I believe that each of our pigs has a definite personality. Louise pig has
more than a personality, she has a job!! This month, I thought I'd fill
you in on the task that Louise does here and how much we appreciate her
helpfulness. Louise is genuinely shy, preferring to say hello to company,
then go about her business. We do not get a great deal of people dropping
in, so that contributes to Louise's shyness.
I have explained in previous articles that several of our cats consider
Lily their MOM. Lily has an excellent rapport with the rest of our animals
and is just now beginning to deal with the fact she now has two sisters in
her herd. Lily may have preferred to be an only pig, but that's just not
how things worked. It is funny to see cats walking with Lily through the
house all the time.
Louise's job is one that she created for herself. We call her job
"CatCop". If there is a cat who is making noise that is in any way
inappropriate to Louise (i.e. - clawing the couch in order to sharpen
nails), she will race to the cat and do this noise that resembles a small,
human cough. Louise takes her job very seriously and has learned that our
deaf cat, Marlee, can do just about anything without getting into much
trouble. We tend to use "visual" discipline with Marlee when she does
something wrong. In other words, since we cannot tell her NO, we shake our
heads NO at her and I think she understands that she's not supposed to do
that. At least she rarely returns to doing the naughty stuff. What I find
amazing is the fact that Louise knows that Marlee cannot be "corrected" in
the same way she handles the remaining cats.
I think that the cat Louise chases the most is Frances, our baby who we
raised from birth. Frances is a very active (read: spoiled) cat. She needs
to be in the middle of everything that happens in our home. This is not
always convenient. Frances helps when I wash the dishes, when I fix
something (this is the *last* place I need a cat's help!), or when we are
unpacking the grocery sacks.
It's gotten to the point where I can call out: "CatCop!!" and Louise will
come running to see which kitty is being naughty. Louise is perfectly
capable of taking care of any "bad kitty" situation. Whether it is clawing
the furniture (which hardly ever happens anymore) to chasing a kitty out
of a paper sack, Louise is ready.
There is only one problem area that we are working on now. We have a small
footstool that is covered in heavy carpet. This has always been a favorite
cat scratching place, and the cats were allowed to use the footstool to
claw on. Louise hasn't quite figured out that this one piece of furniture
is all right to sharpen nails on. When she hears the sound of scratching
on furniture (and sometimes Louise can hear it before anyone else hears
it), she comes running, the entire time doing that coughing sound, and the
next thing you know cats are scattered all over the house.
Once in a while, Louise will make an error and "correct" a cat who was not
naughty. This is funny to observe. First Louise will race up to the cat,
do the cough, then realize the cat wasn't doing anything to warrant being
corrected. Her version of an apology is quite endearing. She walks slowly
up to the cat, raises her mohawk and flops down next to kitty. In most
cases, the cat will lay down with her. Rarely will any of our cats shun a
Louise apology.