They have Feelings too...

This has never happened to me, before. But, are my cats getting more perceptive, can they read our minds as they get older? Do they have empathy for those that feed them, house them, and befriend them? Or, are they just cats? Aloof, detached, just wanting to be left alone until they need something like food or your lap heat?

This morning I woke up to a tummy ache, more like painful gas. I went shopping last week and forgot to get some veggies of any kind. I did manage to get a ton of beans. Veggie baked beans, white bean, kidney beans, 16 bean soups and some pasta. But no vegetables. So, I have had beans just about every day this week. And today it has backed me up.

I have been on a vegetarian diet for the last 19 months (considering that I haven’t had any red meat for 33 years) and at times it gets boring, to say the least. I just have to stay away from sweets and beer…but of course I digress…

I was feeling very  bad this morning and as I was going to go out and do my morning walk/run I decided that I was going to just lie down for at least an hour, hoping that I might feel better then.

Five minutes after I laid down my cat Tom came up the stairs and hopped onto the bed with me. Normally he usually he very vocal but for some different reason he just sat next to me and pawed my shirt right about where the pain was in my tummy. He pulled my shirt up and just looked under, looking for what I can’t say. This went on for maybe two or three minutes more. 

He then climbed on to my stomach and proceeded to go to sleep, as cats seem to most of the time. Now, unlike his brother, Jerry, who weighs 22 pounds, Tom is only 12 pounds. But, his heavy butt is still heavy on my belly. I gave him a long back rub and he then climbed down curled up next to me, I then fell asleep. I woke 90 minutes later feeling a little better, Tom still by my side.

But, when I woke up he decided to leave me and I decided to get up and do something else, since it was past my usual running time, like rake up the last, I hoped, of those leaves.

Anyway, that was kind of a first, but Tom, I feel is kind of empathic, to a small degree. He still won’t come to me when I call but as of late (I think because it getting colder) he has been spending a lot of time sitting in my lap as has Jerry, to which they avoided during the summer. I would guess it is too hot to sit in my lap.

I’m getting a lot of feeling with Tom though, they both turned eight years old this past October, middle age for cats. And Tom and I chat a lot, like I said, Tom is very vocal. Sometimes he yells at me and other times I have figured out that, as usual, what all cats want, he just wants to be fed. Well that works for me.

I do want to know, though, as they age, do they, my cats, really know my feelings, whether good or bad, in pain or not? I think they care, a little or at least Tom does. I know for a fact that Jerry is selfish, and arrogant, he thinks he is the Alpha cat in this house. Thank goodness I have a vacuum cleaner!