Clever Cat Lets Mom Back Inside House After She Locks Herself Out

[catbyte]

“I kept tapping on the window and pointing to the door handle."

BY CAITLIN JILL ANDERS

Claire Paynter was in and out of her house doing chores all day, and at one point when she went to go back inside, the door handle fell off right in her hands. Unable to open the door without it, she frantically tried to figure out a way to break into her own house, when her cat Gingee came up to the door.

Gingee was meowing through the glass, trying to figure out why his mom wouldn’t just come inside already, and that’s when Paynter had a crazy thought: She decided to see if she could get Gingee to open the door.

“I wasn’t really expecting it to work,” Paynter told The Dodo.



Paynter tapped on the window, and Gingee was immediately curious. He hopped up onto the washing machine, which was level with the door handle, and Paynter knew this was her chance to try and get him to let her in.

“I kept tapping on the window and pointing to the door handle,” Paynter said.



Paynter tapped and tapped, trying to get Gingee to understand. It took around 10 minutes of constant tapping and explaining …



… but finally, Gingee understood what his mom wanted him to do. He reached out with his paws and grabbed onto the handle, opening the door and finally letting his mom back inside.



Paynter was so proud of Gingee for helping her get inside and thrilled that her crazy plan actually worked — but she also hoped she hadn’t accidentally created a problem.

“Now I’ll have to make sure he doesn’t let anyone else in,” Paynter said.

https://www.thedodo.com/close-to-home/cat-lets-mom-back-into-locked-house

[Iliyah]

1. Smart . . .

[Jane Austin]

2. Or-

Let himself out!

[Karadeniz]

3. I think I've read a similar story...and I've had two cats who opened lever handles.

[Laffy Kat]

4. Yes, they can. Way back when, I had a a kitteh that could use a knob.

That same puss learned how to turn on the box heater in my apartment. She liked it toasty, LOL. She figured out cause and effect! She was the best kitteh ever; she's been gone over 30 years and I still miss her.

[wnylib]

5. Cats are very good at discovering cause and effect.

They sre the scientists of the animal world. They investigate, experiment, and when they like the results, they repeat them.

Getting a cat to do something is not s matter of the cat's intelligence to learn, but of whether it feels like doing what you want it to do.

Funny (and exaspersting) experiment I caught my cat doing one dsy. She liked to pull items out of my crochet bag to play with, so I usually put the bag in a closet (with a knob handle) when I wasn't using it. One day i left it on the floor while I went into the bathroom.

When i returned, the cat had pulled out the afghan I was working on and dragged it under the dining table. In the process, the loose end of the yarn got wound around a chair leg. The cat turned to see what made it resistant to moving. Next step, I'm not sure of. Was she trying to unstick it? Or to repeat the process for fun? Anyway, when she turned back to check out where it was stuck, still carrying the yarn in her mouth, part of it unravelled and got looped around another chair leg.

She then proceeded to walk around the chairs while the yarn unravelled and got wound around the legs as she moved about. She kept looking back as if checking the results and then wove herself and the yarn around more legs, leaving her own woven pattern behind her. She looked very entertained and pleased with herself.

Despite the mess I had to untangle and the segment of the afghan I had to redo, it was funny to warch her in motion, constantly turning her head back to check out the trail she was leaving behind her.

[Laffy Kat]

6. That was impressive. It is true that some cats seem more motivated than others.

Or maybe some have higher kitteh IQs. I've had many cats but only one was as smart as Tashie.

[wnylib]

7. Yes, some cats are remarkably clever. Others

are notable for being cute, cuddly, loyal, etc. Like people, they have different personalities and levels of intelligence, or areas of intelligence.. I have had other cats that were pretty clever, but I think the current one, who unravelled my afghan, is the smartest cat that I've known. She learns quickly, loves to experiment with things, and still amazes me sometimes with what she comes up with.

I have loved them all and enjoyed their individual quirks and traits. But for smarts, the current one, Ember, stands out to me, like Tashie does for you.