// THE VERGE — MOBILE & WEB
The piano that taught my cat to play for her supper
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The pianist sits before her instrument. She carefully extends a front paw, pressing gingerly on a key. She presses again, and again. She is composing some soul music, because something terrible has happened to her: The vacuum cleaner has come out of the closet.
Yes, my cat is a tortured artist. When Jeeves is moved by something that upsets her — say, I have gotten up when she was comfortable sitting in my lap — she goes to her piano and plays a brief melody. And then the piano dispenses treats. At night, she prefers to sleep on me. If I wake up to pee, disturbing her, my bathroom visit is accompanied by a moonlight serenade.
She hasn’t mastered chords, though I don’t think the Pet Piano supports them. Really, her cat-sized instrument/smart feeder only has slightly more than an octave for her to work with. And she is prone to simply pressing the same note over and over, since I don’t think she’s really mastered an ear for melody. Nonetheless: My cat plays the piano.
The hardest part of getting her to play the piano was getting her to press on the keys at all
As far as I can tell, the piano is the work of a YouTuber who has spent years training cats. (Yes, cats can be trained. It’s just more work than dogs.) Jeeves is especially trainable, as she is especially food-motivated. So far, besides the Pet Piano, she knows “it’s time to feed the cat” means she’ll get wet food; she comes when called; and she begrudgingly tolerates having her nails clipped because she gets the best cat treat of all: meat go-gurt.