Phurry Pheline How-To: How To Keep Your Human Happy

by Phelicity

Keeping a human happy is easy fur us cats, we're so good at it, but it's nice to put some extra effort into it sometimes. Especially when they do their best to keep us happy in return. Now some of you might live with a whole family of them! That's a bigger job, and I'm no expert at keeping a bunch of them happy at once. I only have one. But it seems to me that if we are good at keeping one happy, we won't have a problem with more. And it's important because a lot of how they feel every day might depend on you. So here are some little things for you to brush up on.

1. Be Adorable

Any cat worthy of the name should be able to go sit in front of her human, give her a sweet, wide-eyed look and a tiny silent meow, and get an immediate "awwww...." That's easy. I even get those when mine passes by where I'm sleeping, so yes, we can even be adorable in our sleep. They always notice. Just let your natural beauty and sweet purrsonality shine all the time, and they'll be so proud and go around bragging about how adorable you are. Humans love to brag, so give them lots to brag about.

2. Be Entertaining

Some of us have more talent than others, but all of us have one. Know what your best talent is and use it a lot. My sisfur's talent, for example, is singing. She has a lovely soprano voice and sings "Evergreen" just like Barbra Streisand, or entire arias from Madama Butterfly and Carmen. (Keep in mind, there's a difference between singing and yowling.) Our mom loves to hear singing. As long as we remember that 3 A.M. is not the usual time for an opera performance, singing is a good talent.

My talent is dancing, and I've been doing ballet and modern dance since I was a kitten, so I am quite good now. Humans love to watch a kitty dance, and sometimes they'll even join us and get happier yet. Some kitties are wonderful natural comedians, and that talent might make humans happiest of all, because they do love to laugh. But they are known to be rude and laugh at us when we did something accidently, like fall off the back of a chair, too. Since they can't seem to tell the difference between funny little things you do to entertain them and rolling plop! off the table when you didn't plan to, it's best to keep an attitude of "I meant to do that".

3. Be Photogenic

All cats are photogenic, but humans like to prove it. So this is mostly a matter of being patient and (I gotta whisper) cwopurrtive with a human taking pictures of you. Because if you turn your back, run off, decide to wash under your tail, or walk right into the camera, they just follow you around and keep trying. Yawning is fine and blinking is okay, because flashes going off in our eyes are quite annoying! I find this hard to remember myself, but if you are patient for two or three pictures, maybe they'll stop and just be proud they got those. On the other paw, they could decide to use the whole roll of film on you in hopes of getting "one good one". It's a tough call, but try anyway. Did you ever watch your human contentedly putting pretty pictures of you in albums or scanning them for a website? See her smiling? That's a happy human.

4. Be Helpful

Humans spend so much time getting all wound up and doing stuff wrong, they really need help. You should already be in the habit of reminding them when it's your dinner time, pointing out if your litter box is in an unacceptable condition, helping when they make the bed or fold the laundry or else it wouldn't be any fun for them, things like that. Now go a step further and be helpful in showing them how to relax and sleep better, more like a cat. They love it when we share their bed, so that's good place to start.

You'd think a human would go to bed and sleep, wouldn't you? Not mine. When I can finally get her there, it's book-reading time. Reading a book does not relax them, it just keeps them awake with the light shining in your eyes. Your job is to make them put the book down and turn the light off. That takes real persistence. It's one of my main jobs, so I'm good at it. I've done everything from blocking the light with my tail to knocking the lamp off the table. I've glared at books and chewed on bookmarks. But skip all that, what works the best is to plop yourself on the pillow and cover her eyes with your tail. That makes mine give up the book and give that attention to me, so I'm helping her relax and rest.

5. Be Loving

You already know this; I'm just throwing it in because it makes our humans happy to see how much we love them. Nobody loves like a cat can, all soft, sweet and purring. Make use of every opportunity to snuggle with your human, give head bumps and kisses, purr a lot, lie in her lap, whatever is natural for you. Not only is all this loving rewarding for both of you, but you're giving your human wonderful memories she will cherish all her life, and a great deal of happiness now.

6. Be There

This has one meaning I'm still working on myself. Nobody's purrfect. One way of being there is to be found. So don't hide and refuse to come out if your human is calling and searching for you, sounding increasingly frantic, shining a flashlight under the bed and going crazy trying to find you. Even if you're not in the mood, be found. It won't hurt to go to her, show her you're right there, you're purrfectly okay, you were just busy. Granted, there is some element of risk, like you might have an appointment with the Vet that day and discover your human is waiting to pop you in your carrier and take you there. But this is low risk, honest. How many times a year can that happen, once? twice? It's okay to be found.

Mostly, just be there for your human. When she comes home, when she gets up in the morning, when she has a headache, when she's busy or bored, happy or depressed, be there. She might need you or just want to share something with you. It might be a bad day she needs to talk about, or a piece of her broiled lambchop. Be there. If you keep your human happy, you'll be happy, too.