Sunday, April 27, 2008

Our Super Intelligent Pepina



Pepina, our 2 year old calico cat, is very smart.

She's bi-lingual, or as much as she can be, given that it's been many many years since I had high school Spanish! I swear she knows exactly what I'm saying when I call her in English and in Spanish. She can understand the short phrases I use in both English and Spanish too. I would like to learn a little Italian, so we can communicate in that language too, but we'll see.

Pepina can also tell time. We have a BIG clock on our wall, over the fireplace, and she likes to look at it occasionally. Ted took it down to clean it and adjust the time last fall. (It was designed to change with Daylight Savings Time all on its own, but "the powers that be" decided to change the dates of the time changes, so we've had to change it ourselves, then change it back when the time really does change.)

So when Ted took the clock down, she looked up at the big empty space on the wall and meowed a lot. She kept staring at it and was looking for a way to climb up there, but she couldn't find one, thank goodness. The jumps would have just been too big. You could see the relief in her eyes when the clock went back up.

Recently I was sitting in the recliner, going through the mail, and she was behind me in the kitchen. (Our living room/kitchen/dining area are all open to each other.) I heard a noise, and turned around. Pepina was up on the bar of the island and had moved a pen, trying to attract my attention. She was sitting there, prim and proper, staring at me, with one paw on the little box where we keep the cans of cat food. She just stared at me.

I turned around and glanced at the clock. It was exactly 5:00 pm. We feed "the girls" at 5:00 pm. She was telling me that it was time to eat.

She's so dang smart.

3 comments:

Paulie said...

I don't have a cat so don't know about this type of thing. She is one smart cat to know when it is time to at! lol

Paulie said...

I meant eat. (do I really want to try that word thingie again? sigh)

Dr. Grumbles said...

Cats know eating time!

When we try to sleep in, Penelope lets us know when it is 6 AM on the dot. She also knows I am the feeder and that she has to wait for 1) me to temp, and 2) me to pee. If I try to do anything other than feed her after peeing, then she wails like a banshee.

She also know how to open doors. Cats are smart when it comes to ways to get into trouble ;)