Yeti

Annalise, who is very bossy with the cat, is also becoming interested in his well-being. MANY times a day she comes to me and asks if he needs food ("Yeti? Food? Annalise do it?") And usually I have to tell her no because she already fed him three times today and he is large and fat. When it is time to feed him though, she carefully picks up his ceramic dish (she has never dropped it), takes it into the garage where the bag of diet cat food is, and places it carefully on the ground. She opens the bag, retrieves the scoop, slowly and meticulously pours the tiny kibbles into his bowl without spilling one, and zooms back to the laundry room to present it to him. He is always very happy about this. She is always very happy about this. She squats downs and grins maniacally one inch from his face while he crunches, exceptionally pleased with herself.

Sometimes he gets full though. And if she happens to walk by and there is food in his dish and he is not there eating it, she finds herself on a single-focused mission.

"Yeti! Food!" she shouts, grabbing the dish from the ground and scouring the house to find him. "YETI!" she bellows. "FOOOOOOOOOD!"

Once she finds him she shoves the bowl under his nose and demands at the top of her voice that he eat. The shouting can go on for ten minutes. I try to explain that he is not hungry. This is never good enough for her. She is very harrassing when she wants to be.

The most surprising part of it to me is that in the end she usually wins. Yeti gives up and starts eating from whatever hiding spot he found where she crammed his dish in after him. And she smiles and nods at me knowingly.

"Yeti," she explains. "Food."