myKotty Hi, fabCats! Do your cats give their helping paw when you’re folding the laundry, changing the bed sheets or unpacking your shopping bags? Or maybe they’re happy to use their tail for dusting under the furniture and their brittle tongue for cleaning up the shower? Let’s face it – cats are incredibly social creatures and they’ll put their whiskers everywhere just to supurrvise hooman’s work. But which chores will be the most interesting for the felines? We asked our myKotty team cats and let’s just say: some of their answers might surprise you.
TOP 5 chores purrfect for a cat
Among all the fabCat assistants who we interviewed for today’s article, some housework ideas were definitely more popular than others. Washing the dishes, hoovering, cleaning the toilet – “prr. Not that fascinating, get yourself together, hooman.”. But there are also some chores for which you’ll see a volunteering cat’s head quicker than you can shout: “can anyone help me clean up?”.
Planting flowers. “Ohh yes! This is what tigers love the most”.
There are probably no cats who would resist the temptation of looking into a pot or putting their paw into a freshly spilled potting soil ready for planting flowers. Litter in the litter box is obviously a great space for digging, but potting soil? That’s another level of great. And the crowning of it all being the possibility to play with the flower – purrfect. We don’t even have to prove cats’ passion for gardening – everyone who has seen at least one “accidental” fall of a pot from a shelf or an “accidental” spill of potting soil around the pot knows exactly how happy cats are to be the green architects at home.
Clearing out the closet. “Folding your clothes? Let me see! Maybe I can find something for myself?”
If you’ve ever left your closet’s door ajar when trying on an outfit for the evening, you know it’s easier to find your cat inside the closet than outside of it. Just the sight of a hooman getting ready to sort out through their wardrobe makes cats see a green light saying “Hurray! Hoomans got sclerosis again and forgot to close the wardrobe. It’s my chance – I’ll get inside right away and leave my fluffs on every square inch!” But can we be surprised if there’s so many comfy beds (a.k.a clothes) out there?
Cooking. “Maybe something will be dropped? Leeeet me try!”
Cat culinary critics are not always welcome in the kitchen, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’ll always find their way there. If there’s any chance of jumping onto the kitchen counter or a table, expect a cat to show up there with the first sound of a knife on the cutting board. In those moments not even a cucumber or a carrot are scary. And if you take your eyes off of the pastry just for a second, cat paw stamps will be all over it.
Office work. “Paper, boxes, pencils, keyboard? I didn’t know we had a cat amusement park in the house!”
Everyone who has worked in a home office before knows that cats are always around. And we’re not talking here only about showing their fluffy backside to everyone on your Zoom call. Opening mail, packing up things in boxes, paper or an envelope, tying up ribbons – there’s no better toy for the cat paws. Just be careful, hooman, not to turn away for too long. Just a moment of not paying attention can end up with you sending your cat, not the documents, in a package to your accountant.
Another key attraction of the home office theme park is, of course, the desk. Cats have a lot of space for helping hoomans here! Biting on the pencils, playing with the pen (to test it’s quality, of course), practising coding messages on the keyboard, doing yoga on the binders. “I am a working cat and no office jobs are scary for me”.
Needle work. “Give me these needles and yarn, hooman, I’ll show you how to work manually”.
Some housework requires a lot of manual dexterity and a help from a cat expert might be invaluable here. Sewing, embroidering, crocheting – we suspect that cats don’t sleep at night, staying up to watch YouTube tutorials and purrfect their skills. And oh, the tempting sight of string dragging on the floor, those rolling balls of yarn. Only a cat can show you how to make a trap out of them that even Houdini wouldn’t be able to escape. And after all that, they’ll bring you a fully finished knitted jumper in their teeth 🙂
Dirty work? I’ll pass
All right, but where cat’s definitely won’t help you? Here, fabCats, you have to brace yourself, grind your teeth and do the dirty work yourselves. Cats’ dedication and helpfulness have their limits and when it comes to any chore that requires getting fur dirty (except the aforementioned gardening), the limits are quickly reached.
- Cat won’t do the dishes – do it yourself, hooman. Dabbling in water with foam and detergent is far from pleasant. After dinner, cats prefer to go clean their fur instead.
- Hoover? Get away! It’s loud, gets everywhere and on top of that, it destroys the cat’s hard work of leaving their mark in every part of the house. “Finish it up already, hooman, spare me the shame – I’m going to have to shake off some fluffs around the couch all over again.”
- Cleaning the litter box. The votes here were split among our interviewees and we know that there are individuals who love watching their people work on the litter box with much curiosity. Help? “Let it go, hooman, it’s a job for a solo artist and your time to shine”. Jumping into the freshly washed litter box and checking the freshness, however? “Oh yes, that’s what I can do!”.
- Cleaning the bathroom. All that smell of chemicals used to clean the toilet and remove limescale from the shower. Who needs that? A cat’s nose definitely won’t appreciate the harsh scents that come out of the bathroom when you’re cleaning and thought he rough tongue could be helpful to get the shower clean quicker, all those liquids and products combined with water? The cat says – no, thank you.
Why do cats love helping their hoomans?
Good question! After all most of us, people, approach chores like a dog approaches a porcupine and yet here’s the surprise: for a cats they are a pure joy?! Cats’ curiosity and drive for housework are not accidental: everything that happens when you’re tidying up your wardrobe, planting flowers or printing important documents is a cat’s way of accompanying their hooman and showing their interest in everything people do day to day. “Don’t let anybody say that I’m not working for my food!”.
Change boring chores into a funCat time
To end things off we have an uber important task for you, fabCats. Everyone – and we’ll be checking it like a strict teacher at school on the first day after holiday – find one, boring house job and make it engaging for your kitty. Instead of asking them to exit the box or stop sweeping the dirt under the carpet with their almighty tail, invite them to play and use that opportunity for building your relationship stronger. All that within reason and safety, of course – where there are elements or products potentially harmful, the purring curiosity has to back down and leave space for some OHS. How will it be? What are your cats helping you with today?
