Excerpt: One Fat Cat

He looked rather pleased with himself and with my response to his wild tale, setting up just a little taller and resettling his tail around his feet as he looked down at me serenely. "Well, you must understand first of all that while you can train humans have certain responses to you, I believe it is more because of your tone of voice and body language than because they have any real comprehension of what you are trying to say to them. The one thing that most of them do seem to understand instinctively is that we are their superiors and therefore it is only proper that they treat us with dignity and respect at all times. Once you understand that about them then it is much easier to coexist with them. It is only rarely necessary to remind them of their place and even then, all it really takes is for you to throw up inside the house or give them a good swat if they are trying to ignore you. You cannot allow that kind of behavior to continue unchecked, it can lead to all kinds of other bad habits like believing in free will. That is just not something that we can tolerate.