Did you know that cats can understand up to 50 human words? It turns out they might even want to say something back to us. Our cat, Lyle, certainly has a lot on his mind—mostly centered around the urgent, life-or-death need to be fed, then fed again, and then questioned on why he hasn’t been fed yet.
Lyle has always been committed to clear communication, though his early methods—yowling, murderous glares, and banging on objects until we gave in—were perhaps less “academic” than we had hoped. We tried a service bell, which he immediately started abusing, so naturally, we moved on to the next logical step: talking buttons.
I’d like to say we were consistent with his training, but, well… we weren’t. Regardless, Lyle loves his buttons. Not in the “language development” sense, but in the same way Rabbitowitz loves his exercise wheel—by treating it like a luxury bed and curling up on top of it to make sure no one else can use it.
We’ve decided that if a cat refuses to sleep on you, but will sleep on your expensive plastic buttons, it’s the highest honor they can bestow. We recently upgraded his setup—an investment into Lyle’s “college fund”—so stay tuned for his new station!
See the training in action below:
