this cat clearly understands the abstract concept of a game. she doesn't hunt a toy mouse, she plays hide-and-seek with me. doesn't even have to be a mouse, anything she can grab with her mouth works. problem is, she's way too good at it for it to stay entertaining for long
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i've pretty much exhausted the set of places in this apt where i can hide a mouse. she sees the general direction where it went, plans how to get there, follows the plan, plans again if it didn't work, and uses her sight (i've verified that it's not smell) to locate the mouse
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roommate says that i'm playing portal with her, and (a) basically yes (b) i should definitely teach her more abstract concepts like "button" (c) please for the love of god can some VC fund Aperture Science so I don't have to make everything myself
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my working theory is that intelligence is way more common in animals than what common knowledge says but only the species that have language can keep it in active use for a lifetime. the rest just kind of figure out how to survive and then get stuck in a rut
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this feels like exactly the kind of thing you _don't_ want to teach your cats
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y tho
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I mean I dunno about your cat but if my dog knew how to access and open his food container my vet would take issue with the resulting weight gain
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she has as much dry food as she wants anyway
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my sleep deprived brain: wow, whitequark is trying to get her cats to parse TCP
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you joke but like this cat clearly understands the abstract concept of a hide-and-seek game. she doesn't hunt a toy mouse, she plays a game with me.
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no i mean literally
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wondering whether _you_ can teach the cat or whether the cat can be taught to do that in general, v important question
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probably the latter
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Just wait untill the cat starts training you, my cat knows how to get me out of bed and how to get me to open the front door for it because the catflap is too much effort or something :)
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One of my cats trained my grandmother to - give her snacks - put on an apron and sit on the couch so she can get in her lap - open the door for her, so she can go out Uses distinct meows for these (actually, they both have a special meow to tell me they want wet food).
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there is no way this can backfire (also I enjoy reading your cat things keep it up)
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