The day after we had to put down our old timer dog, Charlotte showed some empathy. We'll never know if it was because of Max being gone or because Tom was ill enough to go to bed really early. He's been fighting a bad cold. Friday, he went to bed about 7:30. Charlotte followed him up to bed within a few minutes and between then and when I went to bed around 10 she spent almost the whole time tucked up against his leg.
Normally, she would have spent much of that time sleeping, but somewhere in the living room, most likely on the top level of the cat tree, followed by a spell of frantic activity just before we went to bed.
In the past, I've experienced a cat coming and spending time with me when I was under the weather. In this case, the house has been full of sadness and illness, so we'll never know which it is.
A lot of people say cats can't be trained. As I mentioned a few days back, Charlotte has been trying to train us and now we're aware of it, we're making sure we only cooperate with her training efforts when it is acceptable to us. It can be hard to ignore some of her scratching at a plastic bag ... that is one of her requests for us to play with her. "Distract me!" So, we'll do the laser or the thing-on-a-string-on-a-stick toy when she stops scratching at the bag, not distract her in the middle of it.
A couple of days ago I started working on "sit". She loves her "crunchies" (Temptations treats). This morning, after her second tour of the garage, I offered her crunchies, but told her to sit. She stood up to reach for them & I pulled them out of reach. She sat. After a few bites I moved my hand so we could repeat it. She stood up; I told her to sit. She sat. When there is something she wants badly enough and the behavior I want is easy enough, she learns very quickly. There is no longer any doubt about it. Sitting to eat from my hand is not something she would be doing on her own. I look forward to teaching her lots of things, both useful and for show.
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