I know everyone loves their Bengals and thinks they're the only cats in the world as playful, funny, intelligent, etc. I started off with Bella being disappointed that she wouldn't cuddle. I now see her for what she is. A true Bengal, a mischievous two-year-old child too smart for her own good, and sometimes for mine! I wonder if anyone has any advice for the following. Bella has a way of making me feed her and her little buddy, Jamie. She comes to my study, climbs on the desk, and begins knocking things off one of the upper shelves. I've cleaned that shelf so there's almost nothing she can get at, so she proceeds to the row of pencils at the right-hand side of my computer. She starts -- yes, knocking them down. If I take them away, she proceeds to another desk opposite and does the same. After each knock, she trains her gorgeous, golden, amazed eyes - they're very big and when they widen they give her an astonished look - on me. She knows EXACTLY what she's doing. I then bestir myself, go to the kitchen with both cats in tow, and feed them. There are times in the very wee hours of the morning - 4, say - when I lock them out of the bedroom. It doesn't seem to have incurred any psychological damage. I figure the knocking-things-off-other-things is just Bengal essence, as does my husband, and we are both vastly amused by Bella's antics -- and her smarts. I have not tried training her to do anything at all. I'd really like to harness-train her, though she really loathes the harness, because her first owner used to take her for walks, and I'd like to. Anyone want to weigh in on that one? A PS for Sherry, if you're still moderating: Bella finally purrs when I scratch her cheeks. And she has been known to lick both my hand and my nose.
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