Meowllo everypawdy, we hope you all had a good weekend. It’s December and Christmas will be here befur you know it. Ifin you missed our Gift Guide, you can see it here. We know you’ll find something for everyone on your list there. And don’t worry, there’s purrlenty of time to get it befur Christmas. (wink) Today is also Service Cat Monday, and we know you’ve all stopped by fur a Service Cat posty. As with all our educational posts the following will be written in human English. Ifin you’ve missed any of the posts in this series, purrlease click on the links at the bottom of this post. We’re kinda not sure what to post today. As a lot of you know, mommy fell da other day and we wrote ‘bout it last Service Cat Monday. Everypawdy cheered as Raena’s furst respawnse was to run fur da fone. Mommy and me are very purroud of her as well. But we also got a few questions via comments and email ‘bout trainin’ kitty to dial 911/call fur help. So, here’s our quandry. We’ve already written dat post and we’ve linked to it in every Service Cat Monday post since.
We’ve re-read that post and are quite satisfied that we covered 911 training sufficiently and trying to re-word it wouldn’t do any good. So, ifin you missed that post or would like a refresher, please click here to read it. Our question to those of you who asked the question is, Did you want a training post or did you want a story about Raena’s phone training? We call them “stories” not because they aren’t factual, but because they don’t really explain how to train. They are for entertainment purposes only. And entertaining they can be. They can also be frustrating, as training is all about repetition. Anyways, assuming, (and we all know what that word means) that you wanted a story, then sit back and enjoy.
First me has to tell you that we have cordless phones and each handset has a speakerphone option and all calls sent to voicemail are screened through the handsets. So for all intents and purposes, the handset is the phone to us. Now me told you all that Raena was quite the little helper from her first day, so mommy began to introduce her to the phone right away. She wasn’t nearly big enough to push the buttons, but she could learn to be interested in it. Mommy lets most calls go to voicemail initially, so we can get used to unknown and known voices coming out of the handset. So ifin you’re calling us, don’t hang up, leave a message. Or at least start to, ya’ never know when mommy might be reinforcing our training. Anyways, Raena loved the phone almost as much as me did.
She would bite the phone, whacky paw the phone and lay on it when it rang. When somebody called she would sit and cock her head one way and then the other. All good signs and mommy reinforced her interest with lots of love and cuddles. All of which Raena ate up. You all know she’s a little love bug, right? The day finally came when she was big enough to actually push the buttons down, so mommy began training. She had programed the emergency call to go to her cell phone which didn’t get a signal at our house. So mommy was pretty comfortable that Raena wouldn’t be calling anybody by “mistake” or getting us in trouble with the law. Remember, it’s a Crime to call 911 ifin you don’t have a real emergency. Well, training went on as usual, till this one afternoon when mommy fell. Falling for mommy is normal, the bad ones like the other day, aren’t.
Anyways, mommy fell. Yep, there she sat on the floor all sprawled out, looking for something to grab onto to pull herself up when she heard a strange ringing. She looked around and there me was, sitting by her as always. But where was Raena? Nothing scares Raena, so we knew she wasn’t hiding out. Mommy kept hearing this strange muffled ringing sound coming from the living room. Mommy looked around once more and then called for Raena. Raena came running down the hall from the living room with the phone hanging from her mouth. Hmmmmm Now it all made sense. Raena had pushed the emergency pre programmed number and for some reason, we actually had cell service and the cell phone was ringing. The thing is, mommy and Raena weren’t at that part of her training yet. Mommy hadn’t actually trained Raena to make the full call.
Anyways, the little stinker laid the phone at mommys feet, just outta reach, and began to meow at the top of her lungs. The ringing had stopped now as the voicemail mommy never set up hadn’t answered and the phone disconnected the call.
What? No sense in setting up a voicemail if you don’t have service and rarely give the number out. Thankfully Raena hadn’t reached the “somebody answers” part of her training, so once mommy called her, she believed the “exercise” to be over. Yes, mommy in the floor is another training technique mommy uses. It’s got to kind of sort of look real right? Anyhow, mommy knew then that Raena was going to be too smart for her own good and she was going to have to figure out something new to do with the phone. Raena made her first official training call to 911 later that evening, and we’ve never looked back.
Our emergency pre programmed number is once again set to 911, so that’s why mommy was certain to stop Raena from making the call the other day. And that’s the first time Raena’s gone for the phone since officially ending her phone training. But remember, training is ongoing. Raena has now learned the difference between the “normal” daily falls and a “serious might need help” fall. So there ya’ have it. A day in the life of a Service Cat in Training.
This will be our last Service Cat Monday post for the year 2016. With the holidays upon us and so many things going on, we thought we’d let everybody including mommy rest. We have our annual nursing home visit coming up and festival of lights, where mommy takes us around to see the lights peeps put up. Needless to say, it’s a busy time of year. So we’ll be writing more Service Cat posts in the New Year, but for now, we want everyone to enjoy the season.
Service Cats U.S. 