Refresher course.

It's definitely time for a refresher course for my lot. They are not up to scratch and are getting lax and lazy. For instance, if I sit on my back legs in my basket I should get carrot. If I sit on the corner of the kitchen mat I should be given a nibble or two of apple or pear. Surely that's easy enough for anybody to understand. If I sit at her feet and look up I need my head and ears stroked so I can push my face into her hand, stick my nose between her fingers and give her a good wash. When I sit and stare at a closed door it means I want it opened. If I turn my back I want to be left alone. Is that easy or is that easy?

Any human two year old could learn these things considering the number of times a day I run through them with her but until she learns, there is no point in moving on to the latest rule which is to leave me upstairs to play in my burrows for as long as I like. I'll just have to continue stamping my foot until she realises I will come downstairs in my own time and at my own pace.

Thank goodness we coincide at afternoon nap time! Harve's morning and evening activities can be hectic when he is in a bouncy mood. He learns so quickly. If a thing happens once he thinks it is written in stone. If I don't follow his rule he scuttles around my feet until I give a firm "no". Sometimes it works, sometimes I lose my balance. Simon insists he caught him reading a book on particle physics in the corner of the hutch when he lived with them. A sideways shot at me I think.

And we all know how to translate the foot stamping game.

1. Here I am. Watch me, watch me, I am now in the room.

2. I am behind the television, so there.

3. Don't you dare poop-check me.

4. I do not want to come downstairs and you can't make me.

Interesting that the warning thump for danger in the wild has become a means of communication in the house.