Language Skilz

Having Mini Kitty as a house guest for a few days was interesting. Mini Kitty does not speak the same cat language as Kitty does. I thought after eight years with Kitty, I had become pretty fluent in catese. I was wrong.

Kitty says "meep" or "mrow" Mini has a feline speech impediment and can not physically meow, instead she has developed a complicated pattern of chips and clicks. She is able to make the "meow" sound but when she does so, "meow: turns into somewhat more of a statement then when Kitty lets lose with a random “Meow” when he feels ignored because you are in a different room than he his and he doesn’t feel like getting up and walking there on his own, this is as opposed to when Mini Kitty says “Meow”, you know its time to evacuate the house and move to higher ground. Mini Kitty doesn’t do false alarms and being alone in another room by herself is not something she is likely to complain about.

When Kitty chirps “Meep”, it means “Feed Me, I’m so cute and small I’m hardly big enough to make a whole Meow. Feeeeeed Meeeeee” when Mini Kitty, who is genuinely cute and small, chirps: “Meep” it means “Don’t touch me!” in fact almost everything that Mini Kitty says can either be translated as “don’t touch me”, “Put Me Down” or “help”.

For example.

Me – A Ha! Caught You!
Mini Kitty – chirp! chirp!
Me – What? You’re okay; gosh you have such soft fur! What a pretty baby! (snuggle)
Mini Kitty – Chirrrrp! (slash)
Me – Ow!
Mini Kitty – (from under bed) chirpchirp.

Chirp can be translated in this scenario as “Don’t Touch Me!” or. “Put Me Down!” or if you are using an older translation guide “Unhand me! You brute!” Mini Kitty uses many different tones of voice for Chirp. It can be a protest – “Let Me Down!”, it can be used as a threat as in “Put Me Down NOW or I will cut you”, or even occasionally, “Chirp, Chirp” as Kitty uses it “Feed Me”.

Needless to say this made communication between the two cats precarious. Kitty heard Mini use the standard “Chirpychirp” and he assumed there was food near by, in his use of the word, “Chirp” is a call for food, so he came running only to find Mini Kitty laying in wait for him. Kitty isn’t used to having strangers in his house. He can deal with them on their turf but when he was faced with dealing with a guest on his turf, 24-7? It made him tense. Even worse. Mini Kitty used his box. The poor guy wanted to go in there to read the paper and every single time, Mini was in there putting on make up or doing her hair and it just made him crazy. When she wasn’t in the box she was following him around with swatches and paint chips and clippings from last months Box and Bowl.

Kitty wasn’t the only one being irked by the house guest. Dogger was thrilled at first, she licked Mini Kitty and sniffed her tiny head and thought they were off to a good start. Mini Kitty saw that Dogger was fenced in and took advantage of it. Mini Kitty would sit in the hall way in front of the baby gate and stare at Dogger. I would hear Dogger whining and tell her to stop it. I didn’t know why she was whining… Mini Kitty is mean.

Sadly, Mini Kitty is also the cutest kitty ever. She smells good and her fur is like the down on baby chicks. To see Mini Kitty is to want to touch her. It would piss off the animals but I would welcome Mini Kitty back anytime.

Coming This Week : Nephdog in da house!