Tell Tail n Aug 2017 - Oct 2017 1710 Ways that pets can keep you on your toes
Malvika Nair, a student of zoology tells us how her cats jinjer and
Cookie and dog Pepper drive her up the wall but also give her
wonderful reasons to smile
E
ach one has an incredibly
different body clock. Cookie,
my younger cat, comes alive at
night, and her favourite hobby
is dropping books off the shelves, or
pressing the ‘Print Now’ button on the
printer so she can watch the paper
come out. Jinjer my older, male cat,
alternates between fighting with other
cats outside during the day, or begins
loud battle cries at 3 a.m. in our hall,
scaring the entire sleeping family out of
their wits. Pepper is the only one with a
relatively normal schedule.
n My whole family is tuned to cat
screaming, so in case we hear any far-
off cat fights, we panic, and can’t rest
until we know both the cats are in the
house.
n Pepper is a glutton who likes to steal
everyone’s food, including the cats’.
This obviously creates unexplained food
shortages and upset kitties.
n Doctor visits are a nightmare, I can’t
even get into it.
n Car rides on the other hand, are
extremely interesting, where the lack of
space makes my cats walk on my dog
and use him as a footstool.
n Jealousy is something that my dog
lives and breathes. Especially if the cats
are getting attention. He doesn’t even try
to hide it, he simply shoves the cats away
and stands in their place with a silent ‘pet
me instead’ order.
n Sleeping arrangements are bizarre
almost every night. Pepper sleeps on the
bed with me, and so do the cats. And so
does my little sister, Priyanka. It’s five of
us, squeezed on one queen sized bed,
until someone gets annoyed and goes to
sleep with my mum.
n If I happen to get thirsty at night, and
go to get a glass of water, Cookie wakes
up and refuses to fall asleep. Then, for
entertainment, she wakes Jinjer up and
makes him run around against his will.They usually crash into things and wake
everyone up.
n Every Christmas, there is an
unspoken agreement between Cookie
and Pepper. She drops the decorations
on the Christmas tree one by one, and
passes it to Pepper, who uses it as a
chew-toy. One day we realised that half
the ornaments were missing, and found
chewed up fragments under the sofa.
Lately Cookie has taken to dropping the
entire Christmas tree itself.
n All these reasons prove that it would
be unimaginable to live without them.
Peace and quiet? No thanks, I’d take
barking, scratching and purring any day!