Conversation with Pinky about fairness
Pinky, my blue point Siamese who is an engineer, came along this morning with some nonnegotiable demands to be satisfied. Unfortunately, though Pinky certainly understands English, I do not speak Siamese. This leads to some frustration on his part. He looked at me and said, as clearly as he could, something to the effect that it was unjust that no matter how smart, clever and communicative he is, he still can't make me understand and get what he wants... To which I replied, "Welcome to the real world, Pinky." I guess he understood, because he hopped on top of the computer hutch and began to knead his surrogate mommy, a big red teddy bear. Fortunately he reacts better than his masters when confronted with reality and disappointment.
In case you clicked to come to this page, I expect it is because you want to know more about Pinky, not more about justice. Pinky's real name is Blitzen. (We have four blue point Siamese, littermates Donner and Blitzer, and littermates Dancer and Prancer, who are two years younger.)
Well, we put collars on Donner and Blitzer -- a blue one on Donner and a pink one on Blitzer. Immediately they became Blue, Bluie, BluHoo, or Pinky. (With the passage of time, Blitzer has a red collar, but he is still Pinky.)
One of the first signs that Pinky is an engineer that I remember is when he would hear the printer start up. Wherever he was, he would go over, look the printer over from all angles, and try to figure out how the thing worked. His mind seems always to be at work, trying to understand his environment, particularly the mechanical things in it. Flowing water intrigues him. What makes it move, he appears to wonder. Whenever we do anything he watches the process and sometimes tries to participate.
Pinky is extremely intelligent and can be trained not to do something. For example, the kitchen is off limits for the cats, because it leads directly into the living room. Naturally this means that they want to do in there at every possible opportunity. Pinky, however, will not go in if I tell him "no" and wait until I am sure he understands what I said. I don't remember any other cat who has remembered and obeyed a command over such a long period of time. I do, on some occasions NOT tell him "no" and he then races through in case I should change my mind. I try then to always say "okay" so he will maybe learn that as a command as well.
Ginny