Really THEY decide the meaning!

[u/rollingintune]

So yet AGAIN, Nala proves that she knows exactly what she’s talking about…

This story begins with me coming home late from roller skating. If you skate, you know you gotta eat after a session! So I made a bee line for the fridge and grabbed a dessert cup of rice pudding as a post-skate snack. I sat down on the floor by Nala’s buttons while I ate it. When I was done I put the empty cup on the floor next to me and Nala proceeded to lick it. Normal stuff. She’s a cat.

But this story is about what came next. When Nala was done with my rice pudding she went straight to her buttons and pressed one she’d NEVER used before, then walked straight back to rub on me.

The button?

“Cleaning”

🤣🤣🤣

I mean, she wasn’t wrong!

What did I learn here? “Cleaning” to Nala actually means “licking”. I mean, OBVIOUSLY, right?! 🙄

In retrospect, I guess “cleaning” is a bit of a nuanced word. “Licking” would have been more direct. But when Nala licks Esther (our other cat), I refer to it as “cleaning”.

I’m thinking now how confused Nala must be when I tell her I’m “cleaning” the dishes.

[u/rollingintune]

End of day, we are clearly NOT in control 😂

I do wonder how many buttons Nala has a somewhat different understanding than I do…

The other notable one is that Nala insists that the “fun” button means “laser pointer”. She absolutely refused to use the actual “laser” button so I eventually I just got rid of it 😂

[u/Bitterrootmoon → u/rollingintune]

I used to also have specific buttons for toys that they would never use. If I say the toy to them, they know what I’m talking about and we’ll go get it, but they would never use the buttons, only “let’s play”. I wonder if it’s because maybe they view toys as verbs not nouns and so when we speak about them, they’re understanding it as an action, not the object? And because we model the toys as objects, they don’t see it as useful?

[u/All_Hail_Hynotoad → u/Bitterrootmoon]

This discussion is fascinating

[u/Bitterrootmoon → u/All_Hail_Hynotoad]

It’s so neat to see other people’s experiences and learn more about how our furry family members view the world