Builders in my territory....hiss

Don't you hate them.... strange men carrying a hold-all full of tools. Smelling of wood, plaster, metal, and sometimes of the yappy dog that is in their van.

They invade our home, bringing in their horrible scent to ruin the reassuring family scent. They are noisy -  drilling, thumping, banging, and hammering. And, if we're unlucky, they bring a radio with loud rock music.

In the evening when they have gone and we inspect our home territory, we find there is CHANGE.

I hate change. I want my safe family territory to stay the same, just as I want my daily routine to be unaltered.

Builders ruin that. So I hiss at them. I might even need to pee on their toolbox. 

Builders! You have been warned.

Stop feline cultural appropriation!

The name is George. George Online Cat. 

Only it isn't.

This name is cultural appropriation at its most disgusting.

George is NOT my name, but the name given to me by humans, who purrsist in calling us cats by names they, not we, invent. They don't seem to realise how bad mannered it is.

"George" is just a word to me. People are so stupid that when I react to the word, they think it means I "know my name."

Of  course I don't. It's not my name. My identity is bound up with my personal smell, my signature scent. It doesn't need a "blah blah" human utterance.

I react to the name because it predicts stuff like food, strokes, or (occasionally) punishment. 

Yet humans are too thick to react to my real scent identity which I spread on them when I rub against them. They only "recognise" my identity scent when I pee or spray - and then they react very badly indeed. They don't understand that this is my signature identity.

Stop and think, human. You are guilty of feline cultural appropriation when you think you have named me!

Do cats mourn? The loss of scent harmony

 

Do we mourn, when we lose a feline or a human friend? Of course, we do. Some of us go round the house looking for the missing friend: others sink into depression.

Of course, if it was a cat with whom we were not friendly, we probably go round looking for them - to make sure that they have left forever. Then we can take their place on the bed or under the warmest radiator of the house.

Any change is upsetting, of course. The scent profile of the house, so important to our feelings of security and harmony, changes. This family scent is made up of our signature scent, the scent of all the house occupants and of the house itself. We make it by rubbing ourselves against places, people and other cats - both depositing and picking up scent.

Any change is upsetting. Sometimes it leads to conflict between us remaining cats. The missing signature scent of the departed may have been a bridge between us and an acquaintance we did not care for. Now the bridge is missing, hostilities begin...

So like humans we may experience not just loss but also anger.  And that too is part of mourning.

PS. My blog was omitted last Saturday in respect of the mourning for Queen Elizabeth 11.

It's the family scent, stupid human!

 

We cats live in a world of scent which you humans can never fully understand. You are nose blind to our smellscape! No wonder we are a bit of a mystery to you.

We can smell home. It smells of every human in the house (each with an individual scent signature), of every other cat or dog in the house, the regular cleaning fluids used, the regular food eaten - and our own scent. 

We apply our body perfume by rubbing against corners, skirting boards, human legs, other cats or dogs, and furniture. That mixture is important. It makes up the family scent and reassures us that we are in a safe place, our core home.

So when you humans ruin it, no wonder we get stressed. Strangers coming into the house to service the boiler: new cats plonked inside the home: new smells you bring home after being in hospital (yukk smells like vet surgery!), spring cleaning (oh no!), or a new boyfriend/girlfriend with a strong perfume habit, or you add a floral plug in (purrlease....).

It smells wrong. The mixture is wrong, wrong, wrong.... to sensitive cat. 

Try not to disrupt our important family scent mixture. It's our home, stupid.

What's the meaning of a chin rub?

 My humans are not always happy when I go round the living room, rubbing my chin against the door frame, the chair leg and various other places. I also rub against any new item placed in the room.

What they dislike - if they notice it - is a tiny smear in the places which I have rubbed repeatedly. Sometimes they clear it up using water and soap. 

That absolutely ruins all my hard work. And it's very stressful for me.

I am rubbing my cheek against the furniture and walls in order to mark this place as my safe home. It's important to me that I do this. It's like a post-it note to myself, reassuring me that all is well and I can relax.

Each time some interfering human wipes it off, I have to put it back on. And I have to keep it topped up with frequent cheek rubs, so that the whole place smells RIGHT to me.

Take your horrible human hands off my skirting boards!

Cats are taking over....

 

We have always been in children's books but now we are slinking our way into adult literature. As detectives.The latest detector cat is Yowl, hero of TAILs: The Animal Investigators of London. You will notice that Yowl is out front on the cover, though he has a little help from the other animals.

Another small step for Yowl but a giant leap for catkind.  We've more or less conquered the internet: now it is time to conquer in print.

We are well suited for detection. I can hear the tiniest ultrasonic squeak from behind the skirting board - humans cannot. I can also detect a small insect moving across the floor that evades the attention of the human eye.

I can smell who was last inside or on top of the bed - whether iindividual cat or individual human. I can see in the dark. And, most of all, I notice what humans don't.

More detector cats, purrlease.

Purrlease do not clean away my marks

 Rubbing the scent of my face is how I make myself feel secure and comfortable. I spread my scent to remind that I am safe and that this is my home.

That is why you will see cats in rescue pens rubbing their face against the pen. Without their own scent there, they will feel they are in a frightening place. 

In a house, I make a home scent profile. I rub against my human (and against the family dog if I get on with him) and put my scent on them. At the same time I pick up their scent on me.

So when I rub against the doorpost I am anointing it with my own scent and their scent. Like humans decorate a house with wallpaper to make them feel happy, I decorate the house with the home scent to make me feel happy.

If you clean it all off, I am disturbed and I have to start scent marking all over again.

If I feel really really frightened, then I might have to scent mark with urine. 

You have been warned. Do not clean up my facial scent marks.

Our secret language of scent

Lucy marking her cat pen to make it smell like home.

We can leave messages for other cats, and reminders for ourselves, with a secret language - a specialised scent called a pheromone. This is a chemical emitted from glands in own bodies among other places from our cheek and chin.

Ever thought why we cats rub our chin and cheek against something? We are marking it with this pheromone and with our own ordinary body scent (a kind of signature mix). 

If we have rubbed against our human, then that scent of human will also be there. We are making our household territory friendly by making it smell of the family - us, our humans and perhaps another resident cat (if we like him and have rubbed against him too.)

It is like a post-it note to ourselves saying "We live here: this is our home and family." Humans cannot smell this at all: nor can they usually see it.

Occasionally, if we have rubbed in the same place for a long time, our human may notice a sort of dark mark. If they are houseproud, they clean it off. This is very upsetting.

So we have to re-mark it all over again. And again.