One of the most joyous things I like doing is to wake my human up before her alarm clock goes off. This I do by walking across her tummy and or her pillow (even when her head comes in my way) or sitting on her chest all of a sudden.

Even if I do this gently, she gets up with a startle and I must say it is quite funny. If she gets really irritated, I put on my cutest face and start to purr.

What I really would like is for her to do is to be up and about before I get up, getting ready a bowl of juicy fish for me or some tender chicken. But I am always disappointed that when I get up, she is lying curled up and snoring in her bed.

You see she must realise that cats get up early. Contrary to popular belief, cats are not nocturnal. The term “nocturnal” refers to the lifestyle of being awake at night instead of during the day, and that isn’t what we do. We sleep at night just like humans do, just not for quite as long. Cats are “crepuscular”. I know it is a long word, but you must learn it slowly CREP-US-CU-LAR; which means that we are most active at dawn and dusk.

We belong to the cat family and when we lived in the jungle with lions, tigers, leopards, etc., we used to be active around dawn and dusk because that is the best time to catch prey. Think about it, no creature in his or her right mind ran about during the heat of the day or in the middle of night when it was pitch black.

Though our night vision is very good, we can’t see without light. Instead, we opt to sleep. But in the dim light, our vision works better than many other little animals that make up a good meal for us.

So when the sun starts coming up, my internal alarm clock and crepuscular nature tells me that it’s time to get up. I feel quite energetic, active and playful. This is the best time for my human to play with me and train me as well. I could surprise her by learning a few tricks.

I become bored when nothing is going on in the house, play a bit my fattest toy mouse, look out of the windows a bit and finally decide to jump on my human to convey that I am in the mood for some ‘running and catching’ or ‘chase’ or ‘fetch the ball,’ or that we could have breakfast together.

When I jump on her, my human pretends to be fast asleep; she rolls over, covers her head with a pillow and sometimes even throws me out of the room, rudely closing the door at me. This is the time to do a big yowl, ‘MEEEOOWWW’, which means I want breakfast now. If she can be stubborn and not get up, I can get really noisy too.

This doesn’t go on for very long. I mean, I am her pet after all and guilt of leaving a hungry cat outside her bedroom door makes her get up and give me some goodies and hugs. Now you are getting to know me better, more next time…. Meow!