Shmogg allows me to make my own decisions. Being such a considerate individual, he even gives me a choice regarding what I feed him for breakfast. I can either get up and feed him standard canned cat food, or I can allow him to continue his dining pleasure of feasting upon my exposed flesh. He has never complained that he always gets the cat food, and has always given me this most generous set of options even when its 5am, or I've got one mother of a hangover, or even if he can't immediately find a bit of exposed me for hors d'oeuvres.

My toes are of course his favourite entree, but any exposed appendage will do in a pinch (Dave Y - do not sleep over my house in summer!). Of course, variety is the spice of life, and in summer, he has the choice of 10 toes and 10 fingers sticking out from the under the covers for pre-breakfast snacking, and is always particularly kind as to rotate his fangings so that they have time to heal completely over before he starts again. He couldn't possibly sample a finger or toe that has previous nibble marks in it unless he has to, and besides I get a further choice as to which limbs I will withdraw, turtle fashion, to under the doona first. As I said earlier, my master does give me certain degrees of freedom.

Winter, of course, does pose a bit more of a problem to the master because all four of limbs are curled up, wrapped within the safe, Shmogg-resistant doona. Most cats that I know would not go to so much effort for their slaves and I do feel quite honoured. Even without obvious fingers or toes to chew on, Shmogg will still find a way of ensuring I still get to make at least *some* decisions in our life.

Shmogg is a pretty bright cat, and it didn't take him a long time to figure out how to open doors. If the don't push open with a good head-butt or two, then he pulls them open by placing his paw under the door (in Willoughby's "bird" position) and using his claws as a crude sort of catch. He's managed to get into all cupboards that aren't well shut and an un-latched door is not even a challenge anymore. His basic cat-cunning is also working in parallel with his intelligence,and once he learns something, he applies his previous knowledge to the new problem. The problem, in this case, was how to give me a choice regarding breakfast if there were no appendages exposed.

In the middle of my slumber, I feel Shmogg's upside down paw, claws thoughtfully extended to their maximum, working their way under my arm. THis wasn't a problem as the claws were faced in the opposite direction to the way the paw was travelling, and although it felt odd, I thought it was Just Shmogg settling down next to me (so I would roll over and give him more room). It did hurt quite a bit though, when he started to remove my arm from the doona like he pulls open doors. My arm was of course too heavy for him to move by himself, but full credits for brainwork though. Being a good slave, I moved my arm out from under the doona. He always does things like this For My Own Good and it is not for me to wonder why.

Now I'm fully awake however, and my arm is cold because its outside of its warm doona cocoon. I am somewhat bewildered as to why Shmogg had the urge to remove my arm from its nice cosy spot. Perhaps he wanted scritchings? In the early morning brain-fog, I reached out to give my venerable master some small tokens of affection.

He looked me squarely in the eye, knowing he had yet again outwitted his slow and bumbling slave without breaking a sweat.

FANG! munch munch munch.

He had overcome the most perplexing problem of not having exposed fingers or toes in the most ingenious way, and the execution was just perfect. Heck, I even *helped* him by moving my arm into chomping range *under my own volition*.

Needless to say, I made my selection, as I do every morning, and got up to feed him the canned cat food for breakfast. It was my choice, made out of my own free will, and Shmogg was gracious enough to accept my decision without further argument.

Bastard Cat.

Copyright © Vicky Chapman
March 19, 2000