Friday, March 28, 2014

The Cat Who Cried Hairball


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If you asked Charlene, she would tell you that we don't get up early enough.  Each morning, thirty minutes to an hour before our alarm is set to go off, she tries to wake us, so she can be served her breakfast. She has many tricks, but we're getting pretty good at ignoring them all. Wylla helps wake us too, but a five-pound cat walking across your head is even easier to ignore than a twelve-pound cat doing the same.

The one thing guaranteed to get us out of bed, even while in the deepest of sleeps,  is the sound of a vomiting cat. Because of Wylla's condition,  we're quite used to waking to this noise.

We hop out of bed, jump into action, grab a towel, and hope to catch everything that comes up before it hits the carpet. We're pretty good at this, and if you were to witness this scene, I think you would be impressed by the agility of these sleepy people.   

 Yesterday,  shortly before the alarm began ringing,  I awoke to the sounds of a heaving cat.  I jumped to action thinking it was Wylla, but discovered her curled up at the foot of the bed. Bean was at the other end of the room, a few feet away from her food supply. There were no puddles to clean up or hairballs to be found.   

I didn't think much of it, I just assumed it was a unsuccessful attempt at releasing a hairball, and because it was almost time to get up anyway, I started my day. The first point of order, of course, feeding the cats.  

But then it happened again this morning.

Fifteen minutes before the alarm went off,  I heard a heaving cat in the distance, and went racing for a towel.  Wylla was curled up and sound asleep.  Charlene was at the other end of the room again, a few feet away from her covered food bowl,  not a hairball in sight.  She had a hopeful look on her face that said "breakfast time??!!!"

Then it dawned on me, Charlene was fake vomiting.

Yes, she has figured out that the sound of a barfing cat is a guarantee to get us out of bed. And getting us out of bed, means breakfast.  

I swear,  I won't be falling for this one tomorrow morning.  I'm on to you, Bean, you clever, clever, naughty girl.











48 comments:

  1. until she teaches Wylla to do it on command :)

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  2. that is hysterical, i thought it was only my cats who did that!!! Sneaky kitties.

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  3. Oh Charlene, you little stinker!

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  4. lol, what a dickens she is!

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  5. Wow, what a smart cat! Beauty and brains rolled into one. Good luck ignoring that sound--it always gets me out of bed in a hurry, too.

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  6. I don't believe it. Not Angel Bean! No way, she wouldn't fake it. She seriously needs food to help get the hairball up.

    (How's that Bean - do you think they'll believe it?)

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  7. Oh my! I award Charlene a PhD in owner management.

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  8. Hahahaha! Smart Bean, indeed! >^.^<

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  9. Oh, Bean, she is a sneaky girl! I have to confess that I can also been woken from the dead of sleep by the sound of a cat starting to heave (I figure it means my mothering instinct isn't totally dead, even without human children).

    I just moved with my kitties to a new place that has a wooden stair case. I kept hearing what I thought was the sound of a hairball being barfed up, but never found the evidence on the floor; it wasn't until this happened a few times that I realized the sound the cats made walking down the stairs actually resembled the sound of a cat retching!

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  10. One of my cats wants to go out around 3 a.m. every morning. If I ignore her, she will start a fight with her brother who is blissfully snoozing until she slaps him and gets a ruckus going so we all have to get up.

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  11. Oh. My. Goodness. Bean, you clever, sneaky little thing!

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  12. My oldest cat does the same. My roommate had dubbed it: protest puking. It's very effective!

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  13. She can teach this to the kitties in her Dear Butterbean Column!!

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  14. Oh, this is just too funny!

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  15. And here I thought my 2 Maine Coons had the perfect method of waking humans in the pre-dawn hours! Reilly pretends he is a Bongo player by using the closet door. Sprite thinks she is Beverly Sills singing opera (off key and loudly) before both beheamoths land on a kidney or two...

    Well played, Charlene, well played indeed!

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  16. There's nothing like that "Hork, hork!" sound to wake you up in a hurry, is there? Brilliant Charlene, to have figured out how to use that so well to her advantage! Cats are endlessly creative when it comes to managing their humans, aren't they, though?

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  17. I had a cat once who could turn on the clock radio. Seriously. He figured out it meant breakfast, and started doing it about two hours early! We moved the clock out of kitty reach.

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    Replies
    1. Drewey learned that trick, too. I'll have to share that story one day.

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    2. My cat does that too! I told my husband I need a plastic case for over the clock so that he can't sit his fat bum on the alarm button!

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  18. THIS post -- today's post from you -- is why they invented the internet.
    And it was worth it.

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  19. OMG, Bean is very clever. She found a surefire way to get her brekkie when she wants it :)

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  20. Hilarious! I wonder what tricks Bean would learn next when she learns that you have caught on.

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  21. My cat is a fake horker, too. And you thought you were alone!

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  22. ROFL - we have a cat that fake and real barfs for the sake of drama. If he can see just a tiny bit of the bottom of his food dish, the fake barfing begins! Did scoop that kitty litter enough? Hack hurl! This cat should definitely win an academy award. Nice to hear he's in good company!

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  23. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you posted this! My Henry does this! I thought I was just crazy.

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  24. What?! I had never heard of a cat doing this, but from the comments, it seems that there are others that do it too. Amazing... and, might I say, quite brilliant! :)

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  25. Now, now, Charlene. Don't you start teaching your future charges naughty tricks like this!

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  26. Oh my, cats are SMART. It's a really good thing they don't have thumbs. Guess where we humans would be if they did!

    Buddy and Tiger's Mom

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  27. At least Bean isn't leaving 'presents' in your slippers!

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  28. LOL Charlene you CLEVER girl!!!!

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  29. Wow, that's scary smart, Laurie! Next, Bean will be revving the car engine as it sits in your driveway. Just sayin' maybe you wanna hide the keys.....

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  30. Yep.. Nothing like that leap out of bed when you hear the horking going on.. usually preceded by a quick kick of the feet to push the cat off the bed first. :)

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  31. Clever Bean! It would be nice if she'd picked a less Scary-To-Mom-and-Dad way to wake y'all up, though. ;)

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  32. This is seriously brilliant! One of my cats gets on a chair in the bedroom and opens the shutters when it is time for breakfast service at our house. Makes ya love the cloudy, dark mornings. ;) They are all such amazing creatures.

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  33. This is amazing...I shall have to try and remember this as my carpet scratching & bedside table swiping is being ignored at 5am....

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  34. WOW!!! What a smart kitty! I hope none of my kittehs get any ideas from this post. I do the same thing when I hear a barf coming on. So far my youngsters haven't really gotten into producing hairballs, but Skootch sure does.

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  35. LOL
    And the one time you DO choose to not answer it will be the one time that it is Wylla. Clever little Ms. Bean!

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  36. If my cats get too close in the morning they get held close and talked to in a squeaky voice right in the ear, They hate that more than they want food, so I can sleep in.

    In fact, resident cats even train newcomer cats not to make noise at night so I don't have to do it myself. It has worked that way for 20 years.

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  37. My cat does the same thing!!! Only she will go so far as to throw up. If her breakfast cries do not get a satisfactory response from me (i.e. get my fat rear end out of bed) she will go into the kitchen, scarf down some dry food, run into the bedroom, and throw it up.

    Cat bulimia! I thought I had the only cat who did that.

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  38. Smart, cheeky Bean! :) It makes sense! Oh, this story made my day. What an awesome actress Bean is!

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  39. Such a brilliant story and such a smart girl! We also wake to the sound of vomiting cats (I've had a history with them) but none of ours has ever thought of fake vomiting to get food earlier. Naughty, clever Bean!

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  40. Just be careful it isn't asthma - many cats can have an attack first thing in the morning (sounds/looks like hairball coughing but never produces one). Hope it's just them being smart and cute, but just keep on the lookout/get it checked out if it continues!

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