Only Bekki, would think of this:

When negotiating with a cat you must speak in reverent tones. You must not be meek or weak-willed, they can sense this and negotiations will NOT go well. You must look them in the eye and not look away. You must state your views and the contract points you want nailed down before you will accept the document and sign it. You must look very, very carefully for loopholes, such as right to lay upon paperwork and open books, or the right to complain when a can you open proves to be a clever ruse, trickery, or just plain pineapple, rather then the tender vitals said cat was anticipating. You must always discuss loud and annoying (in the case of a Siamese you might need a professional mediator as this can get very hairy) meowing and the acceptable times and places for such, or more accurately the unacceptable times for such. You must not waver on your stand against late night staring that makes one bolt straight up in bed with the fear of the grim reaper foremost on your mind.

In return you must agree to ignore shocked and amused looks from said cat as you emerge from showers and baths fully soaked from head to foot. You must accept that on occasion you will be used as a butt warmer late at night when the aforementioned cat sits on your head and pillow. You must also agree, quite a big deal this one (a deal breaker really) to ignore and not, absolutely never, ever, laugh when the mentioned cat jumps, or leaps, onto a surface and slides off the end, this of course has much to do with dignity and a cats deep pride of appearances. Trust me if this one gets by in the negotiations the cat will retaliate by licking body parts just when you are poised to take a photo of what was previously a gorgeous full frontal head shot of gorgeous blue eyes perfectly turned and posed.

At the end of negotiations one will obviously need a tall glass of something alcoholic...and thank the lord it is over...until next year anyway.

A cat has nine lives, so you say. But does cat live to count nine? Yes. Once I read that cats can count. They can count seven. And only seven. Nothing more and nothing less. It does not matter whether that is true but what matters is that animals do have some senses like love, hate, fear. Because of these senses they too are endowed with emotional attachment with the human beings and their own species. They experience ‘experience’ also. We all have observed this or if we minutely observe, we can experience this. Only thing is that they cannot laugh! But they cry!

This is particularly true about domestic animals. Domestication is to say some kind of education imparted to them. When they are domesticated, they are actually educated. Might be owing to close association and intimate relation, they manage to learn a few things and they apply this experience if and when the situation demands of them. They also have joy and sorrow of their own which also they share with their masters and kith and kin. We have also observed the behaviour and mental acumen of the trained animals let alone the pet ones. So animals are just not dullards and we cannot take them for a ride. Intelligent Quotient (IQ) of theirs might not be high enough but their Emotional Quotient (EQ) is fairly even.