The Ears Have It

Oddly with having blown out my hearing on several occasions and with the constant ringing in my ears, I still have really good hearing. I can hear things long before others, be it rain in the distance, movement in the forest or birds on the wing. People are often amazed by advanced warnings I issue of things that I hear in the distance.

Far better than my hearing is the hearing of one of out cats. Cats are known for selective hearing. They just don’t hear things that are not important to them. They know there are no repercussions to not listening for what we want them to hear. They are after all, cats.

We have one of those on-demand cat food containers where the cats can eat any time they like. It holds about a weeks worth of food. I go into the laundry room every morning because that is where I keep my work shirts. When I see their food reservoir getting low I grab the bag of cat food on the shelf and pout some in. As soon as I do our Tuxedo cat comes running. Lately I’ve noticed he is right there as soon as I grab the bag from the shelf. Now, I go in there every morning to get a shirt to wear, and he doesn’t come running, but if I touch the bag he comes from where ever he is in the house to check it out.

I tried another experiment where I see him outdoors somewhere and if I grab the bag and look out he is suddenly right there at the door waiting to be let in. I took the experiment up a notch. This cat loves to spend time at the edge of one of the pastures looking into the weeds on the other side of the fence. He is approximately 150 feet away. He sits there for hours waiting for mice. I saw him there, and two seconds later I went to the laundry room, grabbed the bag and within five seconds he was at the door. That is amazing to me.