I always suspected that my Dodopuff has an opinion about whether he wants his ears cleaned, and ear-cleaning is not something that just “happens” to him when I feel like cleaning his ears. I think he’s been manipulating me, and today I got confirmation.

There are times when he’d just sit in front of me and meow piteously and scratch his cone with his hind leg, making a tap-tap-taptaptap noise. Sometimes I’d stop and observe him, see which ear he’s going after, then Q-tip that ear or clean it with a cottonball and disinfecting solution the vet had given me. He used to struggle, so I just figured he didn’t like me screwing with his body parts. Today, he’s doing the rat-a-tat-tat thing, and I stood in the bathroom where I was getting ready for work, kept my eye on him, and opened the drawer that I keep Q-tips in. Hearing the sliding sound, Dodo came running into the bathroom meowing and plastered himself to my leg. He purred loudly when I Q-tipped his little ears. He totally KNEW where the Q-tips are kept and he KNEW when his cone-scratching has achieved the desired effect!

Now I think back to his other actions, like when he’s out of food and I’m being lazy on the couch ignoring his meows, and he’d jump onto tables and countertops and knock things over (which he normally wouldn’t do) and make all this noise, to force me to get up to chase him off the tables, and then he’d go running to his food and sit looking pointedly at his empty bowl now that he got my attention.

That clever little feline!