What is this weird human behaviour?

I've heard this weird story from a friend whose human visited another cat lover. He reached down to pet her cat a couple of times gently, and had to defend himself as he was about to have 12 lbs of kitty wreak havoc on his body. The woman grabbed the cat and sat down on the couch, proceeded to put the cat on his back and rub his tummy till he calmed down. While she was doing this - and this is the crazy part - she held a pencil between his teeth. I guess the wood was flying, bits going all over the place. He chewed for a few minutes then was calm again. She apologized and said he had quite a temper and this was the only way to calm him. Is this some new Dr.Phil for cats technique? Or do I just lead a sheltered life? Whatcha think, George?

Goldie  http//:sumacstories.blogspot.com

Dear Goldie,

I think this is just another example of mad and bad humans. Most of us who respond badly to petting are doing so because we are frightened of humans and want to keep our personal space. We may look vicious but we are scared. Personally I like being petted by strangers (I've been criticised for being too much of a human lover)  but many cats do not. They were not brought up in kittenhood to enjoy the promiscuous caresses of passing humans they do not know. So they strike out in order to get humans to retreat - a very effective technique.

What does this woman do then? Grab the cat,roll  it on its back, forcibly pet its tummy (its most sensitive area!), and in order to avoid being bitten (an appropriate feline reaction, in my view), she thrusts a piece of wood in its mouth. A calming technique? Cruel, I think. There is a danger that the cat will break a tooth. There is the emotional damage of being handled in a rough way and forced to comply.

Although I am a cuddly cat, I hate being tickled on my tummy. Most cats do. Sometimes I will allow a little bit of petting there but mostly I respond by grabbing the intruding hand and biting it. My tummy is a no go area and (except for the very occasional caress from Celia) I am the only one who is allow to clean it or touch it. This poor cat, who is already frightened by strangers trying to caress it, is now unable to bite because it has been forcibly gagged. I am amazed it calmed down - perhaps it was freezing with sheer terror.  Cats that are unable to escape do sometimes freeze and go motionless.

The whole story is horrible.

Humans quarrel among themselves as much as we cats do

Dear George

I think you have been taken in by human hypocrisy. They quarrel among themselves just as much as we cats do. If not more. Ask yourself how many humans want to live with their mother. I mean old age homes are overflowing with humans (not cats) because humans dump their parents there, or because the parents go there rather than be bullied in their childrens' homes. I was passing by in France when your Celia was there with her family. The tension.... you could feel the family dysfunction.

Dorothee of Castres

Dear Dorothee,

I stand corrected. I don't know why I supposed that humans are truly social or pack animals. In some ways they may be, but they certainly often don't get on very well in families. They talk about loving each other, but in actual fact most of them are very selfish. Talk... yes. Real family feeling...maybe.  Translated into family action and kindness ... often not.

And very few of them live with their parents after the age of 30 - and very few old parents are taken in by their children particularly when they get old, confused and perhaps rather difficult to live with. Why is there sheltered housing and old age homes for humans? Because they need them. They don't want to live with each other!

Humans are always so hypocritical. They expect us to live in the house together, without thinking of whether we want to. They keep a female cat, let her have kittens, and then expect her to live with one of the kittens. What if she doesn't want to? What is the kitten wants the freedom to live apart from the parent? That's what humans have. Why can't cats have that freedom too! Why do they assume they know what is best for us!

They choose our friends for us. They  go out and come home with another cat without so much as consulting us. Then they expect use to like each other. Why should we? I mean if I went out and brought back a human that appealed to me, why should Celia want to live with him or her? I know a cat called Vincent who was in love with the postwoman. But he never asked her to live with his friend, Pam. He didn't expect Pam to like her too. Humans do this to us all the time. Just add a cat. Without thinking. Without asking.

It is only because we tactfully avoid each other, and try pass by without fights that this completely random habit of humans doesn't lead to real bloodshed. Sometime I despair of the species. Clever monkeys? Not at all. Give me a sensible ape any day rather than a ridiculous human.

George

Under the Paw - where humans belong.

Dear George,
My humans, Tom and Dee, are constantly voicing "my" thoughts for me. It's not just that these thoughts are largely inaccurate (I have never said "Please" or "if you don't mind awfully" before being fed a tin of Applaws chicken and cheese cat food - because I view receiving it as my right) that bothers me, nor even the humiliating fact that some of them will soon be available to the populus in a book that Tom has written called Under The Paw (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Under-Paw-Confessions-Cat-Man/dp/1847371418/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204462140&sr=1-1 ). What really gets to me is the voice in which said thoughts are delivered, which is somewhat upper-class and simpering - the kind of voice you might have found Willie Rushton using whilst narrating a 1980s children's TV programme, and - I think you'll agree - utterly unbecoming of a cat who started his life in a plastic bag on the side of a motorway and has braved some of the tougher parts of South East London and Norfolk. I am neither a) a character in a Beatrix Potter book, or b) a slightly effeminate aristocrat fallen on hard times. I am a warrior, who has slept on the world's sofa and fears no-one, with the possible exception of my pygmy grey half-sister, Bootsy, when her back's up and her breath is particularly fishy. How can I explain this to my two-legged dimwit housemates and get them to stop patronising me in front of my step-siblings?
Yours sincerely,
The Bear

Dear Bear,
Or should I say Dear The Bear? Forgive me if I have addressed you incorrrectly. We cats need our dignity, and I would not like you to think I had diminished yours by one jot. I am not a human. I do not do the indignities they inflict on us cats.
Which brings me neatly to your letter. I entirely sympathise with your dilemma. I too rely on a human secretary. I have tried to type, but frankly my paws are ill fitted to the keyboard. (Why don't Macintosh make the feline version? They could call it the IPuss. And it would come with a mouse, of course.)
I have trained Celia intensively, using rewards and punishments like standing on the keyboard repeating one letter for about 20 lines, to be sensitive to my voice. Most of the time she realises that she should not put in her own sympathies and feelings. She is MY ghost, not a writer in her own right. Even so, I have to watch her closely, particularly at times when I am being frank about human deficiencies. She has a tendency to turn to me and say: "George, you can't mean me to type this?" I say "What exactly is difficult about typing dysfunctional, stupid or clumsy? Get back to the keyboard. You are there to type not to give your own opinions about the human race."
It's a question of discipline, Bear. You have got to assert yourself as the Alpha Male of the household putting your humans in their proper places which is in the kitchen, the bedroom and in front of the computer. Don't let the male one think he is writing the book. He is your ghost, nothing more. A good ghost should be only a shadowy figure in a book. However, I congratulate you on getting the title right. "Under the Paw." I like that. Short, snappy and accurate. That's where humans belong.
Have you thought about spraying on the first copy that arrives in the household? Just to show them what you think of the style.
Yours George.
PS. I like the photo too. Nice to see an online brother.

Let's start at the beginning? What is a Human?

In my new role as pet behaviour counsellor, more accurately human behaviour counsellor, I feel I must start at the beginning. I invite your comments and questions, as ever. I will attempt to answer at least one question a week, interpretting human behaviour in a way which may be helpful to us cats.
This is a female of the species with her young one, a junior male. I chose a female, because probably most of us cats choose to live with the females. Males are more likely to be roaming round outside the house. Females spend more time indoor especially when they have a litter of children. While there are wonderful exceptions - males who are house husbands or just properly devoted to cats - females probably make the best choice for the cat starting out with a pet. Females are more submissive in nature, though surprisingly stubborn at times. The cat that is experienced in training and caring for humans, may well want to choose a male. Males are bigger, more challenging, yet surprisingly easy to train once feline superiority is properly established.
If we are to understand human behaviour, we need to look at the species. Like us they are warm blooded mammals. They belong to the ape family. Unlike their fellow apes, they do not have fur. On the basis of this, it has been argued that Homo sapiens is a neotonised ape, ie an ape that has stayed immature. (if apes were insects, the human would be in the larval stage, so to speak.) This relative immaturity will be obvious when we look more closely at human behaviour.
Why are humans given the taxonomic name of Homo sapiens? Why indeed? It is clear to any right thinking cat, that this is indeed a misnomer of the first order. But the reason for it is obvious. Human beings named themselves so. It is as if we cats sat down and decided we would be Felis sapiens. Obviously the second half of the species name would be more applicable to us than them. But, as I have said, humans named themselves. And the choice of name is one which underlines not just their innate immaturity but their innate arrogance.
It's worth pointing out that not only is the human adult in many ways immature, but this immaturity starts very young indeed. Any kitten, however bad its start in life, is startlingly mature compared with human infants. Kittens mature somewhere about 8 weeks, while humans take about 8 years to get to somewhere near the same stage. We will look more closely at this in later posts, because this too is relevant to our experiences with human behaviour.