Cat Chit Chat

This super cute, handsome caracal kitten is making a very interesting sound in this video. The kitten is captive. You can tell that by the carrier on which he or she stands. This must be a caracal version of a meow. Apparently she was hungry and is demanding food. She is very insistent; typical of the domestic cat. It got me thinking about caracal vocalizations. The experts say that this medium-sized wild cat species has the 'basic felid vocal repertoire' by which it is meant that the sounds made are typical of cats and include meowing, gurgling, hissing, growling, spitting and purring. These are all sounds barring gurgling that the domestic cat makes. They also make a sound called the wah-wah call. Other wild cats have this call namely, lynxes, pumas, jaguarundi, servals and the Asiatic and African golden cats ( you can read about all these cats on PoC ). One expert, has reported hearing caracals making a harsh, hissing bark when a strange animal was introduced into an

We are told that the latest CGI, all action, fantasy film for young people called Black Panther has resulted in a sharp spike in adoptions of black cats at shelters in America. On the face of it is excellent news. Of course it is. Black cats are unpopular. Anything to improve their adoption rate must be welcomed. Photos copyright Helmi Flick However, being cynical as I am, my mind turned to the apparent fecklessness of this phenomenon. Whereas normally people are reluctant to adopt black cats, when a popular film which is a transient form of entertainment alters opinions overnight such that black cat adoptions rise steeply then it seems to me that the people who are suddenly adopting these cats may change their minds in the not too distant future once they have hit reality and realized that they are not adopting a miniature black panther but a real cat with all the incumbent responsibilities. Perhaps I'm being too cynical. Of course I welcome the news. Apparently these a

Did you realize that American people take their cat to the vet far less often than people take their dog to the vet despite the fact that there are more companion cats than dogs in the United States? So says the results of a 2012 survey of over 8m patients of over 2 thousand veterinarians across the United States. The survey, conducted by the American Animal Hospital Association, indicates that if we look at the percentage of patients from the companion dog and cat sector, 72% of veterinary patients are dogs and 28% are cats. What do you think about that? Why is there this huge disparity? Are dogs less healthy than cats? Or are people more aware of a dog's ill health than with the domestic cat who hides it so well? Image (modified) in public domain I'll try and speculate. There are far more purebred dogs than purebred cat breeds. There are far more companion dogs that are purebred. Purebred cats are relatively rare. This is probably because dogs have been domestica

According to the 'experts', the African wildcat is not endangered. The conservation status of this small wild cat species is "Least Concern" with a declining population. As the population is decreasing then no doubt in the future the status will become more precarious, heading gradually towards endangerment in the long term. African wildcat - photo in public domain  One complication about writing this post is that the group of experts charged with assessing the conservation status of species of animals and plants, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, ball together several subspecies of wild cat ( Felis Sylvestris ) and do not distinguish between the African wildcat which itself could be divided between the North African and South African wild cat or the Scottish wild cat as far as I can tell (they do refer to the Chinese mountain cat separately). And therefore when I mention above that the classification is "Least Concern" I'm referring to a

Kuniyoshi Utagawa, Four Cats In Different Poses is a painting that is, for me, all about the famous Japanese bobtail cat. Kuniyoshi Utagawa (歌川国芳) lived between 1798 and 1861. He was one of the masters of the Japanese ukiyo-e style of woodblock prints and painting and belonged to the Utagawa school. This is a good era to discuss any cat breed because it is before the recognized cat fancy and it taps in to the long history of this cat breed before photographs of cats were seen. What interests me is the appearance of the cat in these paintings compared to the appearance currently. At the time of this painting the Japanese bobtail had been in known existence for some 800 years. I have discussed the history on the Japanese bobtail page . I am sure that the cats in the painting below are both bicolor and tricolor. I have marked the tricolor cats with red connecting lines to show what I think is the same area of color. The cats in the top right hand corner and bottom left hand corner

A stray cat who has been named " Clawdia" has a very rare congenital condition called split foot. The medical terminology is ectrodactyly. She is an ectrodactyl cat (a cat with less than the normal number toes), the opposite to a polydactyl cat (a cat with more than the usual number of toes). Photos: PH She is in the care of Cats Protection, UK. As you can imagine she is very popular because she is so unusual (and her character is great). At the date of writing this article (25/02/2018), I believe that she is still available for adoption and if you are interested you can visit the following website: http://warrington.cats.org.uk/ I'm told that she has four weeks of prepaid pet insurance and she is spayed, vaccinated and micro-chipped. She is also wormed. She is a great looking cat in good health and ready for adoption. Apparently, every effort was made to find her owner but the search has now been exhausted. She is believed to be about 11 years old. She was

Here's a video of two cats who I would say are closely related. They have similar coloration and they are clearly very close emotionally. The larger and perhaps senior cat is, on the face of it, comforting the other cat. They are both in a stressful situation. It is a time when at an emotional level they need some comforting and it is being provided. It is impossible not to believe that these cats are feeling emotions, particularly the emotion that goes with being caged in a cat shelter with noises and strange things happening; anxiety. The reaction is an emotional one, a desire to comfort and a desire to receive comfort. It is a charming video which I believe supports the view that domestic cats have emotions. Little by little there is a gradual awakening to the fact that domestic animals feel emotions and indeed a very substantial proportion, well over 50%, of concerned cat owners believe that their cat can feel compassion and a similar percentage although slightly lower

This is an amusing video on YouTube in which the tabby cat's owner fakes his death on the floor of his home to discover how his cat would respond. Would his cat respond in a way consistent with believing that he had died? We have seen, on the Internet, cats grieving for the loss of a fellow cat companion. I remember clearly a very well-known video of a street cat pawing at the lifeless body of another cat who must've been his best friend. He was trying to revive his buddy. It was a heartbreaking video. Most enlightened cat owners and non-cat owners believe that cats grieve and feel the loss of a companion. But what happened in this case? Well you can see readily from the video that this man's cat is 100% certain that her human companion has not died but has simply decided to have a snooze in an unusual place. As a consequence, she sniffs him and rubs her cheek against his hand as it is at a convenient height and then plonks herself down next to him, in a way almost c

Nothing to do with cats except that I'd bet some cats are missing their human companions today because they have been needlessly shot at school by a mentally disturbed former fellow student who should not have been allowed to own firearms. Student Emma Gonzalez is brilliant. They are going to march on Washington. The students are going to teach the mealy-mouthed politicians (the adults) a damn lesson in integrity. As for Trump, the NRA bought him and his morality if he had any in the first place.