Cats are obviously less intelligent than we with their walnut sized brains and their lack of opposable thumbs, but as a species of animal they aren’t all that unintelligent. We domesticated dogs by becoming their alphas and making them want to serve and adore us. Cats were a bit cannier than that. They allowed us to only half-tame them, to benefit from our care when they wish it, but aloof enough to live without us when they wish that instead. Of cats we are never quite the masters that we are with dogs. More often we are their servants and worshippers. No, they’ve never forgotten the good old days in Egypt when first they domesticated us.
I see a bit of Bast in Lucy as she sits and refuses to deign to come even when I shake the treat can that drives the Kitten Sisters into paroxysms of simper and beg. No Lucy will not come no matter how sweetly called. Her treats must be brought to her and offered in a neat pile as she sits and sighs at my tardiness in the offering. I wish I were smart enough to demand such servitude.
Esme on the other hand has much less personal dignity. I scoop her up in her tortoiseshell furred permanent clown suit and cradle her unresistingly in the crook of my arm like a baby. Her golden-brown eyes look at me intently as though perhaps she knows more than she’s telling. I could almost pretend to read an air of acceptance maybe even intelligence in those eyes, until I give in to my own mischief and begin to tease her. I flick the tip of her own tail across her nose and she, proven now less than the brilliant I might anthropomorphically pretend her to be, attacks the furry twisty bit in front her face. Her paws grasp and grab until, finally, finally, she catches it and chomps down upon it in triumph - and then, of course, dismay.
Nope, poor little Esme.
Not one of the brightest examples of her species.
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