{"id":2528,"date":"2024-05-23T11:16:46","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T18:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/?p=2528"},"modified":"2025-09-25T10:15:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T17:15:29","slug":"jerky-jerk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/?p=2528","title":{"rendered":"Jerky Jerk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);color: #00006d;\" class=\"has-inline-color\"><em>Minor edits, plus some recent overthinking\/smart things Jackson has done<\/em><\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have a cat named Jackson. He\u2019s a very unique cat \u2014 quite smart, an explorer, but also a bit of a butthead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jerk<\/strong><br>One characteristic of Jackson is that \u2014 he\u2019s a bit of a jerk. I\u2019m convinced that he thinks he\u2019s the dominant member of the house. He\u2019ll stalk your plate when you\u2019re eating, and even try to grab stuff from it. We now try to keep him off the tables.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He\u2019s such a consistent jerk, that we often call him \u2018Jerkles\u2019 and \u2018Jerky Jerk\u2019&nbsp;&nbsp;\u2014 and he responds to those names as if they are really his name.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He\u2019s affectionate, but only if it benefits him. We use the phrase \u2018lick lick bite\u2019 because he will be affectionate (lick lick) but then end it with a bite \u2014 quite often. (Maybe he thinks that bites are nice?)&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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\u2019t have done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Smart<\/strong><br>Jackson is a problem solver. He\u2019s able to open cabinets, drawers, nightstands, etc.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He will hang with me when I go to the bathroom, and will stand on his hind legs to watch the toilet flush \u2014 because he\u2019s trying to understand what\u2019s happening and where the water is going.&nbsp;He also stares at the exhaust fan in the ceiling trying to figure out what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the dog is around (we share the dog with our daughter), we put a gate up at the door to our other cat\u2019s 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\u2019t.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dogs understand human words better than cats, but Jackson isn\u2019t far behind dogs. He does know maybe 20? 30? words. Recently, my wife said to him (when he was being crazy) \u201dDo you want to bite me?\u201d He knew what \u2019bite\u2019 meant, so he bit her arm and punctured her skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some recent events that show Jackson\u2019s smartness: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li style=\"margin-left:40px;\"><strong>Litter Box<\/strong> &#8211; We recently removed the basic litter box (which Jackson preferred) \u2014 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 \u2014 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 subseq\u00fantly become OK with using the powered box.<\/li><li style=\"margin-left:40px;\"><strong>Speaker<\/strong> &#8211; 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 \u2014 trying to understand what was happening.<\/li><li style=\"margin-left:40px;\"><strong>Door<\/strong> &#8211; We have a shy indoorsy female cat that doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s a big cat, so the first thing he tried was to stand on his back feet and mess with the doorknob \u2014 since this is how people open the door. It didn\u2019t work for him (touching and smacking the knob) so, because he\u2019s 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.<\/li><li style=\"margin-left:40px;\"><strong>Razor<\/strong> \u2013 My wife was shaving my face on the bed with an electric razor.&nbsp;&nbsp;(I can\u2019t 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.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>At some point, I\u2019d like to find an online cat intelligence test \u2014 and see where Jackson lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Explorer<\/strong><br>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) \u2014 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.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He has explored all aspects of our house: the inside and top of every shelf, cabinet, bookcase, etc. He does the same outside \u2014 he\u2019s been in trees, climbed up the arbor, walks along fences, etc. He\u2019s even been on the roof with me when I was putting up Christmas lights on the second floor gutter.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Rat-tastrophy<\/strong><br>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.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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 \u2014 when we were gone for a day or two, and he was sad\/lonely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Visitors<\/strong><br>We have other cats that visit our house during the night (we see them on camera) \u2014 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.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Injuries<\/strong><br>We used to let Jackson stay outside the whole night, if he wanted to. We now work to get him inside.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He\u2019s 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).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another characteristic of Jackson is \u2014 he has a handful of notches (missing pieces) on his ears. Similar to the bigger injuries he has had \u2014 I don\u2019t know if these came from fights, or just dangerous explorations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hunter<\/strong><br>One interesting thing about Jackson is his hunting skills. He spends half of his time outdoors and, though he\u2019s sensible with his activities, he often catches, kills, and eats various animals.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have so many photos\/videos of him bringing an animal in his mouth to the door. He\u2019s often tossing animals around in the backyard grass \u2014 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 \u2014 not sure what it\u2019s from (mouse? rat?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today (as I\u2019m 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\u2019ve come to realize that it\u2019s more like once a week (another set of remnants at the back door today \u2014 a few days later).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also steals my other cat\u2019s food if he thinks she has more, or her food is tastier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Genetics?<\/strong><br>What\u2019s interesting is that there is a cat at the other end of our neighborhood that looks like Jackson\u2019s twin \u2014 and that cat is also a hunter. Maybe cats with the same genetics have similar personalities? What\u2019s more interesting is: that cat\u2019s name is Jameson \u2014 very similar name to Jackson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Summary<\/strong><br>In summary, we like Jackson a lot \u2014 despite his challenging personality and activities. He\u2019s ten years old now, but still very active. It\u2019s interesting that he has such a complex personality. We\u2019ll be sad when he\u2019s no longer with us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minor edits, plus some recent overthinking\/smart things Jackson has done We have a cat named Jackson. He\u2019s a very unique cat \u2014 quite smart, an explorer, but also a bit of a butthead. JerkOne characteristic of Jackson is that \u2014 he\u2019s a bit of a jerk. I\u2019m convinced that he thinks he\u2019s the dominant member &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/?p=2528\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Jerky Jerk&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2528"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2528"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3239,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2528\/revisions\/3239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lewczyk.net\/tomswritings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}