Dear George,As you can see from my pictures I have elegantly long whiskers from my muzzle and some rather charming whiskers above my eyes, one or two on my cheek and even two on my fore legs. They not only transmit important information to me, but, to my mind, they are gloriously beautiful. Why don't humans have them?
Fanny
Dear Fanny,
You have to feel sorry for the species,don't you? The most they can manage is facial fur. Some of the male humans, particularly those of various religions, grow quite long and droopy fur on their chins, but other males shave it all off. The females don't even have facial hair - or if they do they wax it off or pull it out. Odd, aren't they?
However even the males with the longest and furriest faces, with what they term "beards' or "sideburns", have non-functioning hair without proper nerve end receptors.
Human facial fur just sits there for no good reason at all. Sometimes the fur even looks like whiskers. But it doesn't work. It's completely useless for navigating through tight places, or for helping them hold down mice. And, as far as I know, they don't have anything like whiskers on their fore legs, or "arms", just a scatter of useless slender hairs.
Our whiskers work like a sixth sense. A blindfolded cat can pounce on and hold down a mouse with the information conveyed by his whisker sense. And, as I have discovered, I can switch off my whiskers while I am sleeping. If Celia is stupid enough to stroke them while I am dozing, I take no notice at all. I can control the sensory input, so to speak. When I pounce on a mouse, my whiskers shoot forward towards it, so that when I am carrying it, they can monitor the rodent's struggle without my having to open my mouth.
Clever stuff, eh? Humans can't do it. No wonder they are so bad at mousing. It's difficult to believe, but I have never ever, in all my life in a human house, seen a human successfully carry a mouse in its jaws.
A rather pathetic species, really, but I guess we love them all the same.
My human carefully scrapes off his facial fur every morning in the bathroom. I watch him with amazement. I mean, the fur is poor in comparison with proper whiskers but at least its something. He seems not to realise how shocking a naked chin is to a cat's eyes.
ReplyDeleteTick
I saw my humans looking at a book page once that had drawings of a cat face showing whisker positions with a note about the expression and mood that the whiskers were showing. I thought it was quite accurate, for something written by a human that is.
ReplyDeletei think it is strange that beans aren't more appreciative of cats that bring mice home! after all, humans can't seem to catch mice themselves, why can't they be more greateful we ar eproviding for them?
ReplyDeleteJeez.
I looooooooooooooooooove having kitty whiskers!
Dear George
ReplyDeleteYet another count of feline superiority. As I am getting older one wisker fell out and grew back white, a further indication of dignity in my book. On the subject of wiskers I have heard of a practice that we cannot allow the humans to start with us - they sometimes clip off horse's whiskers! How rude!! Just because they don't have them. My care giver recently took on a extra (unauthorised!) animal - a horse called Murphy who's wiskers are currently growing back to allow for better grazing. So cats are also better than horses for resisting such practices, but then we knew that!
Yours
Smudge
I don't get it either. My wiskers have been found occasionally on the floor, but the promptly grow back. I just hate it when spider webs get all in my wiskers when I have exloring in the attic. You see, sometimes I sneak into the attic of my human workshop. A great place to check out because it's so cluttered, but I do hate those spider webs. The good thing, my humans alway give me a good hard rub around my face and head to get them all cleaned off, so it works well for me.
ReplyDeletei human, take my cat's fallen whiskers and pierce them through the skin of my lip as to have beautiful cat whiskers. they last weeks and even months when i take care of them. it is beautiful.
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