a genius unappreciated in his own time

[rushthatspeaks]

Our Lucien-cat is still alive. Ruth and I went to Provincetown for the weekend, and I thought I had just about managed to cat-proof the kitchen before we left, but this turned out not to be the case

Comments

[adrian_turtle]

I am in awe.

>if he has to be the Einstein of cats, maybe he could apply himself to more generally socially acceptable goals overall

Isn't performance art socially acceptable? It's too bad you have to take the flat away from him, because I'd love to see a video of him doing it again.

[schreibergasse]

What they said.

[zurita2015]

!!!! Are there other cats nearby to learn from him???? Maybe you could start a cat school. Some lazy owners would prefer cats who can open cans (but then, the cats would open cans of human food too... and the humans would have to eat only the things that cats consider uneatable...)

[gwynnega]

That is quite impressive.

[desperance]

So there was this one time I boiled a ham, and left it to cool in its water; and went into town actually thinking *there's no way the cats can get at that, immersed as it is in greasy warm water, and weighing twelve pounds as it does."

I came home to find the pot still on the stove, the water still in the pot, and the well-chewed ham on the kitchen floor. Which these were two cats who hate each other, and neither one of them could have achieved this by themselves. The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.

[sovay]

c) pulling up the pull-tab on the can lid somehow, probably with his teeth

I expect so. I'm pretty sure he just chewed through the plastic. The part that really impresses me (aside from everything) is that the way the cans are designed, he had to pull the tab forward to crack the seal and then backward to peel the lid off. Since I don't think his current weight is sufficient to allow him to drag a heavy flat of unopened cans around without the aid of gravity, which only works in one direction, I'm thinking that part of the noise was Lucien obtaining an angle of attack for (c) and then relocating to a different angle for (d). Since he had only the one can to work with, either he arrived at this order of operations by trial and error or he just watched us enough times. I'm not willing to put the latter past him.