22-Year-Old Cat Playing And Doing Tricks

Grass (oat grass)
Brother.

This is my 22-year-old cat playing in a box.

He is getting ready to attack his brother.

He is getting ready to shake hands with me.

He is shaking hands here.

He is sitting up begging for a treat.

He does a lot of tricks and talks too. I am going to video tape and record him so people can see him doing these things. Some people don't know cats can do tricks or talk. His brother does tricks and talks also, but he is only about three and does not do very many yet.


Some of the things he says:


Goodies.
More.
Ow!
I love you.
Out.
Eat.
Breakfast.
Dinner.
Food.
Wawa or warer (water)
Play.
Bird.

Hand.
Ear.
Nose.
Eye.
Face.
Kissy. (Kiss)
Fur. He uses more of a V sound than an F.
Purr. He says it like "Rurr." He usually purrs when I ask him to. If he is not in the mood he will do a short purr and stop. If I ask again he says, "Rurr!" in an aggrieved tone and won't do it any more.
Uh uh!  He says this to me when I am getting ready to do something he doesn't like. One of these is putting him in his carrier to go to the vet or picking him up when he doesn't want me to.
Ah ah ah!  He says this when I am already doing something he doesn't like. He has said this to vets giving him a shot.
A a a a a!  He uses this for both the above.
Bad boy!  He says bad boy to his brother sometimes.


He uses all of those appropriately and seems to understand them. He also appears to understand more words that he does not say.
Some of these are commands for doing tricks and behavior:
Shake hands.
Give me a kiss.
Talk.
Back.
Out.
Cover your poop.
Up.
No, bad.
Down.
Eat.
Around. (for turn around)
Do your kitten laundry. ( I tell him this when I want him to lick medicine off his paw.)
Good boy.
Come on up. (Jump up in my lap.)
Be a baby.. I tell him this when I want him to knead his afghan and pretend to be nursing. (It calms him when he is upset.)
He used to roll over when I told him to, but it seems to bother him to do it and I don't want him to hurt himself because of his age, so we stopped that trick.


He started talking when he was a kitten and heard my older cat talking then. She had a much larger vocabulary than he does, but I had to teach her a lot of what she said. I have not had to teach him much of what he says. He still learns new things to say. "Bad boy", is a new one. It freaks out his brother when he says it to him. He seems to like that.


His brother sounds like a siamese and has a bigger repoirtoire of sounds that he can make. This means he can speak more clearly because he can get sounds that are closer to English. He may talk better and have a bigger vocabulary eventually. He only says a few words so far. He is just starting to realize that talking gets him what he wants, so he is interested now. His favorite word is, "Play". He uses it a lot, but not if he can wait for his brother to say it first.


I believe all cats are capable of talking because neighbors cats have often started doing it when they heard mine talking. A friend called my first talking cat the "hundredth monkey." I am not sure if that is true, but all my talking cats so far, started because they heard another cat talking. I have seen cats on the internet, especially youtube talking, so maybe they don't need to hear another cat talking first.


I think all cats can do tricks, although some won't do more than one or two. I have been able to teach friends cats to do tricks and have taught a few people to teach their cats to do tricks. Training the people is a lot harder.


The first time I taught a cat to do a trick was a race between my sister and I. My sister had a dog and I had a cat and we were going to see whose pet learned to roll over first. My cat won by about a week.