| Has anyone head my "cat and doors" theory? |
[Jan. 6th, 2008|12:42 pm] |
Anyone who has had a cat knows how frustrating it comes when you have have a door that is open some times and shut the rest of the time. Cats literally cannot figure this out. And when you see the cat meowing pitifully at the door, when you open the door, they either leave or just hang in the doorway, going neither in nor out.
This is my theory: cats get confused because doors are not a natural phenomena in the wild. Think about it. When is a path of common access blocked and unblocked randomly throughout the day in the wild? Generally, once something blocked (falling tree, collapsing cave, flood) it stays blocked for a very long time if not forever.
So when your bedroom door is shut, the cats either try to dig past it or meow for someone to unblock it. So then why don't they run in? Because I think cats just want the access unblocked, know you can do this, and once you have, the problem is fixed. Whether they actually wanted *IN* or not was not the point.
Discuss... |
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| Comments: |
That could very well be. I don't remember my cat ever pausing in the door, however. He usually had his mind made up. And he never had to meow: he was a big cat, and he simply just stood at the door, knowing that whomever passed by would see him.
He did refuse, on occasion, to come in at night, but I think he did that just to annoy me. He would stand on the other side of the street and watch me call his name. Maybe he just liked to hear his name yelled out in an exasperated tone of voice... who knows!
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/23110285/1152760) | From: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ironkite
2008-01-07 04:05 am (UTC)
Zanther is evolved! | (Link)
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Zanther when he wants into a room, he'd take a shot at opening the door several different ways before meowing.
In Aurienne's old place, he'd just jump up and double paw the doorknob and open it. These were knobs, not levers, and he'd know to turn them. Guess by watching humans. He trys to open the front door, but lucky for us the door needs a bit more than a 13 pound cat to pull it open.
He knows the swing of the doors also, at least the bedroom door. The door opens into the room, so he'll nose it open from the outside, pushing it rather wide open lots of times. To get out he'll pause and then reach a paw around or under the door and pull it open. If he can't get it open he'll meow.
Also with the front door, he knows that the key I put on the ledge has something to do with the door, so he'll look up at that and wait. Or he'll stand on a ledge next to the door and push both the doorknob and the deadbolt, attempting to get them to work.
Lucky for us that when he escapes, he just runs down and starts eating grass, so he never gets more than 3 feet from the bottom step.
I have one cat that will sit on a box I have next to the door and jiggle the knob until I get tired of hearing it and let him in. It gets irritating to hear this after 5 minutes or so. I open the door and he looks up at me as if to say 'Hi Mom' so innocently. Oh, I could more the box but he will jump at the door knob and that is worse. | |
