Minor edits, plus some recent overthinking/smart things Jackson has done
We have a cat named Jackson. He’s a very unique cat — quite smart, an explorer, but also a bit of a butthead.
Jerk
One characteristic of Jackson is that — he’s a bit of a jerk. I’m convinced that he thinks he’s the dominant member of the house. He’ll stalk your plate when you’re eating, and even try to grab stuff from it. We now try to keep him off the tables.
He’s such a consistent jerk, that we often call him ‘Jerkles’ and ‘Jerky Jerk’ — and he responds to those names as if they are really his name.
He’s affectionate, but only if it benefits him. We use the phrase ‘lick lick bite’ because he will be affectionate (lick lick) but then end it with a bite — quite often. (Maybe he thinks that bites are nice?)
Sometimes when he is mean to you (scratch, bite) and you scold him, he will lie on his side and kick himself in the head. My belief is that this is his way of punishing himself for doing something he shouldn’t have done.
Smart
Jackson is a problem solver. He’s able to open cabinets, drawers, nightstands, etc.
He will hang with me when I go to the bathroom, and will stand on his hind legs to watch the toilet flush — because he’s trying to understand what’s happening and where the water is going. He also stares at the exhaust fan in the ceiling trying to figure out what it is.
When the dog is around (we share the dog with our daughter), we put a gate up at the door to our other cat’s room to keep the dog from eating her food or harassing her. Jackson knows how to open the gate (and jump over it), but Olive (our other cat) doesn’t.
Dogs understand human words better than cats, but Jackson isn’t far behind dogs. He does know maybe 20? 30? words. Recently, my wife said to him (when he was being crazy) ”Do you want to bite me?” He knew what ’bite’ meant, so he bit her arm and punctured her skin.
Some recent events that show Jackson’s smartness:
- Litter Box – We recently removed the basic litter box (which Jackson preferred) — which made him use the powered one (which does a post-visit sweep to collect the deposit). The first time he used the powered one, he cried/whined aloud while using it — because he was afraid it would do the sweep while he was inside. In reality, it waits 5? 10? minutes after the cat leaves before doing the sweep. He has now subseqúntly become OK with using the powered box.
- Speaker – I was playing music on a speaker, and one song must have sounded to Jackson like a speaking (familiar?) human voice. He stared at the speaker with big eyes, trying to understand where the voice was coming from. I then started singing along with the song, and he started looking back and forth (with big eyes) from the speaker to me — trying to understand what was happening.
- Door – We have a shy indoorsy female cat that doesn’t get along with Jackson. My wife sometimes locks Jackson in a room with me to allow the other cat to wander around, and even go outside. She did this recently, and Jackson, knowing what was going on, decided he wanted to join the fun. To do this, he needed to open the door. He’s a big cat, so the first thing he tried was to stand on his back feet and mess with the doorknob — since this is how people open the door. It didn’t work for him (touching and smacking the knob) so, because he’s a problem solver, he figured out how to put his paw under the door (double door, not latched at the top) and pull it toward him to open it.
- Razor – My wife was shaving my face on the bed with an electric razor. (I can’t do this anymore because ALS has made my arms mostly unusable.) Jackson was right next to me on the bed, and he thought that she was hurting me. So he smacked the razor multiple times with his paw, and knocked it out of her hand. Very funny.
At some point, I’d like to find an online cat intelligence test — and see where Jackson lands.
Explorer
Jackson wanders the neighborhood (my neighbors all mention that they see him in their backyards, plus he spends time at the creek which is about 500 feet from our front door) — and even goes on walks with us. For a cat to be confident enough that he can take a long walk with his owners (sometimes we go a whole mile) he must believe that he can overcome most anything that he encounters.
He has explored all aspects of our house: the inside and top of every shelf, cabinet, bookcase, etc. He does the same outside — he’s been in trees, climbed up the arbor, walks along fences, etc. He’s even been on the roof with me when I was putting up Christmas lights on the second floor gutter.
One of his favorite outdoor things is to roll around on gravel (we have some in our yard). I think he likes a back scratch, and this is his way of giving himself one. It does make him dirty, so that we need to clean up his inside beds pretty often.
Rat-tastrophy
We had an interesting situation a few years ago, where the spare toilet paper rolls in the cabinet under our downstairs bathroom sink would get shredded. We would discover this every few weeks.
The wall under the sink has some holes in it (from a relocation of the hot/cold water pipes), so we became convinced that mice? rats? were wandering in through the wall and tearing things up. So we put a motion-sensing camera in the cabinet to see what was going on.
The cameras never caught any activity, and we instead realized that it was Jackson opening the cabinet doors, tearing things up, then closing the doors — when we were gone for a day or two, and he was sad/lonely.
Visitors
We have other cats that visit our house during the night (we see them on camera) — they are either his friends, or enemies. They might be wild cats from the creek (these exist) or they might be domestic cats whose owners allow night wandering.
Injuries
We used to let Jackson stay outside the whole night, if he wanted to. We now work to get him inside.
He’s had three instances where he has had serious injuries that required $500+ of medical treatment. Not sure whether these are from fights (with cats or other animals) or injuries from exploring (climbing under/over something sharp).
Another characteristic of Jackson is — he has a handful of notches (missing pieces) on his ears. Similar to the bigger injuries he has had — I don’t know if these came from fights, or just dangerous explorations.
Hunter
One interesting thing about Jackson is his hunting skills. He spends half of his time outdoors and, though he’s sensible with his activities, he often catches, kills, and eats various animals.
I have so many photos/videos of him bringing an animal in his mouth to the door. He’s often tossing animals around in the backyard grass — as he kills and eats them. Just in the last couple of weeks, I have a video of him eating a bird, plus I found a palm-sized patch of fur/skin on the grass — not sure what it’s from (mouse? rat?)
Today (as I’m writing this) he showed up at the back door with a bird, ate it, then came inside to be acknowledged for his success. I used to think that (maybe) he killed something once a month. I’ve come to realize that it’s more like once a week (another set of remnants at the back door today — a few days later).
He also steals my other cat’s food if he thinks she has more, or her food is tastier.
Genetics?
What’s interesting is that there is a cat at the other end of our neighborhood that looks like Jackson’s twin — and that cat is also a hunter. Maybe cats with the same genetics have similar personalities? What’s more interesting is: that cat’s name is Jameson — very similar name to Jackson.
Summary
In summary, we like Jackson a lot — despite his challenging personality and activities. He’s ten years old now, but still very active. It’s interesting that he has such a complex personality. We’ll be sad when he’s no longer with us.