What dogs want is clear—they want to be our pal. Also they want dinner.
Dogs aren't coy. We can read their thoughts. They give us a mischievous glance ("Throw that ball!"), or a joyous tail wag ("You've come home!"), or they express more complicated ideas—a furrowed brow, a growl or whine or sigh or delighted bark.
Now, let's consider the cat.
In particular, let's consider Alex, the handsome gray-and-black cat who lives in the apartment across the corridor from ours, with Karen.
We're working on "The Alex Project," a scientific (sort of) probe into Alex's mind, because cats mystify us.
A friend of ours once said her cat's favorite thought was: "If I were bigger, I would eat you."
What does Alex think?
He dashes up the corridor, suddenly stops, lays down, and stares at us balefully, like the sphynx.
"What's he thinking when he stares at us like that?" we ask Karen.
"Who knows?" she says, shrugging.
She tells us that Alex often gets up in the middle of the night to noisily play with his toys. Why?
"Who knows?" Karen says.
We know thunderstorms frighten Alex because he hides under the bed, except that his long tail sticks out. Do cats not know their tail is part of them?
Yesterday, as Alex lay on the corridor floor, giving us his baleful stare, he suddenly noticed his tail, because it twitched. He twisted to watch his tail. He watched it a long time.
Another day, Alex stared fixedly out the corridor's window at song sparrows and chickadees fluttering by. We guessed why, but it gave us the creeps, so we opted for a different interpretation: Alex is interested in ornithology.
Sometimes Alex will be lying on the corridor floor when he suddenly jumps up and races like a lightning streak to the corridor's far end, where he plops down again. No explanation.
Sometimes, after a corridor prowl, Alex dashes to his apartment's door and paws it. Why does he want to go in?
"He's tired," Karen says.
Maybe.
Who knows?
--Richard and Joyce