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If you already have visited Jicky's first web site and if you have read the small book (written in french) that goes with it, you may be already familiar with some of Jicky's exploits. With this second site, I would like to let you have an idea of the type of language he developed in order to communicate with us, his human parents.
It have no doubts that experts in animal behavior would find my approach somehow simple, incomplete and anthropocentric. This does not bother me. My intention is definitely not to present a scientific piece of work although I have always taken care of verifying my interpretations. I have carefully made notes of the various expressions of my cat, checked on how identical they were each time, whether the situation was similar in each case etc... What is important to me is to be able to detect the smallest signs sent by Jicky, then decode their meaning and learn how to reply in a way that I can be sure, in turn, to be understood.
The facial expression represents the basic form of a cat's language. Grammatically speaking, it can be associated to a clause, often limited to one subject, one verb and one adjective, as: « I am hungry », « I feel sleepy », « Leave me alone », « Come here and play with me », « I want to go into » …. The object of this clause is always concrete, even if, sometimes, it also expresses some feelings such as « I love you, a little, more … » or « I am afraid ».
Several clauses can be put together to form a sentence. For instance: "Open the door" (clause number one) can be linked with "I want to go into the room" (clause number two) and "because I am hungry" (clause number three). I have often noticed that Jicky never hesitated to lie insolently, so that satisfaction could be obtained more quickly.
For example, if I happened to get up the chair where I was sitting in front of the computer in order to quickly open the door to my son Jicky, I have often noticed that he would then enter the living room, ignoring (or pretending to ignore) that his plate is lying there, full of fish, even though this was the main object of his request! This is how I catch my "gangster" in the act of deliberate lying! And, since "Monseigneur" has realised that the little trick worked, he had never hesitated to do it again! This is the reason why I do beleive this is conscious lying!.
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