Babs

Our foundling cat, Babs, has this thing she does every so often. We call it “making biscuits.” She takes her paws, with claws extended, and kneads your stomach, lap or leg like bread dough. While she’s performing this act, she goes into a trance-like state and purrs loudly. This is something our other two cats may have done when they were younger, but rarely, if ever, exhibit in their old age. When Babs gets going, she is “in the zone.” Her sole focus is in what she is doing.

In an effort to understand this cat behavior, I searched it online. Most cat experts feel that it goes back to when they were tiny kittens. They would paw at the mother cat’s belly to stimulate the flow of milk to the nipples. It produced a bonding between the mother cat and her kittens. Some experts feel that kittens who are weaned too early often exhibit this behavior as adults as a way to receive comfort. It sort of makes sense in Babs’ case since we found her abandoned at 7 weeks old along the side of our house. Another explanation was that it was a way to say, “I love you, mommy.”

Lisa and I consider it an honor when Babs decides to make biscuits on us. Our two older cats, Spike and Sylvie have become quite the lap cats, especially in winter, but Babs is often content to lay near us, not on us. We can only hold her for short periods of time and only when she is in the mood to be held. So you see, having Babs on our lap making biscuits is a high honor indeed. I look at it as her way of saying, “I love you and thanks for rescuing me.”

Babs has other ways of communicating her wants and needs beyond the kneading of our flesh with her “needle-sharp” claws. When Babs is hungry…look out! Even if we are not looking at the clock, she is normally not more than 5 minutes off a very strict feeding schedule. Right on cue, she will appear and begin “looking for trouble.” By that I mean she will jump up on the computer desk and start playing with pens or anything that can be pushed to the edge of the desk and fall to the floor. She will run over and start sharpening her claws on the furniture instead of the scratching post I made for her. She climbs up on the kitchen countertop, table, TV stand or any other place she is not allowed. One of her favorite tricks is playing with the window blinds, anything to get our attention. The whole time she is looking for trouble, Babs is purring very loudly and waving her tail as if to say, “look at me, better feed me!” She will not be ignored.

In the morning, we do not need an alarm clock. We have Babs. When she is ready to start the day and that includes feeding, she will start rattling the sun room doors with her paws and meow loudly. You would swear she was going to rip the doors from their hinges. By the time we pull ourselves from our bed and approach the sun room, Babs has now toned down her fierce meow to that of a poor, little, pathetic kitten… more like a peep than a roar.

In the evenings, a battered, old, cardboard box in the middle of our living room sets the stage for one of Babs’ favorite past times. We call it, “Babs-in-the-box.” It goes like this: she comes running into the room and leaps into the box. She nestles down beneath the two top flaps with only her tail sticking out. When you touch the box a little gray paw shoots out and tries to snag your sock then quickly darts back inside between the two flaps. She loves this game and she cracks us up. As Lisa says, who needs TV?

Ah, the life of a cat. You eat. You sleep and you play. Does it get any better than that?

FOOD for THOUGHT...