Socrates has started some new sort of game. He'll play with his favorite toy, an orange stuffed dinosaur, and then after beating the hell out of it he'll lay it next to his food dish with it's head over the rim as if he's feeding it.
I have to wonder if he's pretending to feed his playmate. Do cats have the capacity to play make believe? Does he really think his stuffed friend may be hungry? Or has he simply found this to be a handy place to leave his toy?
I think it would be very interesting if he and cats in general have the capacity to imagine. That indicates a much higher order of thought than one would normally associate with "dumb" animals.
He does learn things pretty quickly, as I would imagine all cats do. He has learned which switch in the sleeper turns off the lights. He has also learned how to blow the city horn (the one on the steering wheel). He will blow the horn when I am out of the truck working a load. Thankfully he hasn't figured out the air horns.
He knows when he hears the loud blow of air from the parking brake buttons that we are stopped and he can commence to act like a maniac. He also has learned the bedtime routine. He knows when I first lay down I am going to surf the net or watch a movie and he'll play for a while. But then after a while he'll climb into the bed and hit the switch to turn off the lights indicating that he thinks it's time for sleep.
He has even learned how to hit the snooze button on the alarm which has caused a bit of a problem.
Cats seem to be damned smart. But do they play pretend?