Saturday, September 29, 2012

Humans judge by looks, ability and colour: we cats don't

Dear George,
Have you noticed how odd humans are. I am three legged. I lost my right hand back leg in a road traffic accident. It was hell at the time and to begin with I found it difficult to cope. Now I can manage perfectly well. My other three legs enable me to do most of what I want - leaping on and off the bed and chairs, hunting mice, keeping warm by the Aga, rubbing up against my human, Jilly.
Yet humans have this odd attitude to me. "Poor little thing," I heard your human say. "She looks so odd without one leg. Does she manage all right?" All through this blather was a note of pity. Why are humans so obsessed with what we look like? Why pity?
Yours disgruntedly
Figgi

Dear Figgi,
Humans are visual animals. They can't hear very well and they find smelling almost impossible. The only smells that get through to them are urine, poo and sweat. Those fine smells that distinguish one cat from another, or a cat on heat from a neutered cat, or even the smell of an anxious cat.... they can't get it.
The result is that they rely too much on their eyes. Add to that they have an odd culture. (Yes, I call it culture though some cats argue that humans can't think and therefore don't have culture at all.)  They prize youth over age, the perfect body over the imperfect body. This means they discriminate among themselves against the elderly, the ugly, amputees, or those of a different colour.
They go to huge lengths to hide imperfections with injections of a poisonous substance in their faces, they have noses cut and reshaped, clothes that squeeze their shape, prostheses to hide amputated limbs etc. Among humans imperfect or disabled specimens are judged and found wanting.  They even try to do the same to us by inventing cat shows.
Cat wisdom show how foolish they are. Figgi, you are fine in my eyes. Just another cat. And I still love my pet human despite her now imperfect shape and wrinkles. She smells right which is what matters. I am sure you love Jilly, even if she is no longer a breeding human. They all look fine to us.
We really are the superior species.
George.

4 comments:

  1. Figgi, hope you're sticking your tongue out at Celia :-)
    Love
    Cayenne

    PS. Don't get me wrong; WE LOVE CELIA....but she tends to worry too much!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Human vanity! Ignore humans as much as possible! Bet you have a decent human which is a bless!
    Figgi, you look fine to me! Love your coat, man :-)
    Diego

    ReplyDelete
  3. You are beautiful! You look a bit like me :-)
    Love
    Shumba

    ReplyDelete
  4. Figgi you still have your teeth, bite those patronising apes hard!

    Luff Gerry the toothless

    ReplyDelete

Help for cats whose humans show behaviour problems.

This blog is devoted to the study of human behaviour. We cats, who live with this sometimes unpredictable and always feeble minded species, can benefit from seeing their behaviour in its proper scientific context. The study of feline dilemmas, training problems, and difficulties with humans, can only benefit all of us. All of us train our humans - to buy the right food, for instance, but many of us do not have knowledge of how to improve our training methods. The human species is obviously not as intelligent as the cat, but nevertheless can learn quite a lot - if properly managed. Topics of interest include the use of claw and order, purring as a human reward, rubbing your human up the right way, when to bite, spraying as a method of making our wishes known, ignoring the human, human harassment, human inattention and sheer human stupidity. I welcome your questions. Photos can be sent via my secretary's website, www.celiahaddon.com This blog has been chosen as one of the top 50 feline blogs by Online VetTechprogramms.org