A couple days ago, DoubleShot started doing something interesting. Quite frequently, she calls out to us. “Hey!” Sometimes it’s loud, sometimes quiet. It’s frequent. “Hey!” We respond back with another “hey!” Back and forth, back and forth. We’ve turned it into a game. I’ll raise or lower my pitch, sing the responses, “hey, ho, hi, hehehe.” She’ll respond back the same.
My husband jokes that she’s turned into our little sonar. Ping. Ping. Ping. “Are you still there? Are you available? Are you paying attention? Do you hear me? Am I visible? Now? What about now?”
Yes, dearie. We hear you! We are here for you! Yup, still here!
It doesn’t matter if we’re at home or out. She does the exact same thing. I am so grateful that I’ve been praying for patience. Before DoubleShot, this kind of behavior would have driven me up the wall. But God has given me a gift and I am able to respond with kindness.
On our walk on Sabbath, Jeff and I even started voicing the meaning behind the behavior when she pinged us. “Yes, DoubleShot, we hear you.” “Yes, we are still here for you.” “Yes, we care about you.” I’m not sure how much she understands, but hopefully some of our affirmations are getting through.
I find that I also have much more patience (which is to say, any at all!) with behavior from Half-pint that would otherwise drive me up a tree.
It’s really a blast, isn’t it?
This is very sweet!
Good going. Even my fur daughter gets up from the floor from time to time and comes over to where I am, putting her head on my knee. A little pat and “Yes Nikko, I love you” and she goes back to her nap. We all need a bit of verification from time to time.
And right when I was reading your comment, Bruno came over and asked for some lap time! LOL I love cats!!