Cats on the Phone!

Last week, while responding to an email group list about another subject, I happened to mention that my cat Seren likes to answer the telephone. She’s finally stopped doing it so frequently but when I first got her, I couldn’t leave Seren alone in my office for any length of time. Because if the phone rang, she’d hook her paw under the receiver, take it off the hook, and--who knows?--talk and talk and talk. But she wouldn’t hang up, so I’d miss other calls. Here I thought my cat was simply precocious. But I received several responses from folks with similarly inclined kitties. Interestingly, the Oriental-type cats seem to do this most often, at least if the responses prove accurate. This response simply was too good not to share. Nancy Jo told me her Oriental Shorthair, Danny, routinely leaves messages on the phone recorder. “I always suspected Danny knew what he was doing when he pushing the buttons. It was confirmed one day at work when a person with a particularly irritating voice left a message. Danny ran to the phone, grumbled at it and began to push buttons to make it quit.” Danny also likes to push the message button as soon as the recording says to record a message. Unfortunately he hasn't learned how to stop recording. “I come home to a very long message - Danny for a few seconds and then a very long silence.” Like Seren, Danny only does this if left home alone for a longer period of time. Nancy Jo says she solved the problem of Danny answering the phone by turning on the “do not disturb" feature so the phone doesn't ring and automatically goes to the recorder. “Danny thinks it's on “speaker" and doesn't touch the handset.” Do your cats answer the phone? Play with the message machine? Or are attracted to other home office equipment?