No one responds. Cats know - much better than humans do - that if you respond once, you're putting yourself in a lifelong lock. You'll be stuck forever clambering up to the third floor to answer Yoyo's demands for companionship.

It's a feline law. Acquiesce to a demand just once, and your cat will expect eternal acquiescence. He might even push the envelope a bit too, as a reader has just learned.

The first time her cat called to her from the other side of the bedroom door at 5.30 in the morning, she thought he was cute. She got up, fed him and played with him a little bit. Then she went back to sleep.

The cat continued his morning calls. She continued to get up, but then he stopped demanding breakfast. He wanted attention. No longer could she go back to bed. She had to play with him. She tried ignoring his morning calls, but it's difficult to ignore a cat who meows non-stop for 30 minutes.

She thought another cat might keep her cat company, but I don't think an addition to the household would solve the problem. Her cat would simply teach the newcomer how to meow at the bedroom door at 5.30 in the morning.

Instead, she now gives her cat extra play time in the evenings, and, in her last e-mail, she says that he's moved his morning calls forward to 6.30 am. "I can live with that," she says.

It's so easy to forget this feline law of eternal acquiescence. When I moved to the townhouse, I vowed that all the cats would be fed properly. No longer would they get food on demand.

During their sojourn at the vet's, Pan-Pan had lost a lot of his pudginess. The vet was pleased because Pan-Pan, once overweight, was a normal size. I meant to continue the regimen. With liver and kidney problems, he needs to maintain a slimmer silhouette.

For one day, I held firm. The second day, Pan-Pan pleaded so piteously that I gave in and let him have a spoonful of catfood for lunch. He was so happy! There's nothing as gratifying as a happy cat.

On the third day, he tried to move lunch to 9 am. I'm proud to say I held firm, even when he yanked the IBM mouse out of the computer and ran away with it.

Luckily, the mouse survived. So did Pan-Pan.

Gradually, he's learning that he'll be fed at certain hours. He's also learned that when he sits in front of the computer to remind me about his food, I pick him up and hug him. He likes that too - almost as much as he does food.

Feline laws aren't unbreakable. You can bend them a little.

Questions about your pets? Fax (02) 751 4446 or e-mail laurie@nationgroup.com.

By Laurie Rosenthal