Animals Pick The Winners

I recently asked two of our students, Chris and Cindy, if I could come and interview them and their very gifted cats Buddy and Mattie for this magazine. Chris, Cindy, and Buddy said yes. Mattie wasn’t so sure she wanted everyone to know about their special gifts, but she agreed to the interview.Cindy and Chris love football, and they especially like to watch Green Bay or the Jets. Last fall they noticed something very unusual about their cat Buddy. Whenever they sat down to watch a football game, Buddy would tell them which team was going to win before the game even started. What was even more unusual was that Buddy was usually right! Buddy then added a new twist to things one day when Chris was ready to turn off a football game because his team was on defense and losing the game. Buddy told Chris to stop, that his team was going to score. Chris patiently explained to Buddy that his team didn’t have the ball. On the next play, Chris’ team intercepted the ball and scored a touchdown. Chris was amazed at this new twist. Cindy, on the other hand, was beginning to NOT enjoy knowing the outcome of a game before she had even watched it!Spring, to sports fans, means March Madness and the NCAA basketball tournament. Chris has entered a bracket in a basketball pool for years, always taking a lot of time to study the statistics and the teams before filling out his bracket. This year, Chris and Cindy had a new human baby at home, so Chris didn’t have the time to do all the research. Out of curiosity, Chris asked Buddy and Mattie who they thought would win the tournament. They said North Carolina. He then sat down with his blank bracket and asked them to help him fill it out. They were amazed that he wanted them to tell him about all the games at once, so he was asked to give them until tomorrow. The next day Chris, Buddy and Mattie filled out the complete 6 round bracket. Chris promised the kitties that if they won the pool, he would donate the winnings to a favorite cat charity.It turns out that the cats did better than Chris had ever done with all his statistics and studying. The cats had a whopping 74.6% of the game outcomes right. They got all 4 Final Four teams and the winner correct, finishing in third place in the office pool, and winning $17. Getting all 4 Final Four teams is evidently a big deal!We asked the cats why they liked to predict the outcome of sports events. Buddy said it was a game he played with his humans to see how they would react to his predictions. During football season, for example, he started giving Chris and Cindy the wrong outcomes consistently. His reason was that it was getting too boring and he needed to make his humans think more. So, when he predicted that the Cardinals would win the Superbowl by a landslide, Chris said “what you telling me is that the Steelers will win in a very close game.” Buddy said “Your are catching on Daddy!” Mattie says she plays the sports game because her humans enjoy the sports so much, it makes them happy.When asked HOW they do it, Buddy told us that all time moves simultaneously at different levels, and that in order to predict a game outcome or even the next play in a game, all he has to do is find the right time “tape” of that event, go to the spot right before the current level time, and access the information. I felt like I was talking to a quantum physicist at this point. How profound! He also pointed out that animals, most of the time, focus on the immediate now so they can fully experience life, but that all animals have the ability to access time “spots” very easily.In closing, I asked each cat what they would like to share with the readers. Buddy said that humans have the ability to access different time spots too. However, he said that we filter the information we get because we get attached to the outcome. Since he personally does not care who wins a particular game (even though his humans do), he can easily access the correct “spot” and see the information clearly. He advises humans to be more animal like, however, and get more fully present in the current moment so that we can experience life fully. Mattie said that if we as humans focus on our heart‐to‐heart connections (relationships), and make them the most important thing, we will all make it through this difficult time (the economic situation) just fine!Mattie has asked Chris to explain baseball to her…I can’t wait to see what the summer brings. Play ball!!