NaturallyResilient

About

Callie was one smart cat. My husband says she had the intelligence of a 3-4 year old child. I have to agree.

Several weeks ago, I mentioned how quickly she learned but she also took the initiative. She saw me opening doors and quickly learned how to jump at the knobs and slide one paw down faster than the other making the door unlatch. She would then either push the door open or reach under the door with a paw and pull it open. The only doors that were safe from her were the heavier latched exterior doors.

Another test of intelligence is the fear factor: very little scared Callie. Most cats run from a vacuum cleaner. Callie would just act annoyed. I remember vacuuming the curtains behind the bed while Callie was on the bed trying to sleep. She kept giving me dirty looks and finally moved when the hose nozzle fell off landing next to her for the second time.

But one event really stands out highlighting her intelligence. I had two closet plants that were not thriving in their new location. Two weeks before I had cleaned out all the dead leaves from one of the plants and I had finally gotten around to cleaning out the second one. I was sitting there pulling dried dead growth from the plant when Callie came in and sat down watching me. She then walked over to the plant that I had worked on two weeks before. She stuck her front paws on the rim and started rustling around in the plant. I was starting to get worried. Had she decided to give up the litter box for more natural surrounding? But no, soon she came up with a dead leaf in her mouth and laid it on the floor close to me. She was either saying “I can do that” or “you missed one,” both fit her personality.