I AM THE THE AUTHOR OF "A-Z. A CAT'S GUIDE TO HUMANS. "A must read for all felines,"-- Tilly the Ugliest Cat in the Shelter. "Saved me from so many mistakes with my new human,"-- Toby the Cross-Eyed Stray.
In some US shelters, that kill unwanted cats, a lot of black cats get put to sleep. They are handed in on Halloween to keep them safe and die later.
Even little black kittens take longer to be adopted. So there are often lots of them waiting to find their forever home.
And the less likely they are to find us. It's a strange thing but humans often forget to look upwards, when they are trying to discover where we have got to.
Trees, houses, walls, the top of cars, roofs, sheds, straw bales - anywhere that it a bit higher is where we like to sit. We feel safe high up.Nobody can get us.
And we can sneer at the dogs and the humans below.... if they even notice us.
Look upwards, humans. We are watching your every move. You don't see us: but we see you from a great height.
It's probably arthritis. It begins to hurt when you do anything much, so you spend more time sleeping. Maybe you no longer want to have to tackle the stairs, so instead of walking downstairs to use the litter tray you do it behind the chest of drawers. As any sensible elderly cat would.
Your human doesn't understand. She gets angry. This is the moment to make sure she reads up on the problem here. It is Arthritis Week for cats.
Last century even vets didn't know that cats got arthritis. We conceal our pain - unlike those despicable whining dogs. We rarely limp and we never whine. We suffer in silence.
Yet there is so much our owners could do. They could make sure that there was a litter tray upstairs as well as downstairs. And they could cut down the front of the litter tray so it is easier to climb in.
There are little ramps that they could buy to help us get on and off the sofa or the bed. A heated bed would be cosy too. They could make sure we had regular painkillers.
Humans complain about aches and pains as they age. Why don't they think of feline aches and pains?
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| Mouse and Moley |
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| Special milk |
Mother cats teach their babies what to eat, help them to pee and poo, teach them to hunt, and give them the careful mothering they need. They groom the babies until the babies are ready to groom themselves in a way they learn from mother. They give them milk then when it is time to stop, they begin to close the milk bar. This teaches kittens to eat solid food but it also teaches that they don't always get what they want. That way they learn to tolerate frustration.
The best way to bring up orphan kittens is to put them on a lactating female that already has kittens or to keep them with their mother but bottle feed them. If humans can't do this, then they must keep the babies together or even (if they can) find an adult cat who will "mother" them without milk.
Can't do that? Well make sure that these kittens go to a home where there are no other cats. Bottle fed cats may be more likely to be loners.
We don't fight over who mates with whom. True, there is a lot of noise and caterwauling and usually the biggest tom cat goes first.... if the female allows. But others have their turn too.
Why is this a good thing? Well who knows what will happen to the kittens? Will they go to a good home and be neutered pets? Or a bad home that doesn't neuter them so they end up as strays? Or will they have to live in the wild and find their own food?
Two fathers means that if the little black kittens don't thrive in the world then purrhaps the little grey one will. Or visa versa. so it is a way of making sure one or more of the kittens will have the right genes to survive.
Humans are sometimes sniffy about our sex lives, but it is the pot calling the kettle black. We only mate when our hormones tell us to. They have sex all the time, any night of the week.
Purrsonally I find that kind of sex drive disgustingly licentious.
