Problem-solving through manipulation
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Cats-and dogs - use all the means they can muster to be fed at a time that suits them, not their owners
IF YOU watch your pets for any length of time, you’ll be amazed – as I am – at how well they (or some of them) know how to manipulate me to solve a problem.
Right now, my one-eyed Angel has a problem. The cat has decided that she doesn’t want to wait for me to wake up at my usual time of 5.30 any more. She’s hungry, and she’d like me to get up earlier.
She has a problem, and she’s looking for ways to solve it.
Among my favourite stories of dogs solving problems is an anecdote from “The Social Lives of Dogs” by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas.
The book, published nearly 15 years ago, might be considered old, but it’s certainly not out of date. I find myself returning again and again to Thomas’ writings, not only because of her excellent prose but also because of the insights she provides into the lives of the animals around her.
In this particular anecdote, the dogs in her household apparently decided that they felt 6am was way too late for breakfast, preferring their meal at the more “suitable” time (at least for dogs) of 4.30.
How well they understood their owner! They knew instinctively that if they began yelling for their food at 4.30, they’d be ignored. Instead, they started yelling at 5.45.
Without realising the dogs’ plan, Marshall began getting up at 5.45, which, she felt, was no burden, being only 15 minutes earlier than usual. After a few days at the earlier time, the dogs moved the time back another 15 minutes, and Marshall, again without realising it, didn’t notice what they had done.
Slowly, by moving the time back 15 minutes at a time, the dogs finally achieved their goal, breakfast at 4.30.
I don’t know if I’d ever get up at 4.30 to feed my animals, but Marshall certainly had the patience, and even, in the book, expresses admiration for the way her dogs manipulated her into giving them what they wanted.
Angel has manipulated me, but not when I’ve been asleep. In the morning, if I’m too slow at changing the drinking water and giving her her food, she simply knocks something to the floor. She’s discovered that a breakable item is better. The sound of shattering glass attracts my attention immediately.
If I’m asleep, though, such a manoeuvre is unproductive. I simply don’t hear it.
She’s tried to encourage my poodle Wan-Wan to help solve the problem, but the dog doesn’t care what time I get up, as long as she is allowed to be near me.
Wan, in fact, is straightforward when she wants me to do something. She has special gazes, mainly to tell me when she wants to go out.
She also communicates her desires with different barks: one kind of bark tells me that she wants to go for a walk, another to tell me to hurry up, another to tell me how happy she is to be going to the vet’s to meet all her friends.
As far as I know, she has never manipulated me.
Angel would love to manipulate me, but she’s learned how slow I am to understand what she wants. It’s her own fault, I think. It’s the same yell whether to tell me another animal is in trouble or to demand her food. I can’t tell the difference.
Well, at 5.15 this morning, Angel finally found the solution to her problem. She simply nipped my big toe while I slept. The unexpected pain certainly attracted my attention. She didn’t have to manipulate me at all.
