Air Guitar

A note from Tigger’s Mum; (Tigger would never tell you all this himself).

Cat owners know that cats communicate with humans in myriad ways. 

Tigger is not a particularly vocal cat, howls if trodden on, but can produce a remarkable moan if disturbed in his sleep.  Sometimes we can repeat the moans back to him and what follows is a sort of tit for tat sing-song of variable pitch moaning – a sort of duelling banjo/guitar, shades-of-Deliverance type effect.

Tigger also communicates by contact – a quick pluck at the side of the bed at 0500 hours means “I want to go outside – let me out now.”  A claw in the thigh when you are sitting at the dining table means “I want that seat – yes, that one you are sitting on.” 

Cat owners assert that their moggies convey a wide range of emotions using facial expression.  That might just be cat-owners anthropomorphising, but if you have owned a cat there will have been times you are sure you have seen annoyance, pleading, disgust, an eye-roll of disbelief, cold calculation, and possibly even embarrassment.

Cats definitely communicate by location – sit by the door to be let out (rip up the door mat if you ignore them….)  Tigger has mapped out the locations – corner cupboard for food, fridge for catnip (only place he hasn’t been able to break into to get at his ‘weed’ himself), cupboard under the sink where the water stop-cock is located in a hole in the floor that lets him get under the house, on top of his scratching post where he expects to get a back massage.

Of all his methods of communication, Tigger’s most amusing is mime.  To understand Tigger’s best mime, you need to understand the toilet habits of cats.  Possibly uniquely among animals in the wild, cats bury their faeces.   (Even humans in the wilderness seem satisfied to drop a load behind a tree and leave it otherwise in full view. ) However, cats carefully excavate a low scoop, make their deposit, check cautiously, turn and bury it by flicking soil etc backwards, check again, bury some more if necessary, and then sort of carefully tiptoe away; all of which is carried out with a body language can only convey arch disgust.   

Cat owners everywhere, whether their cat insists on using the great outdoors (as does Tigger) or will settle for a litter tray, all recognize the body language of excavation for, and burial of, toilet waste; the very precise movements that accompany the disposal of something disgusting.

Tigger has very defined tastes when it comes to food.  He is fussy.  Imagine our amusement when we offered a bowl of something he chose to refuse, and conveyed his ‘arch disgust’ by turning his back and miming burying it.  If he can find anything easily moved close by (Denim Rat for instance, a piece of cloth, even his bedding if the food is by his box), he will drag it over and physically bury the bowl.  If there is nothing available round his ‘table mat’ on the kitchen floor,  we just get treated to a mime of “a Tigger burying sh*t.”  

What he is communicating about the choice of cat-food is not open to any misinterpretation.  Nevertheless he also looks, for all the world, like .........

.............................a Tigger playing cat air guitar.

And just for fun - alternative air guitar...