Luci's diary: training and the garden run

Luci’s Diary. This strange activity called training’s such fun, or at least the treats are. And the nightly garden visit. And just who’s being trained. 

June 2015

The number 2 human keeps training me.

It’s wonderful – I just love it. There are about four things he wants me to do. I think I can just about cope with learning four things. He calls on me to do them and, because I can see he wants to feel he’s achieving something, sometimes I look at him as though I’m confused and it’s terribly hard, until he shows me what he wants – lie down, stand up, wait, or whatever. Sometimes I just do them anyway. Either way, I get a treat every time.

Fantastic. Money for old rope. Not that I have any use for money, of course. Or old rope either, come to that, but hey, I didn’t invent the expression.

I have to say that one of the things did take me a while to master: lying down. The word of command sounds like “plotz”. God knows why. “Wait” – well it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? “Stand” – yep, not a big problem either. But “plotz”?

It turns out it’s all down to human number 1. Misty the cat explained it all to me. She’s from a place called Alsace, where he comes from too, apparently, and “plotz” is what you say in Alsatian when you mean “lie down”.

How on Earth was I supposed to know that?

And – do the humans take me for an Alsatian? I’ve met Alsatians and let me tell you, there’s a bit of difference. Mostly in scale.

Anyway, Misty also says I ought to have more pride. Stand aloof from all this training business. Not be pushed around.

“We animals need to lay down some ground rules to the domestics.” That’s what he calls the humans. He reckons that letting them train us is accepting their rules instead. He may be right.

But.. but… there are treats at stake…

OK,  this is the Plotz thing, right?
So where's my treat?

I have to say the other day he got the treats out and I automatically went and did the plotz thing, before he could even ask. Just stronger than me. I thought he’d see through me and realise I was a jump ahead of him, just doing it for the treats, but he didn’t. He was pathetically pleased about it. Told Number 1 when she got home. Got her giggling.

So no harm done.

The other thing I like is the nightly garden run. It’s a little ritual we have now, number 2 and I. He doesn’t like it, but she always makes him do it.

“Does Luci need to be taken out?” he always asks.

“Yes,” she always replies.

Perhaps she ought to give him a treat so he gets it and learns to stop asking.

They seem not to have grasped that I use the cat flap. If I need to do my business, I pop out and do it. So this nightly outing’s just a a bit of fun. Some quality time number 2 and I can spend together before going to bed. I sniff around the flower beds and the vegetables, which is good, and he stands around looking pained and saying “go on, Luci, have a pee.”

He tries to make it sound quite affectionate, even though I can hear the exasperation building in the background.

Sometimes I force one out just to put him out of his misery. Other times I push him to see how long he can stand it, until he finally goes back in. Either way, it’s always amusing, and a good way to wrap up the evening.

Sets me up nicely to go jumping around the bed when they’re trying to get to sleep. They seem to think that’s adorable, which is just a joy. Personally, if someone behaved that way when I was trying to sleep, I’d just bite him. But then – I’ve got them well trained.

Even Misty thinks it’s funny that they put up with it.