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.

Tips for sleeping on the bed.

 Why sleep on the bed, when your human takes up so much room? 

There are three reasons  

• The bed is large enough for both of you - just. 
• Although they take up a lot of room, humans give out a lot of heat during the night. They make a good hot water bottle. 
• It reminds them that we can sleep anywhere we choose and they will just have to get used to it.
  

And how do you manage that great lump of humanity during the night?

Here are my tips for a good night's sleep. 

• Start modestly. Put yourself in a position where the human thinks there is enough room..... 
• Only when they are asleep, move into the most comfortable position. 
• Edge them slowly out of the way. Slow and steady is the correct way to do it and if you do it this way it is remarkable what you can achieve.
• Resist the temptation to throw them off the bed completely. They will wake up and might take action against you. Keep them from falling off  - just. 

Be aware that the deluded fools think it is their bed.

Stressed mother, stressed kittens

Why do some of us grow up more nervous than others? It is just that we haven't had enough human contact in our kittenhood? 

There are there are other reasons. It may be the fault of our parents. A nervous feline Dad sires kittens with a nervous temperament and, though a proper kitten upbringing with loads of gentle socialisation by humans can make a difference, it will not change that basic temperament.

It may be Mummy's fault. Studies of other animals like guinea pigs and rats have shown that if the mother is stressed, the stress hormones in her blood will be passed to the babies she is carrying. This will affect their brains, so that they too grow up to be prone to stress.

This is Nature's way of ensuring that as a kitten we are ready to face the worrying world ahead of us. A nervous kitten may better placed to cope with a dangerous world and less likely to take over-confident risks.

What should humans learn from this? Kittens in rescue, that come from mothers in the wild, should have extra and very gentle handling by expert humans. Adopters should be told about our temperament. Help give us what we need to fit us for a human home.

Why I peed on the sofa

Human beings are so dumb. My human shrieked saying: "How could he have done this to me. He must hate me after I shut him out of the kitchen."

She couldn't be more wrong.

There are a couple of reasons why I might have peed on the sofa.

• I might be suffering from cystitis. It makes you want to pee urgently and immediately.
  

• I might be anxious about the cat next door - the sofa is just underneath the window and he leaped on to the window sill and peered in. He has been peering in through the French windows too and I don't like it.
  

The idiot woman hadn't checked whether I was leaving little drops of urine in the litter tray instead of a good sized proper elimination. If so, I need a vet visit. Cystitis can be exacerbated by general stress.

That cat next door really winds me up. I am scared stiff of him and when he peers in the windows, I feel a lot of social anxiety. So I comforted myself by spraying a little bit of urine there on the sofa below the window mixing my smell with her smell where she sits.  That's what I do when I feel my safe home might be intruded into by other cats. It makes me feel better.

My behaviour was nothing to do with her shutting me out of the kitchen or any hate I felt towards her. Honestly, I don't know why she took it personally. And I wish she wouldn't.

She needs help - from a vet or a good cat behaviour counsellor. 

 

Life before birth for a kitten

 

We all depend on our mothers, when we are young, whether we are kittens or human babies. She influences us by her mothering after birth but she also influences us before birth.

Feline mothers that are half starved produce small, sometimes slow developer kittens - that isn't unknown. But what you may not know is that our feline mother's eating habits can influence us as kittens in her womb. If she eats a cheese-flavoured diet, as in one study, we will prefer cheese flavoured food when we start eating solid food.

There are other sadder influences too. A highly stressed mother produces highly kittens that will grow up with the same stressy attitude to life. The stress hormones in her maternal blood will be passed on to the kittens in her womb and influence their prenatal brain development.

In a way it's nature's method of preparing us kittens for life ahead. If our mother cat lives in a world where there are many dangers, we need to be prepared for the same world. If a pregnant cat eats a particular diet, then this diet will be around for her kittens to eat safely too. 

And there is also the influence of genetics. If we have a fearful father cat we kittens will have a fearful temperament - even though most tom cats have nothing to do with us kittens. So it must be in the genes.

"They f... you up, your Mum and Dad," wrote a human poet. The same can hold true for kittens....