If you’re like most cat owners, you have little rituals and habits you carry out with your cat that few people know about. If someone filmed you doing this and blasted it across the Internet, you would die of embarrassment. For example, my mother told me the other day that she likes to pet her cat’s paws when he’s sprawled out across her lap and tell him how cute she thinks his toes are. Yeah, don’t try to tell me you don’t have secrets between you and your cat.
Okay, I’ll share one of mine. Lily is a glutton. She not only wants her plate of food at meal-time, but also Sophie’s, so we feed them separately—out of sight of each other.
Sometimes Lily will start thinking about Sophie and wondering what she has on her plate 
that she (Lily) might like and she begins to mosey in that direction. I’d let Sophie fend for herself, but the two cats are fed different types of meals because Lily’s on a low-protein kidney diet.
So when I see Lily begin to consider leaving her plate before she has finished—and knowing Sophie is still eating—I will sometimes get down on my hands and knees and pretend that I’m going to eat Lily’s food.
I say, “Mmm, this is good. Come on, Lily, you’d better eat your supper before Mama eats it all up.” Inevitably, Lily will stop—look once or twice in Sophie’s direction, then come back to her own plate to join me. I tell you it works almost every time and I don’t know if it’s because she’s afraid I’ll eat her food or if she thinks it’s cool to dine with me.
Years ago I had a cat who had her own chair at the table and she’d sit there with us at every meal eating only whatever tidbits I’d place in front of her. Yes, she had manners.
How many of you have ever shouted when you’ve had guests, “Fluffy, what are you doing on the counter (or table)? You know you’re not supposed to get up there!” However, in real life, Fluffy, Tabby, Smokey, Tigger, and all the others wander across the table and counters with abandon and you turn a blind eye to it?
Yeah, we all have special moments in private with our pets. Aren’t we fortunate that they can keep our secrets?
