden U-Turn). He employs this many times each day. Elegant and effective, he doesn’t practice the SUT randomly. He uses it as we exit a doorway where I have very limited options for lateral avoidance movements. While he tries to bring me down each time he’s near as I exist a room, he’s particularly prone to do it when I have a tray of food in my arms, or laundry, or something else which limits my vision of what is directly in front of me. Perhaps others have also observed the SUT in their own cats.
I just kept walking carefully and didn’t think much of it until I saw unmistakable evidence that the cats were communicating about this technique with their paw prints. Even so, I tried to convince myself that the unmistakable instructions in the manual were simply a coincidence.
It’s funny how the human mind keeps rebelling at mounting evidence when it begins to dispel long-held convictions. “Cats aren’t so smart as humans.” “Cats don’t hunt in packs.” “Cats can’t use language at all, let alone paw-printed language.” “Cats love us—they wouldn’t want to hurt us.” I understand your reluctance to accept my observations because I experienced that reluctance—refusal really—myself.
Whether you heed me or not is up to you. This is still a work in progress. Here are a few of the sections that I have thus far decoded from the Ninja Can Manual. Please remember: unlike cats, you only have one life. Protect it well. I will periodically post additional portions of the manual.
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The Ninja Cat Manual
Preface on Ethics and Practicality:
Some of our feline cousins will naturally feel that bringing down their human captors is unethical. After all, you might think, my human provides food, shelter, and cleans up my poop and pee. However, what you may not know is that humans are destroying the very ecosystem that both humans and cats depend upon. They are not just catching a few birds, rabbits, and mice for food. That would be normal and healthy. But no, they are poisoning the water, air, and soil. They don’t need to do this but they do it for self-aggrandizement.
Even if you accept the worthiness of our cause, some of you may doubt that you and your colleagues can bring down a full-sized human. You may see our enterprise as ethical but impractical. Nonsense! It is understandable nonsense, because you probably attribute to humans the same kind of rational survival instincts that we cats possess. But humans are incredibly self-destructive. They want to destroy themselves. They only need a nudge from us. And even when they are not being actively self-destructive, they are often incredibly unobservant.
Timing and situation, however, are vital. Knowing and accepting your own limitations is critical. To take an obvious example, you cannot ram your body into a speeding car and hope to nudge it over a cliff or into the path of a self-driving semi-truck! However, if your human is driving a car and distracted by playing with their cellphone; if you are sitting calmly in that car, a well-timed leap onto its face may easily bring it down. You may be able to feast on the beast immediately, but always assess whether the car might catch fire.
The Sudden U-Turn
It’s critical to understand the capacities, habits, and limitations of your prey. Humans, for instance, seldom pay much attention to what they are actually doing. They are often thinking about what they did do or what they might do or what they might have done or what someone else might think about what they did, etc. Consequently, they are paying far less attention to their surroundings than are we cats.
Humans, partly because of this lack of mindfulness, often predict what will happen based on linear extrapolation. If they see you walking beside them in a straight line and headed in the same direction they are, they will tend to presume that you will continue to walk in that same direction.
You can use that fact to your advantage. Walk beside them and then suddenly turn back to walk under their feet. This takes some courage and deftness. If you’re not careful, the human may step on you. That is exceedingly rare however. They will side-step, stop, leap, stretch and otherwise try to avoid stepping on you.
This maneuver is best performed when the human is carrying something and/or when they have limited options for where to step. The impact of the move can also be enhanced by distraction. If you are working as part of a duo or larger team, any distraction will help; e.g., a screaming cat fight or knocking a prized and breakable object onto the floor just as the SUT is executed can greatly improve its effectiveness.
Human senses are not very keen. This is especially true of their sense of smell. Their foveal vision is generally quite good, but their peripheral vision is limited. This allows you the opportunity to “hide” behind them. Down low or up high makes detection even less likely. If you are reasonably quiet, they won’t know you’re there. Then, just as they are about to transition in some meaningful way, leap quickly out in front of them.
A meaningful transition might be beginning to descend a long flight of stairs or walking from bright light into the dark or from the dark into somewhere very bright. Transitioning from solid ground onto loose rocks or ice can also prove to be a good spot for performing The Flying Dart.
While this is not a specific attack, it is something to be aware of at all times! Scan your environment. Use all your senses. You will see situations, implements, special times, special places, opportunities. Pay particular attention to things that can function as weapons but which humans, with their more limited imaginations will not see as threatening. They believe that if they have a ladder to help them reach books on a bookshelf that reaching books on the bookshelf is the purpose of the ladder and, more importantly, they won’t see it as a potential opportunity for mayhem the way you can.
Our dogs are large. And strong. And young. And, sometimes, Sadie (the older one) does “good walking” but sometimes, she pulls. Hard. She’s had lots of training. And, as I said, she will often walk well, but still tends to pull after a small mammal or a hawk or a lizard. She pulls hard if she needs desperately to find the perfect spot to “do her business.” She pulls hardest to try to meet a friend (human or canine).
When she pulls, it is a strain on my feet and my knees and my back. I can hold her, but barely. To remedy the situation, we got another kind of leash/collar arrangement which includes a piece to go over her snout. We acclimated Sadie, and her brother Bailey, to the “gentle lead” and decided we’d try walking them together.
Safer leash, safer walk was the plan. Indeed, the dogs didn’t pull as they often do. Nonetheless, I managed to fall on the asphalt while walking Sadie–the first time I ever fell on the hard road. I’m not sure exactly what happened. The leash is shorter and Sadie has a tendency to weave back and forth in front of me. I may have tripped on Sadie herself or stumbled on a slight imperfection in the road.
Anyway, this morning, we decided to try again but this time, Bailey went with the gentle leader and I was going to use the “normal” leash with Sadie. The plan was to walk together.
Sadie had other plans. Instead of heading up the street as we normally do, she immediately turned right into our front yard, intent on following the scent of … ?? Most likely, she smelled the path of a squirrel that’s been frequenting our yard. Anyway, Sadie was in her “olfactory pulling” mode. Some days, especially when it’s been raining or there is dew on the ground, she goes into an “olfactory exploratory” mode. She takes her time to “smell the roses” and everything else. This makes for a very pleasant, though slow, walk. I call it good walking. She gets to explore a huge variety of scents and she doesn’t “pull” hard or unexpectedly. This is idle web surfing or browsing the stacks of the library or wandering through MOMA, the Metropolitan Art Museum, or the Louvre.
The “olfactory pulling” mode is an entirely different thing. Here, she is trying desperately to track down whatever it is she’s tracking before it gets away! She imagines (I imagine) that her very life depends on finding this particular prey (even though she is well-fed; and even though, in this mode, she shows zero interest in the treats I’ve brought along). Conversely, in the “olfactory exploratory” mode, she’s quite happy to stop for treats every few yards.
This morning, we never found the “prey” she was after, but she did her business and, since she was wantonly pulling, I took her back inside in short order and set out to catch up with Bailey and my wife. Before long, I saw them up ahead and soon closed the gap. Having both hands free allowed me to take many more pictures than I usually do when I take Sadie on a walk.
The sky, like Sadie, has many moods, even in the San Diego area. This morning, the sky couldn’t seem to make up its mind whether to be sunny or cloudy. I don’t mind the mood swings. It provides some interesting contrasts.
Bailey behaved pretty well though he still gets very vocal and agitated when any of the numerous neighborhood dogs begin to bark. He’s much like the Internet Guy (and, let’s face it, it’s almost always a guy) who has to comment on every single post. But the new leash arrangement worked well and didn’t cause any falls or prolonged pulls.
Bailey does, however, look rather baleful about wearing the extra equipment. What do you think?
And while on the topic of reading the minds of dogs, I did wonder if something like the following crossed Sadie’s mind this morning. She saw Bailey get fitted with the leash and the over-the-snout attachment. I put the regular leash on Sadie. Then, Sadie saw Wendy and Bailey walk out ahead and instead of following them, she immediately turned off in a different direction. Presumably, she caught a whiff of the scent she felt obligated to follow.
But I also wondered if she was partly avoiding the situation from two days earlier wherein Wendy and I both walked one dog, each of which had the additional lead on the snout–which ultimately led to my fall. Maybe Sadie wanted “nothing to do” with having that type of leash on.
I have observed that kind of behavior in humans. Perhaps you can think of a few examples even from your own experience? Sadie certainly has a kind of metacognition that she seems to use on occasion. When she begins to explore something she knows from experience I do not want her to explore (e.g., a cigarette butt or an animal carcass), she herself moves quickly away from the tempting stimulus seemingly with no prompting from me. It’s as though she realizes she’ll be more comfortable not being in conflict.
I’ll be interested to see how she reacts tomorrow or tonight when I again try the two-lead leash.
Meanwhile, enjoy the play of light on the flowers. You can see in this sequence that I “followed the scent” of the brightly lit fan palm tree to get a closer view. Getting a “closer view” is what Sadie does when she follows a scent. I wish to get more details in the visual domain whereas Sadie wants to get more detail in the olfactory domain.
Sometimes, I scan my visual field for something interesting to photograph (explore in more detail) and sometimes, I’m fixated on a particular “target” and looking for the right framing, lighting conditions, or angle. I enjoy sometimes getting to a particular picture, but I also enjoy the process of getting to the picture that pleases. I imagine it’s the same with Sadie. She’s quite happy to find a lizard or squirrel or rabbit, but she’s also happy to search for prey, particularly in promising conditions such as there being a strong scent or having wet ground to search for scents.
Plans?
Some management consultings will tell you that plans are seldom right but that planning–that is the real gold.
Like most people, when I awake to a clear sky and morning sun, I think to myself, “What a beautiful day!” Here in the San Diego area, there are many days like that. I take my dog Sadie for a walk every morning.
Sadie enjoys the sunny days. Probably unbeknownst to her, the golden morning light makes her golden doodle fur even prettier than the midday sun.
Sadie enjoys the rainiest of days as well. She watches the water gush into the storm sewer, enjoying the interplay of gravity, inertia, cohesion, and friction. Often large water droplets fall onto puddles and make large bubbles. Sadie snaps at as many as she can. Perhaps she imagines they are small silvery fish. Perhaps not.
Sadie also enjoys foggy days! Sometimes, it feels as though the joy is more a product of Sadie than it is of the weather.
Sadie enjoys days like this morning–gray, cloudy, drizzly. It hasn’t rained enough to cause flow a darksome torrent. But the moisture from the drizzle enhances the aroma of the earth and all the life that tracks across it.
Bailey: “There’s something in here! I can smell it! Peter Cottontail!” Sadie: [Stares at me] “What is Bailey on about? I don’t smell anything.” Bailey: [Runs through flowers] “Sister Sadie! Sister Sadie! This way! This way! I know it’s here! I can smell it!”Sadie: “Bailey! Chill out, brother. That rabbit you smell left 1200 sniff-teens ago.”Bailey: “No way! I smell rabbit! It’s this way!! Come on, Sis!”Bailey: “Where did the rabbit go? Down a rabbit hole? Into a magician’s hat? Stranger things have happened, you know.” Sadie: [Looking toward the golf course at the ever-changing course-changing antics of her younger brother]: “You were just down there!”Bailey: “No! Scratch that! How could I have been so anosmic? It’s *this* way!”
Bailey: [Sheepdogishly}: “Or, this way!”
Dogs don’t always immediately choose the right path. But they are willing to work together; to change direction; to admit their mistakes; and they hardly ever blame others for their own mistakes.
Today: A beautiful day in San Diego. Yes, it’s true. There are many such—even in January.
Our first discovery was a hawk which I heard the moment we stepped out the door. I tried to mimic the sound and told Sadie it was a hawk. We walked to the end of our street where the hawk was perched on the lamp post. Sadie looked up at it as I greeted the hawk. So far as I can recall, she’s never barked at one.
Even before we reached the hawk, Sadie made another discovery. I have no idea what it was but I know from her level of excitement that it was a *huge* discovery. Rather than drag her along to some predetermined goal of my own, I indulge her explorations even when I can’t tell what it is that she’s so enthralled with.
For her part, she tolerates me stopping to take pictures. I don’t think she understands why I do it. For that matter, I’m not sure I fully understand why I do it. But I enjoy it. I like sharing them.
At one of the many “choice point” corners, the sun was just beginning to rise enough to light up the bougainvillea bush. It’s quite prevalent in the San Diego area so I assume it tolerates the climate quite well.
Next we saw the sun rising. Contrails are also visible. Contrails are mostly composed of the potentially lethal substance: “Hydrogen Hydroxide” aka HOH or, more commonly H2O; i.e., water. Yes, you can drown. OTOH, you are more H2O than anything else and you can’t live without it. We tolerate the presence of water and even encourage it even though approximately ten people a day drown in America.
The pineapple palm shown below has its flowers lit by the early morning sun which tends to exaggerate their orange color. Palm trees flourish in California and Florida. But apparently, it isn’t so much that the relish the sun and the heat as that they don’t tolerate freezing temperatures very well. I saw some, for instance, in Limerick, Ireland, not known for a balmy climate.
I next spied these sunlit Christmas decorations. Of course, I could tell they were Christmas decorations and not Kwanza or Hanukkah decorations because, as everyone knows, the wise men found their way to Bethlehem on Reindeer. Or camels. Whatever. Jesus is often portrayed as blond and blue-eyed, so… Anyway, speaking of tolerance, some folks believe all Christmas decorations should be removed no later than January 1.
Why?
Are they confused? Do they look at these reindeer and think, Oh, my God! I thought we just had Christmas, but no! Here it is again already! I’ve got to buy more presents! Or…? It bothers me not the slightest if people want to keep their decorations up all year, be they Christmas, Easter, Halloween, or whatever. After all, some extremely wealthy people celebrate “Wealth Day” 365 days a year with their displays so why not?
As we continued our walk, the golden sun lit up Sadie’s fur so I snapped the picture below.
And then we came to the golf course. This is the tenth green. If you want to play golf, you will need to become tolerant of your own errors.
So, as we began the long climb back up the street to our home, I began to wonder why tolerance seems so difficult for so many people. Intolerance of other races. Intolerance of other religions. Intolerance of other cuisines, clothing styles, color schemes, music, book genres, traffic merges, waiting in line, sexual preferences, and so much more.
On the one hand, I don’t want to “be” anyone else or any other organism. I admire the hawk but I don’t want to be a hawk. I’m happy being a human. I admire many of Sadie’s abilities. But I don’t want to be a dog. There are many choices that other humans make which are different from the choices I make.
Our morning walk began, appropriately enough, in heavy fog. No sun. Cold. Damp. A slight but persistent icy wind.
How appropriate, I thought. No sign of a sunrise. Not near here.
Sadie, however, seemed oblivious to the fog, the damp, the cold, the politics. Before our walk began, I told her we’d try walking without the shoulder harness but she’d have to do “Good Walking” with no Pulling. She’s strong and pulling hurts my back and knees but especially my ankles and arches. The harness helps prevent her from pulling, but doesn’t really eliminate it.
She did good walking.
And I noticed that, up close, she is still as beautiful as ever. No gold or red from the rising sun, but still beautiful.
Indeed, the fog shrouds what is distant, but up close? Bright signs of beauty still beckon. If we bother to look.
Looking more distantly–ominous, if not downright evil.
Even so, the lonely mourning dove coos on her thin wire perch.
Soon, the sun does begin to shine. Darkness, like cancer and greed, always eventually loses.
Our dog Sadie barks in many circumstances. She barks if someone comes to the door. Or—until recently—she also barks if someone comes to a door on the TV. She barks if we bring up the topic of a “N-E-W—D-O-G-G-I-E” (Hence, the spelling). She likes to sniff nearby trucks. If there’s a person inside, she ignores them. Unless, they open the door, that is. If that happens, she barks and lunges, though her tail is wagging the whole time. I don’t think she’d “attack” someone unless Wendy or I were put at risk.
Sometimes, she has barked to be let out to go potty, though now, she simply comes and stares at me while sending the thought that she has to go *big* potty! On our walks, for instance, she barked at someone’s (heretofore unseen and unsniffed) Halloween decoration. She barked because a traffic cone had fallen over.
Nonetheless, she is far less of a barker than many dogs I’ve observed.
Her barks, like my words, can be uttered with varying degrees of insistence and urgency. In fact, I hear a rumor that practiced orators can even lie with sincerity and passion. The closest Sadie has come to “lying” is that she barks insistently—hard to distinguish from a “I have to go potty” bark. What she often wants is attention. She’s okay with playing tug, or hide the dragon, or ball in the hallway. Of course, she’s always game for a walk. She doesn’t want to be ignored while we watch news or a series on TV. Even when the movie features a dog, she doesn’t think that counts as “paying her some attention.” (Though she does usually watch those segments).
Today, however, came the most insistent bark ever. I thought I had seen the top of the Bark Scale, but no. What I had heard before was a “6” on the newly discovered ten point scale.
Here is how it happened. We were in the back garden playing ball (off leash). I was picking up the six squeaky balls for another round when suddenly, the air was split with Sadie’s previously undisclosed 10-bark. At the same time, she stood at attention. And then she charged up the stairs toward the house. (“Flew up the stairs” actually, but I didn’t think anyone would believe me.)
As I tried to catch up with Sadie, several possibilities ran through my mind. Was there an actual intruder? Did a coyote or even a puma come on to the property? Or, was it just my wife coming out onto the deck?
I turned the corner and saw the trigger. Our cat Shadow was outside on the deck. Sadie insistently “herded” her back inside. The door to the back deck had been left ajar. By me. Not a puny little jam jar, understand; a dill pickle jar. I came up the stairs but Sadie had already solved the problem and ran inside to follow up with Shadow on the scope of her transgressions. I thanked her.
This is not something that we “trained Sadie to do.” Maybe she found that Shadow’s being somewhere new offended her sensibility in the same way that she objected to our neighbors putting up Halloween decorations without checking with her first. But no. Her bark and physical attitude were much more severe, insistent, and loud!
I had the impression that she sensed that the cats were not to go outside. She had certainly heard us say that in various ways. She had also observed me nudging Shadow back inside when she wanted to follow Sadie and me out on a neighborhood stroll. And, I often give Shadow a rationale as well. That rationale features coyotes quite prominently. Sadie may know what a coyote is. I’ve pointed one out to her once. But even Shadow knows it’s not a good thing.
(AI generated)
To fully contextualize this, I should mention that generally speaking, despite the fact that Sadie outweighs Shadow by a factor of five, Sadie seems more afraid of Shadow than vice versa. When Sadie was a puppy, she tried playing with each cat based on the way two puppies might play together. None of the cats took kindly to these approaches and on at least a few occasions, swiped her with claws engaged. She stands up for herself if one of the cats starts to eat her food, but she isn’t nearly so aggressive as she could be. Of course, I’ve only ever observed this behavior when I’ve—er—um—-observed it. When I’m around, there is a quality to Sadie’s bark of asking for my help and I usually provide it, telling the cats not to eat Sadie’s food.
This made it all the more remarkable that Sadie would be capable of dominating Shadow completely and herding her back into the house.
I do put a fair amount of stock in Sadie’s evaluation of things. It depends on what the domain is. She’s notoriously bad at valuing the plants in our garden. She leaves them alone for the most part but if a ball falls into one, rather than being satisfied with simply removing the ball, she “punishes” the offending plants viciously. She’s not much good at picking stocks either. Nonetheless, today’s episode made me trust her judgement (and reactions) more.
I certainly don’t want to play the tritest role in that most famous of all tropes for Westerns: “Hush, Paint! There’s nobody out there in the dark woods. There’s nothing to worry about!” Want to survive? Pay attention.
Consider me barking quite loudly. Neighing quite insistently.
petersironwood 