Aren’t you lucky? We have another three cat-related items today. (While perusing my draft posts, I realized that they number 905 (many of them with cats), and most will never see the light of day. Some day I must winnow the bad ones and put up the good ones.
Anyway, we have three videos. In this one, a squirrel (an Honorary Cat™), tries to bury its nuts in a dog’s fur! I have no doubt that this is what the befuddled rodent is trying to do, as the burying behavior is classic. The dog, of course, is bemused:
*******
I believe a reader posted this Ode to Spot last week, and, inquiring of one of my friends who is a Trekophile (but not a Trekkie), I learned that Spot was the cat belonging to the android Data on four Star Trek series. As the “Memory alpha” Wiki page on Spot notes, the animal was played by six cats:
Spot first appeared in “Data’s Day” as a male, long-haired Somali cat. In subsequent appearances, Spot was seen as a more common American short-hair orange tabby, but still as a male. It was only in the seventh season episode “Force of Nature” that Spot was first referred to as she. In “Genesis“, she even gave birth. The Star Trek Encyclopedia jokingly suggests that Spot may be a shapeshifter or the victim of a transporter malfunction.
Spot was played by unknown long-haired Somali cats in his first two appearances and trained by Gary Gero and Scott Hart from Birds & Animals Unlimited. Spot’s appearance was changed into an orange tabby cat beginning with the sixth season when Rob Bloch from Critters of the Cinema took over the animal casting and training. During his time on The Next Generation, Spot was then played by Monster, Brandy and Bud and later also by Tyler, trained by Rob Bloch and Karen Thomas-Kolakowski.
There’s a lot more than the above on the Wiki page (including three pictures of Spot, one in which he’s turned into an iguana); and I once again realized how obsessed these fans are! At any rate, my Trekophile friend sent me a link to a video with many appearances of Spot, and below that I have added the famous poem.
Ode to Spot
Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature;
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.
*******
Finally, if you have a cat and a bed, you’re liable to have encountered this situation:
h/t: John, Joyce
Sub
I geysered coffee from the nostrils when the squirrel worked its burying arms on the d*g’s back…
I think the squirrel considered the butt but luckily change its mind.
I saw that even though I was wiping up spewed coffee and thought:
a)That d*g is going chomp the little guy and I don’t want to see it
b)That dog is going to enjoy it and I don’t want to see it
c)The nut will be successfully stashed and the squirrel will regret that later, and I don’t want to think about that
I enjoy this interaction between Data, Spot & Worf. Perhaps that will be enough….
It’s a good one!
All three in today’s trifecta are excellent. 🙂
I can totes relate to the duo feline bed-making team, plus I have a dog who likes to un-make the bed while nesting in the covers.
Yup. Making the bed is a lot more fun with cats around.
+1
very nice
“…a squirrel (an Honorary Cat™), tries to bury its nuts in a dog’s fur!”
I believe that is illegal in my jurisdiction.
😀
Well, no-one can say that the Republicans didn’t try to warn you about these sorts of dire consequences.
Time to think about relocating 😉
…and what’s another name for an endothermic quadruped?
We usually just call him “dead”.
I do believe it’s written into the contract that all cats must very closely supervise all bed-making activities. Baihu does an especially good job at it!
There’s also something in there about folding laundry, too….
b&
At 3:53 in Data’s Spot video, there seems to have been a sub. A substitute Spot with a slightly bushier tail and darker fur.
I noticed that, too. They probably had several back up “Spots” for when one would get finicky about performing.
There were a couple of clips from the movie Alien slipped in there. Clips of Ripley’s cat mysteriously, to the humans, reacting to the alien.
I thought everybody knew? Jones and Spot are the same cat. S/he simply used an interdimensional wormhole to commute between the two ships.
b&
There is a definite strategy to the two cats and one bed game. The cat who maintains a position nearer the center of the bed will always win. The cat who doesn’t figure this out will always lose and end up on the floor regardless of any difference in size.
Love the ode!
I have never for 9 years of having my cat Frankie made the bed without a battle. A fun battle, but a battle nevertheless. He pounces on the fitted sheet, or insists on being under it (keeping me from putting it in place, since he couldn’t get out!). He attacks the regular sheet, and just in general makes himself a complete pain in the bedmaker’s arse. Yes, making a bed without a cat is infinitely less fun, but oh so much more productive. I assume, anyway. I haven’t been able to try it in all these years.
If something happened to him, I think I would miss this most of all.