YShahar
Enthusiastic duct-tape engineer
Well, I'm still laughing over this one...
Some background: We have four cats, one of whom was sired by the local variety of wildcat - felis lybica - and it shows. This cat has both the personality and the build of his father, sort of broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip. If any of our cats would be dangerous were he to develop a taste for sushi, it's this one. His name, fittingly enough, is Nammer (Hebrew for leopard).
Now, I've developed a trick to discourage the cats from thinking of the pond as "safe". Especially around the fish-feeding rock, which is where the fish are most vulnerable. If one of the cats gets that "hunting" gleam in their eyes, I very carefully chuck a small round pebble into the pond. With luck, the pebble causes a splash, and the cat reaches the conclusion that there is a dangerous cat-eating monster lurking just below the surface.
Now--and this is the important part--it's crucial that said cat not make any association between me and said splash. Cats are pretty good at associational logic (apparently a lot better than ChatGPT is!). They can work out little formulas like
A --> B --> ¬B --> ¬A.
If ever they make the association between my being there and a sudden unexpected splash, the game's up. They'll just wait until I'm not there! (And if any of you ever reveal this secret to any of the cats, you will be required to complete 20 laps through the string algae in the bog!).
OK, so this evening around 20:30, I'm sitting in my reading chair watching Nammer getting a drink from the fish-feeding rock. At some point, he sat up, his ears perked up, and I knew he had his eye on one of the fish. I wasn't overly concerned until I realized that it was Oro the golden ogon that was the object of interest. Now Oro is not the brightest of our fish. In fact, it's safe to say that he's the only one of the fish who is regularly outsmarted by koi pellets. He apparently thought that here was someone who might find a way to get a pellet into his mouth. So, in order to nip any unpleasantness in the bud, I snatched a pebble from the stash on the table and prepared a tactical intervention. But because Puma, one of the other potential "fish hunters" was cat-loafed on the dining table just behind my right shoulder, I determined to flick the pebble just shy of the pond with my left hand, so that she wouldn't see me toss it.
And here is where it all went pear-shaped. That little rock left my hand and hit, as intended, on the fish-feeding rock about 10 cm behind Nammer with a sharp "crack!". Normally, a startled cat will fly straight up into the air, assess the situation from a height, and come down looking over his shoulder and ready to run.
But that's not what happened. Nammer took flight all right... Straight into the pond!
He landed smack in the middle of the water lilies and then executed a mind-over-matter demonstration that has been hopelessly out of fashion for centuries. Being no dedicated follower of fashion, Nammer flew straight across the deep water a distance of about 1.5 meters onto the stones that we call "the Dragon", leaped ashore, possibly with one more push off the surface of the water, and vanished into the darkness.
I was laughing so hard that I couldn't breathe, and Puma was sitting up behind me with a look on her face that said that she was wondering why the missile alert failed to go off.
When Nammer finally overcame the embarrassment and reappeared, I was reluctant to let him inside, as I didn't want him to shake water all over the furniture. I needn't have worried. He was completely dry, other than his feet, with which he had accomplished a dated, but rather impressive bit of water walking!
Some background: We have four cats, one of whom was sired by the local variety of wildcat - felis lybica - and it shows. This cat has both the personality and the build of his father, sort of broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip. If any of our cats would be dangerous were he to develop a taste for sushi, it's this one. His name, fittingly enough, is Nammer (Hebrew for leopard).
Now, I've developed a trick to discourage the cats from thinking of the pond as "safe". Especially around the fish-feeding rock, which is where the fish are most vulnerable. If one of the cats gets that "hunting" gleam in their eyes, I very carefully chuck a small round pebble into the pond. With luck, the pebble causes a splash, and the cat reaches the conclusion that there is a dangerous cat-eating monster lurking just below the surface.
Now--and this is the important part--it's crucial that said cat not make any association between me and said splash. Cats are pretty good at associational logic (apparently a lot better than ChatGPT is!). They can work out little formulas like
A --> B --> ¬B --> ¬A.
If ever they make the association between my being there and a sudden unexpected splash, the game's up. They'll just wait until I'm not there! (And if any of you ever reveal this secret to any of the cats, you will be required to complete 20 laps through the string algae in the bog!).
OK, so this evening around 20:30, I'm sitting in my reading chair watching Nammer getting a drink from the fish-feeding rock. At some point, he sat up, his ears perked up, and I knew he had his eye on one of the fish. I wasn't overly concerned until I realized that it was Oro the golden ogon that was the object of interest. Now Oro is not the brightest of our fish. In fact, it's safe to say that he's the only one of the fish who is regularly outsmarted by koi pellets. He apparently thought that here was someone who might find a way to get a pellet into his mouth. So, in order to nip any unpleasantness in the bud, I snatched a pebble from the stash on the table and prepared a tactical intervention. But because Puma, one of the other potential "fish hunters" was cat-loafed on the dining table just behind my right shoulder, I determined to flick the pebble just shy of the pond with my left hand, so that she wouldn't see me toss it.
And here is where it all went pear-shaped. That little rock left my hand and hit, as intended, on the fish-feeding rock about 10 cm behind Nammer with a sharp "crack!". Normally, a startled cat will fly straight up into the air, assess the situation from a height, and come down looking over his shoulder and ready to run.
But that's not what happened. Nammer took flight all right... Straight into the pond!
He landed smack in the middle of the water lilies and then executed a mind-over-matter demonstration that has been hopelessly out of fashion for centuries. Being no dedicated follower of fashion, Nammer flew straight across the deep water a distance of about 1.5 meters onto the stones that we call "the Dragon", leaped ashore, possibly with one more push off the surface of the water, and vanished into the darkness.
I was laughing so hard that I couldn't breathe, and Puma was sitting up behind me with a look on her face that said that she was wondering why the missile alert failed to go off.
When Nammer finally overcame the embarrassment and reappeared, I was reluctant to let him inside, as I didn't want him to shake water all over the furniture. I needn't have worried. He was completely dry, other than his feet, with which he had accomplished a dated, but rather impressive bit of water walking!
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Great stuff. 
