Haiku by Cat: Clock
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Today’s haiku is by Athena.
Cats are crepuscular creatures; they tend to be most active at dawn and dusk. (I will pause for a moment here and enjoy a word nerd moment; the joy of using a favorite or narrowly defined word in a perfectly normal sentence with accurate context.)
Live with a cat long enough, and you will become quite familiar with that burst of feline activity that takes place way before a civilized human’s iPhone alarm goes off.
The problem with being crepuscular (twice!), is that sunrise and sunset do not happen at the same time every day. Since a cat’s internal clock is aligned with dawn and dusk, and those events are somewhat correlated with meal times, this can lead to a disconnect between expectation and reality.
To a cat, as the days get shorter, dinner gets served later.
So even though I feed the gang around the same time by human time reckoning, the cats start their dinner dancing and mealtime meowing earlier every day.
To the felines of the house, for reasons they can neither discern nor give a mouse’s whisker about, I serve their evening meal later every night.
It’s tough to be a cat. Particularly when your staff can’t tell time.
Do your pets know when it’s dinner time? How do they tell you?
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My friends who have cats all say the same thing as you did – this is a tough time of year meal-wise. Daisy just kind of takes life as it comes both for meals and for going out, she’s not demanding about either (and we’re VERY grateful!); her nuttiness comes out whenever someone comes over, then forget it!
My dogs are somewhat crepuscular, too. They are active in the morning and evening and enjoy napping in the middle of the day.
Oh we know when it’s dinner time. And we let the mom know it by yelling at her and trying to get her off of the ‘puter which is where she seems to be 90% of the time.
Yep. That’s definitely how it works here, too. 🙂
it’s confusing with all that time change and the shorter days… I think we don’t need a daylight time or a standard time… we only need a tummy-time :o)
Our cats start racing and meowing around at mealtime. If Mom is late or not home, cat bro Bert will shred the toilet paper in the guest bath in protest. We don’t know why this is his stress reliever for a late meal, but it has been going on for years…and yes, dinner is late, in his opinion, several times a week, so the poor toilet paper really takes a beating!
when de clox changez
R dinner izza reel mezz
for like dayz on end
{ we due knot like day lite savinz time either way it goez !! }
♥♥♥
Yep, dat’s da twuth. Our dinner is fur sure later every night. MOL Have a blest week.
Luv ya’
Dezi and Lexi
So true! My cats’ internal clocks (dogs’ too!) have been greatly disrupted. And they haven’t hesitated to let me know!