Animal House

I came home the other day to find Emily’s cat, Sugar, on the family room porch, balanced on the back of the beautiful porch swing, staring into the window of the family room, looking for someone to let her in. My question is: How do animals learn the concept of a window? Sugar is not the first family pet to demonstrate this understanding.

Matt’s first cat, Claire, had this concept down pat as well. When we lived in the Virgin Islands we had a very interesting experience with a stray dog, who became the family pet, Sammy. To make a long story short…Sammy wandered into our yard, bone thin and thirsty. We made the mistake of taking pity on the poor guy and fed him. Well, on Day 3 he had apparently received enough nutrition and hydration to realize, “Why that’s a CAT!” And even worse, “I LOVE to chase cats!” The next sound we heard was a loud bark, followed by an even louder cat yowl. A streak of calico cat flew by the dining room window followed by a blur of white and brown “coconut retriever”. On the heels of this sight was the sound of a panicked Matt, “Oh no! Claire’s scared of Sammy!” (He always was a master of understatement)

A three hour search ensued, but to no avail. Claire had disappeared into the thick green untamed island foliage surrounding the house. Matt was heartbroken, Sammy was in time out, and Steve and I were thoroughly embarrassed. We’d sequestered our dinner guest (our pastor) in the hurricane shelter with Sammy while we’d searched. We knew Claire would never come home if he was out and about (the dog that is, not the priest).

Fast forward to the middle of the night. Our bedroom windows are open to let the soft, cool tradewind flow in. The soothing melody of the tree frogs is suddenly broken by two syllables: “Me-ow”. I push up on one arm, look out the window, and there…balanced on the 1” width of the wrought iron handrail… is Claire. Despite the low light of only a quarter-moon, she has found our bedroom window and is summoning us to open the door.

How did she know how to do that? To understand where we were and to understand that the window was a means of communicating with us?

Golden Retriever, Lucy, spends her days sitting at one of the dining room windows watching the street in front of the house. She’s like Gladys from “Bewitched”, there isn’t a single neighborhood action that she isn’t aware of. Unlike Gladys, she doesn’t share the info with anyone (that we know of). She clearly understands that this is life, rather than a TV show, as she heads toward the door when she spies her favorite human, Steve, approach the house.

Hmmm. Since the pets use the windows, do you think they’ll help clean them?