A few years ago one street female cat started living in the building where I've been living since I moved to Israel about 18 years ago. No tenant of the building keeps her in their apartment, but one tenant simply prepared a "house" for this four-legged neighbor on the staircase.
I don't like to keep four-legged animals at home, and those who have to do so even repel me. But I do like cats as long as they are not indoors. Anyway, our four-legged neighbor is quite special in her unguarded friendliness to two-legged animals. Since I caress her every time I see her outside our building or on its staircase, she has become especially friendly to me (and other tenants like me).
One "fatal mistake" I made recently has made her even more friendly to me. I used to try to share with her some of my favorite foods, but she refused all of them. Recently I finally found something to which she showed an enthusiastic reaction for the first time - Tilapia fillet. I started sharing with her a small portion of what I eat every weekday.
This is a good example of neuroplasticity (or conditioning) at work. When I saw her starting this week to wait for me every morning and mew in front of my apartment, wanting her breakfast from me, I realized that I made a "fatal mistake". Since then I've been telling myself that I should stop giving her food every day, but every time I see her waiting for me in the morning, I easily succumb to the temptation.
Somehow I can't talk to cats (and dogs) except in Russian. Though it's only my sixth language in terms of fluency, it's my most favorite language, especially when it comes to expressing endearments. Russian can't compete with any of the other five languages I speak more fluently because of its abundant diminutives for endearments.
It's so soothing to interact with cats in general and this one in particular, especially after I saw so clearly that most two-legged animals are deeply trapped in their mind-made prison, and constantly and unconsciously label not only their fellow two-legged animals but also everything else. I'm simply so tired of being labelled by others.
In this respect, the custom of giving personal names to animals seems so absurd, as if this matterd to them. This is a very subtle form of labelling that even borders on madness. When I still worked in academia, I was interested in onomastics, but since I realized the dark aspect of naming, I've completely lost my interest in onomastics, too.
When I talk to cats (and dogs) in Russian, I don't label them but am simply immersed in the emotions its sounds evoke to me.