The other night we were sitting on the couch with the wood stove going, enjoying the last few bites of fudge that a co-worker graciously made for us for Christmas. Otto had migrated from Sean's lap to mine, and Wanda had done the opposite, moving over to Sean's lap instead. Elroy was stretched out in front of the fire, Mister was plopped behind us, his rear falling off the front part of the couch-back. Reg was on the love seat, sound asleep. As I picked up the box of fudge and brought it towards me, I heard Otto make a retching sound and instantly felt penitent. It's not that there was anything wrong with the fudge--quite the opposite. It was precisely the fudge's chocolately goodness that Otto was complaining about. Perhaps this deserves an explanation...
It all started many years ago, when we had put some of those malted milk balls that they make for Easter, with the pastel-colored candy-coating on the outside, out onto an end table in a little glass bowl. We thought it would be pretty, festive, and inviting for our guests. Otto apparently thought differently. The first time he discovered they were there, he jumped up onto the table, sniffed the bowl carefully, then did this gagging motion, like he was going to vomit, then didn't. He immediately jumped off the table and didn't jump back on it.
At first I thought it was a fluke. One of the only reasons I put the candy out open on the table was that I figured none of the cats would mess with it. It didn't smell like fish or chicken, or even oil or cheese. It was coated in candy, for heaven's sake! It shouldn't smell like anything "food-like" to them at all. So, at first, Otto's reaction didn't register all that much.
Then, the second time we had something chocolate (my memory is failing me on precisely what it was), Otto jumped into our laps to see what we were doing and did the retchy thing again. Once is random, but as far as I'm concerned, twice is starting a pattern. None of the other cats react this way, and I've never met anyone else whose cat reacts this way either. It was totally weird.
So then, the scientist part of me came out and I wanted to find out how sophisticated Otto's chocolate palate was. Would he have the same reaction with white chocolate, I wondered? It's not even really chocolate, since it usually has nothing from the cacao plant in it. (Well, maybe super-expensive white chocolate does, but we don't buy those kinds of chocolate.) I put it under Otto's nose to sniff. Blech! from Otto. Same response, even though it's not even chocolate. Bear in mind, this is the only food product that he reacts this way to. We've never seen him do it with anything else.
You have to ask yourself, what could cause such a violent reaction to such an innocent item? Most cats will just turn up their noses and walk away when they smell food they don't like. As a matter of fact, they're famous for it. How many cat lovers haven't had at least one bag of cat food that they have had to give or throw away because the cat simply refused to eat it? But I've never heard of any other cat making retching sounds and motions when he doesn't like something. That's a new one. And further evidence that Otto, as well as the other Buddies, are no ordinary cats. Bless their little hearts.
No comments:
Post a Comment