What my ears hear....

 

My ears are the amazing. I can hear more from low to high- pitched sounds than any other warm-blooded animal that human scientists have tested. My hearing range is remarkable.

At the low range my hearing is about what would be expected from a small animal. But what is unexpected is the high pitched sounds that I can hear.  I can hear the tiniest little squeaks of small rodents and insects. 

What usually happens to animal hearing is that the higher an animal can hear, the less it can hear at lower pitch.  But that's not happened to us cats. We can hear low and we can hear high.

It's obviously why we need to hear high pitched sounds. These are the sounds in the undergrowth that alert us to mice, rats and other rodents. These are our prey in the wild.

But why do we need to hear the relatively low sounds? That may be because we have a dual role in life. We are hunters and predators but we are also prey to larger animals. We may need to hear the low sounds to keep us safe from animals like coyotes and dogs. 

We are both prey and predator.

 

I think therefore I purr

Human scientists have had the audacity (and stupidity) to say that cats don't think. That we are mindless beings just driven by instinct  and unable to solve problems.

Sometimes it is difficult to grasp the full stupidity of the human mind!

Of course we think. We learn, don't we? We learn how to hunt rabbits. We learn that if we wind ourselves round the human legs and purr loudly, we may get a treat.

We learn to avoid the neighbour's horrible yapping dog. And we work out how to sneak into the cat flap four doors down, where the owner provides ad lib food for their own cat - which we then steal. 

We learn to recognise the name that a human gives us. When they call us, we turn our heads to see why - if we are not too busy. Sometimes, just sometimes, we even come when called.

Do we think? Of course we do. And it humans thought a little better than they do, they'd know that.

 

What could be more beautiful?

What could be more beautiful than a cat? This is Holly, an ordinary black cat. Nothing special about her. No pedigree. No extraordinary colouring. Not particularly long hair. Just an ordinary cat.

But what is ordinary about a cat.? What is ordinary about her? Just look at the grace of her body, the curve of her paw, the gloss of her coat, and the linear loveliness of her tail.

August 6, tomorrow, is National Cat Day. Humans can celebrate it  by celebrating the beauty of all cats. Not just the special ones, not just the ordinary ones, but also the scruffy ones, the elderly ones, the starving ones and the disabled cats. 

So, if you can, give a pound or a dollar to your local cat rescue, and next time you want a cat, adopt a rescue cat. 

We cats say thank you.

 

Every single cat is unique.... why?

Every single cat has a different purrsonality. Every single cat is an individual. There is no "average cat." No single rule for every single cat.

So, humans, live with it...

And why is that? Well for a start, look at the picture. Five kittens of three different colours. Maybe three different fathers! Three different sets of genes.

Then there's the way our mum coped during her pregnancy. That affects us in the womb. If she was stressed out, we will be stress-prone kittens when we grow up. 

Next there is the influence of our first eight weeks of life. If we meet gentle loving humans, we love humans. If we don't meet humans, we grow up as wild cats without humans in our lives.

Finally, there's what happens to us. A single shattering experience can change how we act and feel - just as it does with humans.

So humans. Study each individual kitten. Study each individual cat. Only then you will know what we want and need.

 

 

I'm a street cat: don't rescue me to be a house cat

We, the street cats of the world, don't want to be tamed. We don't want to be put in a pen and forced to adapt to human society. We don't want to be made into house cats.

Yet some cat "rescuers" are trying to do just that. They think it's the right thing to do.

Or, if they don't try to tame us, they confine us to some kind of enclosure where we are fed regularly but we don't have the kind of freedom we used to have.

Being a street cat is a rich and varied life. If we are lucky we get fed by passersby, and there are always thrown out take-away wrappings, often with food in them. We can forage and hunt. We can lie in the sun. We can burglarise food left out for house cats.

All that is lost if we are stuck in a cat pen or confined to an enclosure - a so called "sanctuary." Only it can be more like a prison. Are two meals a day worth the loss of freedom? 

So please don't. Trap us and neuter us. We will be healthier without fighting and kitten bearing. Then let us go back to the streets where we live.

Oh, and appoint a regular feeder. Freedom and food. That's what we want.

P.S. Go to International Cat Care Cat Friendly Homing.

So many are homeless

 

There are so many homeless cats. One estimate says that one in every two cats living in the world do not have a human home. Even in the UK about five percent of cats are homeless.

Of course some of them live reasonable lives as farm cats, working cats or cats that have a regular feeder. These are the lucky ones.

Others have lost their homes and have to learn to live on their wits. Some are just abandoned when their owners move house. Others leave home if the home is unsuitable or frightening.

They may be able to live out of refuse bins, restaurant waste, thrown-away take away food, or break into human houses with a cat flap and steal another cat's food.

Purrlease spare a little money for your local cat rescue. There are a lot of homeless cats around at the moment and not enough money for the rescuers.

Cat deprivation in humans: the symptoms

 

Dr Roxy on her therapy couch treats a patient

 

A new syndrome in humans has been discovered - cat deprivation syndrome. Do you know a human who is suffering? Here is an outline of the symptoms.

• Intense loneliness. This emotion is felt despite socialisation between humans. In households with partners and children, it is still the primary symptom. In lone-human households, it can become seriously overwhelming.
• Purr deprivation during the night. The human frequently wakes and misses the purr. This leads to prolonged sleeplessness due to what we cats call "unnnatural night silence." More room on the bed does not compensate for purr absence.
  
• The breakfast gap. This occurs when the human staggers downstairs to put down cat food. Realises there is no cat. Has to fill the gap by making her own coffee first. Schedule disruption produces inner uneasiness.
• Empty-house ideation. The human's mind is full of images of an empty house. Empty armchairs. Empty beds. Empty windowsills
  
• Missing rituals -  such as the litter skitter, the move-over-you-are-on-my-chair, the belly flop, where-ie-my-dinner, the greeting-you scratch on mat, don't-interrupt-my-grooming-sequence. 
• Improverished cleaning rituals. Where has the hair gone? Paradoxical feelings of dismay rather than relief.

I could go on, but these are the main symptoms. If not promptly addressed, they can lead to severe mental psychosis.

• 
  

My scratch-post is too small

This is how I like to scratch most of the time -- standing at full length and pulling my spine upwards with my claws before a good downward stroke.. A lovely pilates stretch as well as an important way to leave a scent mark.

What do humans do?

They give us a tiny scratching post that wobbles. We can't get a proper stretch on it. We can't get a strong downward stroke with the claws. It's rubbish.

So what do we do?

We use the furniture, stupid. What else. Sometimes there's a door in soft wood to scratch on, but  usually it has to be the sofa or an armchair. At the back it is high enough to get a good stretch and a firm downward stroke. L-o-v-e-l-y.

Then our humans have the cheek to object.

Why lions can't purr but we can.

 

Lions can't purr.

They can roar because they are big animals with no real enemies except humans. They can make all the noise they like - to see off rivals or attract a mate - without having to worry that a bigger animal will hear them and hunt them.

But they can't purr. 

So we are superior to lions in purring.

We can purr like a contented universe humming to itself. It's a long low sound that mother cats and kittens make together in the safety of the nest, knowing that quiet hum won't arouse any predators. It's the sound of safety, of happiness, and of love in that blissful nest.

Why can't lions purr? It's a bit of a mystery. It's not just size. Cheetahs can purr, for example: so can snow leopards.

It used to be thought this was something to do with small hyoid bone in the throat and whether it was rigid enough to make a roar but too rigid for a purr. Now scientists have started to argue against this, saying it might be something to do with the folds of the vocal tract.

Purrng is still a wonderful mystery. 

We purr without pausing for breath because we purr continuously on the in-breath and on the out-breath. Not many animals can do this. 

Humans can't purr. We are their superior in purring.

How we see the world

What a human sees - sharp and coloured

We see the world as we are, not as the world is. That's because no creature sees the whole world. Each creature, whether animal or human, sees what is important to it.

What a cat sees - less colour slightly blurred

So we don't need to see colour like you humans do. You need to tell if the corn is yellow and therefore ripe. We just need to see if there are any mice moving around among the corn.

The other reason why we don't see colour like you do, is because we are designed to be twilight hunters. Our eyes specialise in low light, where there isn't much colour anyway. They also specialise in motion. If something moves, we notice it. If it stays very very still, like a mouse freezing, it's more difficult for us to see it.

Our vision is a bit narrower and more blurry too. 

Twilight is our world. 

 

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.

Sensitive ears in the shelter

 We cats can hear far more and far better than humans. We can hear the tiny ultrasonic squeak of a mouse behind the skirting boards. We can hear the ultrasonic whirring noises of machine, which you humans cannot hear at all. Yet for us it is screaming in our ears.

So no wonder we don't like it, if the litter tray is placed near the washing machine in the utility room. Would you like to have to sit on the lavatory right by the noise of men drilling through the tarmac? That's what the machine sounds like to us!

We learn to ignore the TV noises most of the time - even though they are far louder in our ears than in yours. We can hear the  faint scrabble of a rat or the tiny hum of a very small grasshopper. They are clear as a church bell to us.

When we are put into a cat shelter, one of the awful stresses are the noises. We can sometimes hear the barking of frightening dogs in the kennels nearby. We hear the clash of the food bowls being washed and the noise of the grass outside being mown -- and we can't get away from the din.

We nervous cats suffer most. Please put us as far away as possible from noisy machinery or the rattle of food dishes. Cats in pens need as much silence as they can get!

 

Kittens need human love - a pen is not enough.

Kittens need loving and gentle human contact otherwise it will not grow up to be a happy pet from the age of two to eight weeks. Yet many humans do not realise this.

They rescue a mum and kittens, then keep them in a pen where they get only a moderate amount of human contact usually when the pen is being cleaned or food is being supplied.

That's not enough.

They rescue us - and think that just giving food and shelter is adequate. It's not. Without loving human contact we will grow up to be nervous adults. Kittens need human love and handling, and they need it at the right age.

Educate the cat rescuers to socialise kittens properly!

Humans feed us in the wrong wayl

 

 

Boomer has to search for his food - and it's fun

• Humans give us food in a bowl. It's boring. Why don't they give us fun hunting out food hidden round the house?
• Humans sometimes make us share a single food bowl with another cat. It's stressful. We cats prefer to eat alone.
• Humans think it is cute if we have to eat our food in a line of bowls close to each other. It's unnatural for us and stressful. 
• Humans often feed us twice a day with large portions. That's unnatural for us too. We would like 5-20 little nibbles a day.
• Humans think fat cats are funny. We suffer from arthritis and diabetes if we get too fat. 

Humans should wise up about what cats want.

Why don't I show when I am in pain?

Elderly Sam

Humans are not good at recognizing when I am in physical pain, let alone emotional pain. I do not whimper or whine like a dog. I might shriek from sudden fear, but most of the time I endure pain silently and stoically. 

If I have arthritis and moving is painful, I just spend more time in my bed. I usually don't limp or show that I am stiff. I may also bite you when you pick me up, if it hurts. 

Why do I behave like this?

I am a small animal with big enemies like dogs, coyotes and wolves. These predators are always on the lookout for an easy meal, so they will single out any cat that looks as if it is sick and will not be able to run away or fight back. Therefore evolution has programmed me not to show pain.

I get scruffy because I can't turn round to groom myself properly. I may lose weight because my teeth are bad. But my carers often say "It's just old age."

Please don't do this. I need painkillers from a vet.