Cats and Milk

This morning I had the privilege, and ask the cats, it was a privilege, of sharing the milk from my cereal with all three cats.

Oh, it’s not like they learned the word “share,” for which there is no equivalent in the cat language. I have to hold Baggle down at treat time because he sucks up his treat, thus the nickname Hoover, and then tries to bully his sisters to steal their treats. But fortunately for them, I know how to share!

Our rule about the dining room table is no cats when there is food out. I work on the dining room table at my laptop most afternoons and in between naps, the girls come up on the table for a scritch and then to lay down near me. As a cat parent, you have to pick your battles and realize that some you just won’t win. With the relaxed rules about the table, we have very few counter problems with any of them. That is, we have no problems with the counter unless there is wild catnip on it. Then we have to throw Kaline off a few times!

Generally, we relax the table rule to as long as they keep out of the food, on the other end of the table. Kaline gets to be on the table when there is food there, because she is not really so interested in people food, but Baggle and Carla, notsomuch. I did find out two people foods Kaline likes, quite unintentionally.

One day, I was reading the news online at snack time. I had a cup of tea with an apple and a stick of ham. I cut ham steaks into approximately one ounce pieces for snacking. I was holding the ham and deeply reading a story, so not watching the ham. I felt a tug at my hand and looked up to see Kaline trying to bite off a piece of the ham! Now, like a good trained pet, if I’m having ham, I break a little piece of it off for her, so she’s not tempted to try to steal mine.

The other people food Kaline enjoys, that they all like, is, of course, milk. Cats are lactose intolerant, but they don’t care when it comes to milk. I’ve bought the kitty milk at the pet store and they are okay with that, but they still get a lot more enthusiastic about the real deal. I guess I understand that. If I became allergic to chocolate, I might learn to accept fake chocolate, but every now and then, allergy be damned, I’d be trying to sneak a Mr. Goodbar!

I found out about Kaline’s taste for milk one morning when she was the only cat downstairs. Baggle and Carla were still upstairs bugging their Daddy for breakfast. I have tried to feed them so David could sleep a little more and they just plain don’t believe I will feed them when Dad is home! I set my bowl of cereal on the table and went back into the kitchen to get my coffee and fruit. I came back in and there was Kaline, standing next to my bowl lapping up the milk! Well, now the cereal bowl is the LAST thing I put on the table!

I’ve seen reports in several places recently about the discovery of exactly how it is that cats drink. You can Google or YouTube search for the video. Where a dog will bend their tongue forward and make a cup to shovel the liquid in their mouths, cats bend their tongues back and the tip and lapping motion create a stream of liquid that rushes into their mouths! Watch your pets, even try it yourself, when humans lick out of a bowl, we drink like dogs do. It’s pretty interesting stuff!

Kaline likes her milk the proper cat way. When Baggle and Carla lick the milk that’s left in the bottom of a cereal bowl, which, yes, we are guilty of letting them do that, they have to flatten their tongues to clean the bowl, like a dog or a cat for grooming. Either Kaline doesn’t know how to do that for food or she just won’t stop to the level of eating like a dog or human. Hmm.. This morning, I let Kaline get a couple laps at the bowl before the milk was too low to do it cat-style, then while Baggle was cleaning up David’s bowl, I gave Carla mine to clean. Baggle finished up after she was done. So, I was honored to share my breakfast with all three of our regal kids this morning.

It’s going to be a truly enchanted day.