Longevity – It is said, give a cat three years for every human year and you will have an idea of how old it is compared to us. Not so. A one-year-old cat is capable of reproducing and is fully capable of taking care of itself. A three-year-old human is defenseless. Such mathematical formulas to understand the ‘real’ age of an animal do not work because their internal and external developments vary and do not correspond to human development.
But did you know that the life expectancy of cats seems to be increasing, from around twelve years several decades ago to eighteen years or more and now it seems common for cats to live into their twenties? Not only advances in cat medicine, but also apparently genetic changes are contributing to longer lives, and in fact, some cats live much longer. Several cats in Southern California have been reported to live as long as thirty to thirty-four years.
independent and lonely – Many think that cats are solitary creatures, but anyone who has visited a farm where there are cats will find that they congregate in colonies, sometimes close to twenty in number and even seem to hunt together. There are few fights because there is always a dominant cat that the others accept, the rest being equal. At least until a new cat arrives and dominance must be re-established.
If you have an indoor/outdoor cat, like me, you’ll no doubt find him asking to be let out, even though you have your cat doors. Mine does it every day, usually at night. I go to the door, open it, and he anxiously runs into the hall, waiting for the next door to open, even though both are equipped with cat doors. If I actually go out into the backyard with him, he seems delighted, rolling on the stones, looking at me. I suspect he would love a hunting partner. (Preferably, I hope, one a bit more calm and stealthy than me.)
Cats can’t be trained – Training is entirely possible and we have probably all seen on television cats trained to walk on a rope, roll a ball and even swim underwater. We chalk this up to some kind of show business and think our own cats are untrainable. Depending on the breed and the particular cat, they are probably all trainable to some degree and they can certainly train us!
Particia Moyes, in her book How to Talk to Your Cat, recounts how she and one of her cats have a game, the object of which is to remove an object from a precarious position -the upper part of a chair, let’s say- without disturbing anything around and without dropping the item on the ground. The cat does this carefully and with great attention, and successfully. The other cat of hers, she tells us, takes the game simply as “get the thing regardless” and will also retrieve the item but in the clumsiest of ways, dropping it on the ground.
Mrs. Moyes talks about two other games that she and her cats have; seek and carry and hide and seek. In the first, the person throws a ball of tinfoil (or whatever) and the cat returns it, dropping it at the person’s feet. The second she says that she invented her cat. She (the cat) will bring the tinfoil ball, drop it, and then walk out of the room. Mrs. Moyes will hide it, then call her cat, who will enthusiastically start exploring all the hiding places, find it, drop it and leave the room again. Note that Mrs. Moyes creates and maintains an unusually close and respectful attitude towards her cats. Very likely, and many pet owners, indeed parents, have found that the more they anticipate their pet (or child) will be capable, the more capable their pet or child becomes.
My own cat offers a less dramatic but useful example. A stray adopted at around 8 months old, it initially caused some alarm with his tendency to ‘nail his nails’ on furniture. He would tap my foot on the floor and tell him No and it would stop. Now I just tell her, in no uncertain terms, for her to stop and she does. He only does this when he wants something and I don’t pay attention to it.
In fact, this is a way for a cat to get your attention and let you know that it needs something: it does what it knows it shouldn’t do. My cat knows he can’t sit at the kitchen table, for example, but if his food bowl stays empty for too long, he jumps up on the table and I know right away that he wants to eat.
There is an ancient Egyptian papyrus from the 20th Dynasty that shows a dog walking on its hind legs, carrying a staff, herding goats. In the same image there is a cat, walking on its hind legs, carrying a cane, herding ducks. The image shows the dog and cat on their hind legs carrying canes, no doubt to indicate that they are in control. If they were shown on all fours, one could not be shown carrying a staff and two would appear to be on the same level as the goats and ducks, not in charge of them. My guess is that once, before the dark days of cat extermination, cats were trained and used and I hope they themselves responded very well to this arrangement.
From distance – When one considers the terrible history that the cat family has endured at the hands of man, repeatedly throughout Europe and even in America, it is not surprising that the cat remains aloof. Associated with witches, Satan, and evil, as a race, cats have been betrayed, condemned, tortured, and exterminated, many times, by the thousands and tens of thousands. Those who survived the pogroms passed on their genes to their progeny, along with the survival sense to distrust man. However, all cat owners know how truly attached a cat can be and how genuinely grateful they are for the affection and care they are given.
cats and music Start playing an instrument, even something soft, like folk music on a guitar, and a dog is bound to walk out of the room. A cat, on the other hand, is likely to come up to you, lie down next to you, roll around, purr, and seem to enjoy the sounds immensely. My previous cat used to be my biggest fan, particularly my rather elaborate finger nip.
My current cat loves to listen to the guitar, but the obvious and profound pleasure she gets from it doesn’t even compare to when I pick up the Celtic harp and pluck its strings. I can only describe his state as ecstatic, as if each tiny individual sound bathed him in almost unbearable pleasure. Many composers throughout history tell the same story.
The famous harpist, Mlle Dubuy, noticed that her cat purred pleasantly when she played a piece well on her harp, but cried when she played less. She used this phenomenon to enhance her ability. Recognizing how much she owed her success as her harpist to her perceptive cat, she left him her substantial inheritance and also endowed loyal friends to ensure that her cat was well cared for.
There is a video on YouTube of a cat playing the piano. She is sounding the notes quite intentionally, completely absorbed in the phenomena. When her lover plays Bach on another piano, the cat stops and listens with obvious appreciation. It’s like this cat, and indeed all cats, really appreciate beautiful music and the one in this particular YouTube video aspires to musicianship.
movement – We all know how agile and flexible cats are, due to a variety of factors. Unlike in man, in whom the vertebrae of the spine are held together by ligaments, in the cat they are joined by muscles, giving the cat a great range of motion. Due to the construction of its shoulder joint, it can turn its front leg in almost any direction.
But have you noticed, probably without thinking, that there is something funny, something strange about the way a cat runs?
Unlike almost all other mammals that move forward by moving the front leg on one side of the body and the hind leg on the other, the cat moves the front and hind legs on the same side. So it’s, forward, left, let’s say, slight pause, back left, forward right, pause, back right. The only other mammals said to do this are the camel and the giraffe, and both also have funny gaits.
Food, water and health – Cats can live well on dry food. This is a dubious statement that many authorities declare to be downright false. Cats need meat. They do not have the biological ability to take various elements from a variety of non-meat foods and build the necessary proteins, which man and dogs can do. And much of the dry food content, i.e. carbohydrates, is not only not natural cat food, but is said to be completely unnecessary and can be harmful. Meat in some form, usually canned food, is a must for cats, not only for protein but also for water.
Cats do not have, as probably all cat owners have verified, a strong desire to drink. Their normal prey is their main source of water. Deprived of it and without enough wet food, a cat can easily, and all too often, develop kidney disease from dehydration.
Regardless of whether your cat eats wet food, dry food, or both, fresh water should always be available. Many cat owners have observed that cats are more likely to drink if their water bowl is not positioned next to their food bowl, which makes sense, since in the wild, animals search for water regardless of their age. search for food Also, being clean animals, it may not “feel” as hygienic to have food and smell of food next to your water source.
It is also advised to avoid plastic dishes for both food and water. Plastic tends to scratch, and harmful bacteria can grow in those nicks and scratches. Additionally, some cats are allergic to plastic and develop skin conditions on their chins when they are fed and watered from plastic bowls.
Still water can be deep – but it still doesn’t suit a cat. Almost all cat owners have noticed that their cats love to put their tongues under the faucet or even raise their mouths to let the rain fall. My cat used to put his head under a dripper in the bathtub and let the water run down to his tongue until we fixed it, that is, the bathtub. Many cats will drink any form of water other than still water.
Some people, including some vets, think that there is some molecular difference in moving water. Some think it is the sight of the movement of the water, or the sound. Whatever the reason (and considering how important this topic is if internet posting is any measure, it’s a bit surprising that the motivations for this aren’t better known), cats prefer moving water.
This fact has given rise to an entire industry of cat fountains, almost all made of plastic, although there are a number of ceramic cat fountains and bowls. Whether it is one of the plastic fountains or a ceramic cat fountain or a cat feeder, they all need the same care, which is simply keeping it full and cleaning it thoroughly regularly. Some pet fountain fonts are listed at the end of this article and if you go to http://www.etsy.com and type in cat ceramic fountains you can find others.
Recommended reading: How to talk to your cat by Particia Moyes The life story and magic of THE CAT by Fernando Mery
