What’s Going On in Frodo’s Head?
“Decisions, decisions…”
12 minutes
Like the Zodiac Killer, Frodo’s true identity is an unknown, though he does leave clues. Ever since this charming enigma entered our lives, I’ve tried to understand him, but the mystery has only deepened over time. Therefore I’ve resolved to take everything I know about him and throw it up against the wall, drawing lines and posting sticky notes, like they do in the movies. I will be Aristotle, the observer; Darwin, the meticulous naturalist, Clarice Starling, the FBI profiler (without all the weird personal baggage.) I do not mean to suggest that Frodo is any kind of offender or deviant; on the contrary, he is probably the world’s best pet. But he is a cat.
“What are the humans thinking?”
Like any investigator, I have a number of why, how, and what questions I’d like to ask him, but conversations with the furry one have usually been rather one-sided. My hope, therefore, is to get at the truth of Frodo by a more indirect route, asking simple questions and providing the most plausible answers until an image of the true Frodo emerges from the details. I will try, by elimination, to arrive at the truth. Here goes:
How often is Frodo actually hungry?
Every morning Frodo receives a generous portion of kibbles, of which he eats only about half. The other half sits in the bowl until the evening feeding, at which point the cat indicates by meowing, nuzzling, shaking the bowl, or swatting at me with half-clawed hands, that he is again “hungry.” But if he is hungry, why doesn’t he eat the food still there?
A) Frodo is not really hungry, otherwise he’d eat the remaining food. (But he digs-in immediately, once I drop in the evening scoop, so that can’t be it.)
B) Frodo is somewhat hungry, but he does not like to eat the bits of kibble that broke off as he munched his way down. (Plausible)
C) Frodo is somewhat hungry, but his instinctive preference for routine is greater than his present hunger. (Plausible)
D) Frodo interprets being fed as a form of affection. (Somewhat Plausible)
Why does Frodo wake me up early in the morning?
I’m an early riser. Every morning the cat comes to my side of the bed, and meows me awake. If I resist his summons, he will first claw at the bed, and if I ignore that, eventually resort to standing outside my children’s door and meowing loudly, which has the instant result of getting me up for the sake of saving my morning routine. Though my wife, for whom he seems to have a marked preference (more on this below) is lying next to me, he largely ignores her in the wee hours. Though my children are loud and boisterous, and prone to make the kind of jerky movements that set him on edge, he is willing to risk waking them in order to achieve his real goal of waking me. This, and the fact that his wakeup meow time changes to reflect my own normal alarm time — around 4:50 a.m. when I was waking up at 5:00 a.m.; around 3:49 a.m. now that I’m trying to wake up at 4:00 a.m. — makes it obvious that it’s specifically me whom he is waking up, so that I can perform the feeding ritual. But why me?
A) I’m Frodo’s favorite! (Implausible, as the cat shows far more spontaneous affection toward my wife.)
B) Frodo does not want to inconvenience my wife by waking her up early. (Plausible. Cats can sense danger!)
C) Frodo associates me with necessary and practical functions, of which food (and changing his litter) are examples. (Plausible, given the 90/10 split on spontaneous affection between the wife and me, and a proportionate split with household cat tasks.)
D) Frodo is obsessive about regular routine. (Very plausible, since, even if I get up to feed him “on time”, and then return to bed, the cat will come back anyway to meow me back awake.)
What are the upper and lower limits of Frodo’s sociability?
“You realize, I could kill you.”
Our cat is very cool. I’m not sure cats can really be friendly; at least not friendly-dog friendly. But Frodo is very sweet. Most impressively, he shows incredible forbearance toward our four-year-old, whose cat-squishing hugs he endures with great patience. Even when that patience has reached its end, and the thrice-warned pre-schooler receives a cat-swat or a nip for his importunities, Frodo is obviously pulling his punches. He’ll even suffer the little barbarian to come back and stroke him in apology. Now that is a great cat!
There’s more. He climbs up beside people, sometimes licks my hands like a dog, and even tolerates being picked up and nuzzled. True, he will protest this clingy sort of love, but not with violence or “cattiness.” The question for me is how to properly characterize Frodo’s amiability on a spectrum of affection where one extreme is Garfield-like “I love you when it’s useful to me” cat sociopathy, and the other extreme is Lassie-level “I would die for you, master!” loyalty.
A) Frodo’s “friendliness” can be cashed out entirely in terms of tit-for-tat exchanges. It satisfies only immediate needs. (Impossible. Frodo performs many gratuitously social acts which serve no immediate bodily need.)
B) Frodo’s “friendliness” is part of a long-term strategy for obtaining immediate bodily needs. In other words, he is friendly most of the time in order to be fed twice a day. (Highly Implausible. Since Frodo lacks an intellect, he cannot connive in this way. Now there are long-term, non-deliberate behaviors that serve immediate animal needs; however, those are instinctive properties of the species as a whole. But, plenty of house cats get by without this degree of sweetness, so this explanation is doesn’t work.)
C) Frodo’s sociability is on par with that of a very loyal dog or horse. Like them, he’s practically an altruistic animal. (Implausible. Despite his unique sweetness, he’s still a highly independent animal. Like all cats, he sets definite boundaries between himself and humans.)
D) Frodo is a genuinely sweet cat, who enjoys affection for its own sake, but whose amiability is still bounded by his cat nature. As such, its not dog-level altruism, but rather feline indulgence taken to the absolute limits that those instincts will permit. That is to say, he’s really, really sweet, but he’s still a cat. (Highly Plausible. This matches all the data, including the fact that he sets different boundaries with different people. Case in point, my wife and me.)
Why does Frodo love my wife more than me?
When Frodo first came home, we had a connection. While the others pawed at him, frightening the little adoptee with their smothering affections, he showed me an immediate preference. This was because I understood him. Like Frodo, I am a creature who needs affection, but who also needs his space. All of this was wordlessly communicated between us, with the result that Frodo came over to my side of the bed to sleep, and even rolled on his back to let me pet his belly. Those were the good old days.
Now my wife is the clear favorite. True, he still sleeps between my feet, and recently came down to climb in beside me where I napped on the couch, but these incidents are few and far between. When my spouse and I are together (and awake) he consistently prefers her. In the name of science, what gives?
A) My wife smells better than me. (Plausible)
B) My wife has had far more daily contact with the cat, since I have had to leave the house in order to put a warm roof over his head, and food in his bowl. (Plausible, but super-unfair.)
C) My wife talks to the cat in a gooey-cooey voice. (Plausible. I don’t talk much. Nobody want to hear my boring ideas, which is why I have a blog.)
D) Frodo’s affections are somewhat capricious, and he doles out them out in highly idiosyncratic ways. (Plausible. Case in point, his restraint toward the four-year-old, but not toward me.)
Why does Frodo show restraint toward my four-year-old, but not toward me?
“You are dangerous, and I should leave. But I am rather tired, so…”
As nearly as I can tell, Frodo’s behavior violates both human justice and the dictates of science. When the pre-schooler walks up and puts a rubber band around his head, Frodo is naturally distressed, but very reluctant to claw the little barbarian as he deserves. Meanwhile, mere boredom is sufficient reason for Frodo to come up and claw me in the back.
A) Frodo holds back in the pre-schooler’s case, because he’s afraid of me, and of the consequences of harming my child. (Somewhat Plausible. Retaliatory cat-scratches are more frequent when I’m not in the room. However, incidents of aggressive four-year-old behavior are also likely to be more prolonged under the same circumstances.)
B) Frodo is not particularly afraid of my wrath, since he will happily plant his claws in my back, or irritate me until I wake up. Instead, the cat has decided that I’m someone whose buttons he can push to get what he wants (or just to vent his annoyance) without much consequence to himself. (*Sigh* Only too Plausible)
Is Frodo curious, murderous, or both?
There is nothing like seeing a cat on the hunt. All living things, contra-Descartes, have what Aristotle called the psuche, that is, a life principle or soul, which is the organizing principle that gives form to their matter. If you want proof that Frodo has a soul, you need only watch him as he pursues some spider or cave cricket. All of his sensory powers are activated. Mind and body work together, focused on one object, until that singular moment when the little critter has been cornered and uncovered. Then come the precise, almost analytical swats and taps. “What are you, little one?” he seems to say to it. “Are you strong or weak? What’s that you say? Not so strong after all? Oh, look at that, friend, your leg has come off, and its wiggling back-and-forth. I wonder if the other leg does that same trick. Say…what is the color of your blood? Shall we find out, you and me?” Yet Frodo approaches inanimate objects with a similar kind of curiosity, though without the same sustained attention, nor the laser focusing of all his powers to a single point. Indeed, as I write this, he has just explored a bucket of water, which has now crashed to the ground, emptying its contents on the back porch. He seems surprised by the outcome. Since these modes of investigation are similar in form, can Frodo’s investigations of unfortunate little creepie-crawlies be understood in the same terms? Or does Frodo just like to kill things?
A) Upon reflection, this one pretty much answers itself. Frodo, like all cats, enjoys investigating, and his manner of investigating happens to involve scratching, pawing, and piercing. If the object of his attentions has the power to move, hide, and attempt to escape, this only increases the fun. Upon capture, Frodo analyzes the little critter to death, because what is the point of analysis without the bringing matters to a definite conclusion? What is the fun in any hunt without the consummation of consumption? “No hard feelings, little one,” I can imagine him saying. “It’s just that I’m very strong, and you are very little.” No wonder our two-year mouse problem resolved itself two days after Frodo came home. A cat is the mouse equivalent of a T-Rex. They are terrifying little explorers. Which raises the question…
Would Frodo eat me, if I were small enough?
A) (Plausible, if not certain.)
We are beginning to form a very definite image of Frodo, but before we reflect on all the data, and construct our personal profile of this fluffy mystery, I have a few other behaviors to consider.
Just what does Frodo think the Swiffer Wet Jet is?
One of the proofs that even the cleverest and most personable of animals lacks reason is that they always have weird and unexpected limitations to their cleverness. Thus, an octopus may be able to escape its aquarium, or morph itself into a novel object, but they are apparently not smart enough to collectively avoid ending up for sale at your local ethnic grocery store. Frodo also has his limits. Despite the general contrast between his behavior in the presence of living and non-living things, and despite the fact that he is currently meowing at me and opening the storm door with his paw because he wants to go inside, yet knows he cannot budge the back door, still he cannot figure out that the mop is not alive. Now I don’t blame the cat for disliking this device. I share his antipathy. I have had one of these decidedly unmanly mops break under the lightest elbow grease. But Frodo seems to think the Swiffer is some kind of dangerous animal. Literally the only time our cat acts “catty” is when one of us is cleaning the wood floors. He hisses, he swipes, he rushes at it and bites. Frodo just hates that thing, and clearly regards it as a threat to himself. The question is, why?
A) The Swiffer looks like some other animal contained in his instinctual memory. (Implausible. The Swiffer doesn’t really look like anything. As cleaning implements go, it is possibly the least intimidating, girly-looking thing I’ve ever seen.)
B) The Swiffer’s mechanical spitting sound, in combination with its back-and-forth motion, reminds him of some threatening animal. (Plausible. In fact he probably thinks the Swiffer is a big cat on the hunt. Or maybe a vicious stork. But this is yet another demonstration of the weird limits of animal cleverness. If Frodo could reason at all, he would be able to tell that the Swiffer is as dead as the couch he’s currently slumbering on.)
Just what does Frodo want in a toy?
My last question, before assembling my profile, is about the mystery of Frodo’s choice in toys. There seems to be no pattern here whatsoever. Generally speaking, if a toy possesses obvious qualities that a cat would seem to like — movement, resemblance to a mouse, catnip — then Frodo will treat it as if it’s the most boring artifact in existence. On the other hand, if an object looks nothing like anything he’d ever hunt or eat, and poses a choking hazard, and/or playing with it will make a terrible mess for someone else to clean up, then Frodo just loves it. Leave a paper towel roll, or a rubber band, or a piece of frayed wire around, and Frodo will do the best he can to kill or ingest it. Give him an electronic mouse that actually runs, and turns, and hides, and Frodo — the very same cat who think the Swiffer is a velociraptor — will bat it about a few times, and then settle down to a slumber of sheer boredom. I have no theories about this, except the general observation that cats, like toddlers, go out of their way to contradict you.
Conclusion: Profiling Frodo
“Ah, movement. The struggle is real.”
Having carefully surveyed the mystery that is Frodo, I am prepared to draw up a sketch of his personality. The table below assembles my core confusions about Frodo, with their likely causes listed in descending order of importance. I now pose to Frodo that same question Dulcinea asked of Don Quixote: “Why do you do the things you do?” What is your value system, little dude?
Situation Room Notes About Subject “Frodo the Cat”
Profile of a Furry Conundrum
The subject’s core values/qualities are a need for affection, and an obsession with ritual. The tension between these two values resolves in different ways, depending on the ritual role the subject has accorded to the various members of his adoptive family. Case in point: my wife gets the lion’s share of nuzzles, and I get the lion’s share of practical care. These twin needs, affection and ritual, are in tension with another need, which is not specific to Frodo, but rather shared in common with all cats: the need to be a little punk. This explains Frodo’s tendency to deliberately do the opposite of whatever he thinks you’re expecting him to do, to ignore good toys and prefer stupid or dangerous ones, and to go out of his way to contradict his own established patterns, as soon as they are recognized as such. The subject is possessed of a certain cleverness that falls short of true intellect, yet marvelously mimics it in many cases. Like all cats, he is incredibly curious, and yet incapable of understanding the objects of his curiosity. Making the best of the situation, he pokes, swats, claws, and sometimes consumes the objects of his interest, a quality that can be interpreted as cute, or sociopathic, depending on one’s point of view. It’s all the same to Frodo.
Despite all this, Frodo’s pronounced sweetness, superior to that of all living cats, makes him the world’s best pet. Now, if only I can find a way to use this data to maneuver him into preferring me over my wonderful wife. Given the subject’s pronounced contrariness, and the sheer delight he takes in messing with my head, this outcome is, admittedly, very unlikely. But it’s worth a shot.
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