Domestic cats prefer underfloor heating to radiators

I have come to the decision that domestic cats prefer underfloor heating to radiators. To the best of my knowledge, underfloor heating is fairly unusual. I just happened to have it and I love it. Don't think that it is more expensive than conventional heating because it is not. The boiler runs for longer in the morning when it heats up the floor but once it is heated up the boiler is not required to work for the next 22 hours because the floor retains the heat. And it is this retention of heat which helps to maintain a very stable air temperature inside the home even during cold nights in winter. But this is not about me. It's about my cat. 

Domestic cats prefer underfloor heating to radiators. Photo: MikeB.

As you can see in the photograph he loves underfloor heating. It's unusual for a cat to plonk himself down in the middle of a kitchen like this and curl up on the floor because it is a bit too exposed. Cats like to find a quiet place, preferably high up, where they feel secure. This location does not meet that requirement. However, it does meet the requirement of warmth. This floor is warm. It's hard which is not great either for him but despite those downsides he has decided to rest there and but for the fact that I photographed him, which disturbed him, I think he'd be there right now.

I realise that you can't use those radiator hammocks which are quite popular with domestic cats and which are attached to radiators which heat the air in the room. But when the whole ground floor is underfloor heated (except for the hallway) a cat has a lot of choice as to where to put themselves. It opens up some added options for a resting place for a domestic cat.

I would recommend underfloor heating if you are buying a house with it and are uncertain about its functionality. It functions very well. I can vouch for that. And the heating bill is no more than for standard heating using radiators. Further, you have all that extra wall space because radiators take wall space away from a room. The walls are completely sheer in my home. You can put furniture where ever you want to.

Tampa, Florida: cat food shortage leads to empty shelves

The video explains it. I am in a bit of a rush so won't add many words 😉. Hope you don't mind. Heck of course you don't mind. Hardly anyone is reading the stuff anyway. This is an interesting Covid development. There is no doubt that the pandemic has distorted commerce. It has created pressures and pinch points. It has disrupted supply chains. And demand and supply has been altered. Demand post pandemic has significantly increased while supply has been disrupted due to employee absenteeism due to illness and isolations. And there have been shipping problems with increased container cost. All there has been a truck driver shortage. That certainly applies to the UK and I think to the USA as well.

Note: This is a video from another website which is embedded here. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

Can cats eat avocados? Why the hell should you feed your cat an avocado?

The Dodo asks: "Can cats eat avocados?" For the life of me, I cannot see why that question is being asked. Who feeds their domestic cat companion avocados? Don't tell me, you're going to write a comment and say that you feed your cat avocados because it benefits their health. Personally I can't see the point of the idea or the article. It's impossible to think of a more inappropriate food for your cat.

Cat eats an avocado? The images provided by The Dodo. Thank You. It is a good image but you are not going to see this in real life. 😊. Obvious.

The avocado is a fruit, a single-seeded berry. Domestic cats don't eat fruit. No cat eats fruit. They might eat digested fruit in the belly of the prey animal that they have killed. So, yes, cats might eat fruit but not specifically or deliberately.

As expected, The Dodo tells me that avocados aren't the worst thing that you can give your cat to eat (if they would eat it in the first place) but that they can cause a stomach upset if they eat too much. Why should a cat eat avocados in the first place?

The Dodo spoke to Dr. Stephanie Liff about letting a cat eat avocados. It seems that her advice is that avocados are considered toxic due to the presence of persin, a substance which is in leaves, barks and seeds. It is not highly toxic but it can cause damage to the heart and mammary glands. It should not be offered to cats the doctor says.

Avocados can cause persin toxicity in cats. Apparently, the high fat content of avocados might cause your cat to develop pancreatitis. It seems that they have to digest a large quantity of avocado to achieve this state of toxicity. And as I can't see any domestic cat wanting to eat any quantity of avocado it seems highly unlikely that a domestic cat will be poisoned by an avocado.

The Dodo article is, in my opinion, a sign of desperation to find something to write about. I can, however, understand that problem. All websites about any species of animal will end up running out of material at some stage. It's a finite subject. And there will come a time when I stop. I did say that about 10 years ago 😉.

What is the population of stray cats and dogs in India?

NEWS AND COMMENT: What is the population of stray cats and dogs in India?  Despite the report I mention, we don't know. If we are being honest. In the India language there are 6.2 core stray dogs and 91 lakh stray cats according to a fresh report recently published by the State of Pet Homelessness Index. How accurate are these numbers? How did they count them? Is it possible to count them? No. They are estimates. It took Washington DC a long time and a lot of effort to count their cats in a landmark survey.

Stray cat India. Photo: Pixabay.

A 'core' denotes ten million (10,000,000) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. A 'lakh' is equal to one hundred thousand (100,000).

Therefore 6.2 core is 62 million. 91 lakh is 9.1 million. I can't believe the cat numbers. Far too low. Perhaps it depends on how you define 'stray'. In India there are community cats. Are these stray cats?

There appears to be an index of stray animal populations called the 'All Pets Wanted' index. India scores 2.4 out of 10.

I think India is known for its stray cats and dogs. Isn't it? There is only one unhappy reason: carelessness and apathy about companion animal welfare. Yes, there is also a lot of the same in developed countries. It is a worldwide phenomenon. But in India and Pakistan for example the problem is more severe.

RELATED: 6 reasons for the 90% drop in pound killings of US dogs and cats since the 1970s

The same kind of carelessness which causes so much environmental pollution in India. A great nation let down by these weakness. This is supported by the finding - as reported in One India - that 61 percent of dog owners don't visit the vet (ever!). Is that true? I find that hard to believe too.

The reasons might sound justified: distance and poor reputations or facilities, but ultimately it is down to cat and dog caregivers to find a way. And if these reasons are true there is a failure at government level.

7 in 10 citizens of India see stray cats and dogs weekly.

Clearly a huge percentage of domestic or semi-domestic cats and dogs are not sterilised. They breed and generate a greater stray animal problem. It seems to be out of control. Is anyone doing anything about it?

Let's compare the 85% homeless companion animals in India with the United States (26%), Germany (7%), Greece (51%), China (29%), Mexico (20%), UK (5%), South Africa (27%) and Russia (6%). India is at the bottom by a long way. I can't vouch for these figures. You make up your own mind as to whether they are accurate. I am always dubious about counting stray cats. How do you do it? Where are they? 

In the table below please use the slider below the spreadsheet to read the data on the RHS.

RELATED: 85 percent of companion animals in India are homeless

Do you think having cats is a burden?

A British woman living in London asked the question in the title. And the answer must be that cats are indeed a burden sometimes but the pleasure they bring you in various forms hugely outweigh the burden. 

But it cannot be avoided that the responsibility of looking after a domestic cat companion can be a burden. There are chores to do. There is money to spend. There is worrying to do about your cat's welfare and health. There are vets to see. There are litter trays to clear and there are sofas to protect from scratches. There are cat scratching posts to purchase from Amazon up and so on and so forth.

This is the woman's beautiful grey cat. She complained about him knocking over water and of having to clear out the litter tray of a prodigious amount of shit. She appears to have flushed it down the toilet. This is not recommended by the way.

Perhaps the biggest burden is the worry in providing your cat with good levels of security and safety. But if you keep your cat indoors all the time, which is much safer, there is the worry about entertaining your cat and making sure that they are fully stimulated. The worry of boredom creeping into your cat's life is ever present. Worry is a burden but it is all part and parcel of being a cat caregiver.

But if the British lady was asking whether domestic cats are a burden without benefit then firstly she's wrong and secondly there is no point in her having cats. For about half the human population of the world cats are just a burden with no benefit. They don't really like cats.

However, a noted advantage of cats over dogs is that they are less of a burden than dogs, I would argue. You take a dog to a park in winter for a walk and you have got some serious cleaning up to do afterwards. They end up covered in mud. And dogs look to their human master for leadership. You got to provide it. That's responsibility and responsibility is by definition a burden of some sort.

Cats are more independent it is said. This is a slight misinterpretation of the human-cat relationship in my view because they are not independent by any means. But they give the impression of being independent. They don't look to their human for leadership as dogs do. They look to us for companionship, food, warmth and security.

The bottom line in answering the question is that where there is benefit as there is in the human-to-cat relationship, for both parties, there must by necessity be an equivalent burden of responsibility. It's one of the laws of nature 😟.

Obviously, if you live with more than one cat or several cats then responsibilities are magnified and so is the burden. There comes a time in that formula in my opinion when the burden outweighs the benefits. What I'm saying is that there is probably an optimum number of cats that a person should look after and live with. That optimum number would range between 1-5 approximately in my view.

If a person looks after 10, 20 or more cats then the chances are that any increase in benefit is out done by the extra demands in terms of caregiving.

Do cats bite more than dogs?

Officially, in terms of recorded incidents, cats do not bite more than dogs. In fact, it is quite the reverse. For example, statistics tell me that in the US dog bites are by far the most common type of animal bites with around 4.7 million incidents annually (2009). An estimated 800,000 dog bites resulted in medical care for the victim. And about 30+ fatal dog bites occur annually. 

Classic Dracula cat bite marks on human leg. Pic: MikeB

By contrast, there are an estimated 400,000 cat bites annually in the US. They lead to an estimated 66,000 hospital emergency visits (once again as at 2009).

However, rabies is more often transmitted by cat bites and dog bites. There were 18 rabies cases from dogs and 300 rabies cases from cats in the US in 2009. The source for this information is the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in the US.

RELATED: How often do cats transmit rabies to people in the USA?

The reason why domestic and stray cats are more likely to transmit rabies to people is because they are off the lead. They wander freely. They are more likely to encounter wildlife who then pass the disease to them in a bite. It is just the nature of how companion animal ownership takes place.

RELATED: Walking your cat on a leash to explore and stimulate. A lifestyle to aspire to?

It's almost certain that recorded incidents in official figures, as stated, are not the true figures. There must be millions of small bites by cats and dogs that take place inside homes and in backyards across the planet annually which go unreported.

Therefore, I don't think we can be certain as to the answer to the question in the title.

For dog bites, the injury rate is highest for children in the age range 5-9. The rates decrease with increasing age. The rate is significantly higher for boys compared to girls. When boys and girls are 15 years of age there is no difference in terms of being bitten by a dog. Injuries normally occur to the arm and leg followed by the leg and foot, followed by the head and neck. When a dog bites a young child under the age of four they attacked the head and neck region (source: CDC).

I don't have CDC figures for cats but they are likely to bite hands more than any other part of the human anatomy because of over-petting and cats treating hands as play objects. Or a person reaches out to a stray cat and the fearful cat bites the person's hand.

Legs as well will be attacked by cats because they are at the same level as them.

Note: I believe that the 2009 CDC stats come from 1994! Anyway the comparison is the important thing.

Health checklist for all new cat arrivals

Is the kitten healthy? Checklist infographic by MikeB

Before you do a health checklist for all new cat arrivals you should have done a checklist as to whether you are in the right place physically, emotionally and monetarily to adopt a cat. I discuss the latter issues quite extensively on another page which you can read by clicking the link below;

Should I get a cat?

If you have adopted from a shelter your cat will have been through their standard checks and vaccinations. You should therefore both be in a good place. Likewise, if you have adopted from a purebred cat breeder, your cat will have been thoroughly checked and vaccinated and you will have received all the papers you need to prove pedigree and ownership et cetera. Once again things should be in place but here's a list nonetheless for those intermediate cases where you've adopted a cat informally and in case there are problems even when buying from a breeder.

Check list

It is advisable to watch your new cat's behaviour closely especially during the first 24-hours in your home. You can watch for potential health problems. The list below is prepared by Dr. Bruce Fogle and if you answer no to any one of the questions you should schedule a visit to your veterinarian on the same day or the next day he says.

1. Is your cat eating normally?
2. Defecating and urinating without any difficulty and without signs of distress;
3. No signs of diarrhoea or vomiting;
4. Breathing easily with no discharge, noise or effort;
5. Has nice, healthy pink gums and no unpleasant odours from the mouth;
6. Has a healthy, shiny coat without flea dirt towards the tail or indeed without any fleas;
7. Moves around in general such as getting up, jumping and lying down without difficulty;
8. Alert and active?

Number 4 might refer to lower urinary tract diseases such as typically cystitis, an inflammation of the bladder caused by a bacterial infection.

Number 4 refers to URIs; very typical of rescued kittens. They almost invariably have 'colds'; viral infections of the upper respiratory tract followed by bacterial infections of the eyes (pink eye).

RELATED: Diets to Promote Feline Oral Health

Number 5 is very typical of rescued cats with bad oral health. This is a reference to gum disease. And if the gums are not pink it is indicative of anaemia.

Number 6 is almost bound to be answered in the negative if you have rescued a cat because there will be fleas at the front of the cat and flea dirt at the rear end. You probably know that flea dirt is a reference to flea faeces which is processed blood basically.

RELATED: True or false: ‘Indoor only’ pets don’t get fleas and therefore don’t need a flea preventative

Number 7 is a reference to conditions such as arthritis or if it's a kitten to a congenital problem. It might also apply to ataxia i.e. a lack of coordination. 

Number 8 is a reference to general health and whether the cat is feeling well.

Cat owners are not great at understanding their cats' sounds out of context

A study carried out in 2003 and published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, probably discovered what we already know but I think it's worth briefly discussing here. 

They wanted to test how well cat owners understood the calls that their cats made. They used experienced cat owners and inexperienced cat owners. They classified domestic cat sounds into two groups: single calls and "bouts of calls". I take the latter to mean the situation when domestic cats produce a series of meows and meow-like sounds. 

Oriental Shorthair meow-honk. Screenshot plus words added.

They found that experienced cat owners were better at interpreting feline sounds than inexperienced cat owners, which is to be expected. They also found that there was a better understanding of bouts of calls compared to single calls. 

They also concluded that "classification accuracy was significantly above chance, but modestly so". This, on my interpretation, means that cat owners indicated that they understood their cat's meows but only slightly above a level of pure guesswork. This is why the title to this post is that cat owners are not great at understanding their cat's meow sounds.

ASSOCIATED PAGE: Why do feral cats not meow?

What do we take from this?

Well, I can't read the entire study which would help me because I am only allowed to read the summary. But the big point is this: cat owners interpret their cat's meows in the context in which they are produced. In fact the context is probably more important than the sound. It's the timing of the sound which is the context. 

The timing of meows is part of the routines and rhythms of human-to-cat interactions.

The meow sound is a request, normally. The study scientists refer to this as "negatively toned". They also said that the meows were non-specific. I get that but if you read a meow sound in context the sound is specific.

ASSOCIATED PAGE: What does a purr-meow mean?

So for example if you feed your cat when you get up in the morning and your cat makes a meow sound at that time then you know that your cat is requesting food. And if you let your cat out into the backyard at 4 PM every day through the back door and your cat makes a meow sound at that time then you know that your cat wants to be let out into the backyard! It's about context. Non-specifics become specifics under those situations.

But if you try and read and understand the meow sound out of context it is difficult because you know your cat is requesting something but you won't know what it is unless you put into context. This is because the meow is non-specific. They are all the same out of context.

The study: Classification of domestic cat (Felis catus) vocalizations by naive and experienced human listeners.

New Delhi, India: controversy over keeping pets in a luxury apartment complex

There is a luxury apartment and house complex in New Delhi, in the prime East Delhi area of Mayur Vihar I. It is called IFS Apartments. It was built by a co-operative society formed by IFS officers.

They've had a rule there since 2011 that leaseholders of the flats i.e. the owners, and the tenants who rent their flats cannot keep cats and dogs or other pets. They let this rule become a little bit slack by which I mean they appear not to have enforced it very carefully. This has allowed some apartment dwellers to keep cats for instance and in one case a woman living there has had a cat for three years. She found the cat particularly helpful during the Covid pandemic lockdown. 

Delhi’s IFS Apartments. Image in public domain.

New tenants who rent from landlords have to sign an agreement that they are fully aware that they cannot keep pets.

The residents of the complex say that the rules governing the keeping of pets are unconstitutional because the Animal Welfare Board of India said, in a circular of 2014, that the ban interfered with a fundamental freedom which was guaranteed to all citizens of India. There is a clash of rules, one at a apartment complex level, and one had a higher level.

I have not checked out the argument. Certainly, the management company who run the apartment complex appear to have ignored the Animal Welfare Board of India circular and continuing with the ban after the circular was issued. I have to say that no constitution states that citizens have a right to keep pets. I belive that the circular is ineffective in this instance.

Some tenants and leaseholders are moving out of the complex. They are aggrieved with the anti-pet policy. One of them is a lawyer, Vasudha Mehta, who is moving out with her husband and two children. They have lived there since 2014. They appear to have rented initially and then they bought their home in 2016. They signed the agreement not to keep pets but didn't really apply their minds to it.

During the lockdown period and with children in the home constantly they decided to get a puppy to ease the mental strain, she said. They found that the management committee started to harass them by reminding them of the agreement that they signed.

On August 29, 2020, there was a problem with dog poop at the complex and a notice was put up by the management committee saying, in capital letters, “NO NEW DOGS MAY BE BROUGHT INTO THE COMPLEX BY RESIDENTS. DOG-OWNERS ARE REQUESTED TO SHOW CONSIDERATION FOR OTHER RESIDENTS AND RESPECT THE NEED FOR KEEPING THE COMPLEX CLEAN.”

The problem here is that in the past it wasn't an issue to keep pets despite the rule. Now the rules are being enforced and the residents don't like it. On the basis that the Animal Welfare Board of India circular is not enforceable (and I don't think it is) then I'm afraid the residents will have to put up with the rule or leave if they want to keep a pet.

Obstructive behaviour by Warrington Animal Welfare (WAW) rescue centre causes an injustice against cat's owner

WARRINGTON, UK-NEWS AND VIEWS: This is one of those typical and rather complex stories which we see from time to time on the Internet. It's a sad story of a tussle over cat ownership and in the middle is a rescue centre.

What happened is that a ginger tabby cat called Bobby escaped his home. Warrington Animal Welfare (WAW) found him. They uploaded his photograph with some details onto their Facebook website. Patricia Donegan, Bobby's owner, saw the Facebook post and contacted the animal shelter immediately. In the meantime the animal shelter had renamed her cat George. Patricia believes that she provided WAW with adequate proof that she was Bobby's owner.  

Bobby. Images: Facebook.

The shelter refused to return Bobby to her because he wasn't microchipped or neutered. Apparently they branded her as irresponsible. It seems that they got off on the wrong foot at the very beginning WAW has been obstructive ever since. WAW appears to have taken a prejudicial stance against Patricia for some reason. They have dug themselves in and are defensive and unhelpful. The more Patricia pesters them the more they dig in.

It seems Patricia took the matter to the County Court for the return of Bobby and the judge advised that they try and reach a resolution. The problem is that Patricia took Warrington Animal Rescue to court and not the new owner. She had to because at the time she did not have the new owner's details.

WAW offered £100 to settle the matter which Patricia rightly refused because all she wants is her cat back. The centre had rehomed Bobby with a new 'owner' and Patricia had found out the name and address of the new owner from unredacted court documents. A lucky break.

In my opinion, she could sue the new owner for an injunction for the return of Bobby or a declaration that she is the true owner. The new owner says that Bobby escaped from her possession when she decided to take Bobby back to WAW. However, her story sounds fanciful and she has changed it twice apparently. Patricia does not believe her. I believe that Bobby is still with the new owner and a full-time indoor cat.

Patricia also believes that Bobby has not been lost and that the new owner is lying. Warrington Animal Rescue say that they raised £1000 for the care and treatment of Bobby but it transpired that only £90 of the thousand pounds raised was spent on veterinary treatment. Although it appears that the rescue implied that they had spent the £1000. 

My FB message to Patricia.

I have messaged Patricia with my thoughts for what they are worth. She is the legal owner in my book. As far as I am concerned WAW have misbehaved and in doing so has caused an injustice against the true and original owner.

Source: Metro.co.uk. and Patricia.

Should a family of five living in a compact, subsidized apartment have two cats and a dog?

NEWS AND COMMENT: The Sun reports on the story of a family of five with two cats and a dog living in a mouldy flat in Manchester, UK. They want a three-bedroom house from the housing association from which they rent their home at a subsidised rate. They say they can't go on living in their housing association apartment because a daughter is suffering from health problems because of the mould. We don't know what is causing the mould but it might be condensation because after all there are eight sentient beings in their apartment breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide!

Mum Charlotte says she cries herself to sleep as she's so desperate for her young family - and their three pets - to leave their cramped flat in Greater Manchester. Photo: The Sun newspaper.

But the question I always have when I read the stories is whether this family is in a proper position to adopt (or have) two cats and a dog. Many people would agree with me and say that they were never going to be in a position financially and in terms of accommodation to be able to properly care for three companion animals.

They are unable to care properly for their children without financial and accommodation support. They have to rely on the housing association to provide a home for them. That's okay. That's fully acceptable as some people have a difficult start in life but it is not clever to burden yourself further with six mouths to feed i.e. three children and three companion animals when you can foresee financial issues.

If financially they qualified for a housing association flat, they could have restricted their family to one child perhaps and perhaps one cat. That would be a state of affairs which fitted their apparent budget. But they seem to have gone over their budget and knowingly relied on the local authority to back them up financially. And the housing association is reluctant to take action. And it seems that they have gone to the press for assistance in pushing the housing association into taking some steps to rehome them.

I don't think people should have 3-child families and three pets on the basis they have to rely on subsidies to make it work. If you are self-sufficient, you can have as large a family as you like and as many cats and dogs as you like provided you look after them well. If you rely on a third party - the housing association or the council - to prop up your desires you are asking for problems.

No doubt, in due course, they will get their three-bedroom home but I believe that everybody should take responsibility for their financial affairs. They should also take responsibility for decisions regarding the adoption of companion animals. Animal adoption should be taken very seriously. It should be fully budgeted and people should be fully aware of the responsibilities that need to be discharged in order to care properly for pets.

Too often, people adopt animals on impulse or without proper preparation because they just want to live with a pet. The idea appeals to them and they bypass all the usual sensible processes of initially asking themselves whether it's a good idea and whether they can afford to do it and/or have the facilities to do it. This story is a case in point.

Inflatable prosthetic hand can pet a cat

This is an article for people interested in technology and people who have unfortunately lost both hands (hopefully very rare) and who want to stroke their domestic cat. Prosthetic hands are normally very expensive and quite heavy because they are made of metal and motors. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) together with engineers/scientists at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China have come up with what appears to be a brilliant alternative. This is an inflatable prosthetic hand that can be controlled with the mind and is 20 times cheaper to make than the metal and motor variety.

Inflatable prosthetic hand can pet a cat and do lot more besides. Photo: MIT.

It picks up electrical signals through the wearer's arm. When the person imagines making a fist with their absent hand the prosthetic hand picks up the muscle signals and carries out the command.

It can do four types of grasps including making a fist, cupping the palm, pinching two fingers together and pinching three fingers together. In tests it could pour juice, shake hands, zip up a suitcase and most importantly for me stroke a cat!

Rather than using motors, the hand's movements are controlled and driven by a pneumatic system which inflates and bends the fingers. The pump which drives the pneumatic levers is worn around the wearer's waist.

The materials used are much cheaper and cost about US$500 (£364) which compares very favourably with the $10,000 for materials used in motorised hands.

It weighs 225 g (8 ounces) which also compares very favourably with the metal variety as it is a fraction of the weight. The prosthetic picks up signals from electromyography sensors at the point where the device fits the body. The sensors pick up electrical activity when a nerve stimulates the muscle. The fingers can be fitted with a pressure sensor so it can restore some sensation.

This last benefit may also be very useful to a cat owner because there is nothing better than feeling your fingers as they pass through the fur of your cat companion. They say that one of the best cats to stroke is the British Shorthair because the fur is very dense.

READ ABOUT A MINI-HAND USED TO PET CATS AT A HOSPITAL

The researchers' work is published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering. During the research they found that the inflatable prosthetic was as good or even better than the conventional, rigid, commercially available bionic hand in carrying out functions such as stacking checkers, turning pages, writing with a pen, lifting heavy balls and picking up fragile objects.

READ ABOUT PETTING A CAT

Further, the device is very durable and has a 3D-printed palm to mimic a human hand. One volunteer was able to successfully shake a person's hand, touch of flower and pet a cat.

Source: The Times - thanks.

My cat brings a magpie into the home and there is bird poo and pee everywhere

My cat is a great hunter. Recently, he caught two mice within 60 minutes and devoured them under my bed in the dead of night. I heard it all. He has caught pigeons and now he has brought a magpie into the home. The reason why he is able to catch a magpie is partly my fault. I feed squirrels. Squirrels chuck a lot of squirrel feed onto the ground. Pigeons and magpies eat this food from the ground. My cat stalks the birds and he has regrettably on occasions caught them. I can't do much about it and I don't want to stop feeding squirrels. Although I do warn them when he goes out so I do my bit to stop him attacking birds.

My cat brings a magpie into the home and there is bird poo and pee everywhere

On this occasion I was watching television and I heard a commotion. It was noisy and it sounded disturbing. I got up and immediately saw that a magpie was flying around my kitchen banging into walls, windows and the bifold doors that lead out to the garden. While the bird was doing this it was pooing and peeing over everything.

I frantically opened the bifold doors. The magpie was constantly charging against them and suddenly there was air and no glass and so he passed through into the back garden where he clung onto a fence for a while, looking over his shoulder at my charging cat. He then flew to another part of the fence and eventually flew out of the garden looking unwell but he made it.

I am sure that he was injured to a certain extent but I would hope that he recovered and is now all right. It took me 20 minutes to clean up while my cat looked on completely nonplussed by all the events. It is just another little episode in the life of a cat caregiver. I even found a scratch on the hardwood floor that wasn't there before. I'm sure it was caused by the magpie as it panicked desperately to get out in complete terror.

When a bird charges against a glass window that hard and does it over and over again with loud thumps it has to be desperately frightened. I'm surprised that they don't knock themselves out. Sometimes they do.

When peace returned to the home, I thought that it might have been a good idea to have filmed the whole thing but that is not my style. I'm not a natural video maker. My first thought is not to exploit the situation and make a video. My first thought is animal welfare; on this occasion to get the bird out of there. This is instinctive and therefore there is no video record of this minor but disturbing event.

What is the at the root of the indoor-outdoor cat debate?

The image below spells out in simple terms the root issues in the debate about keeping cats indoors full-time or letting them go outside. It really is about cat safety and protecting wildlife against allowing a natural life for a domestic cat with a reduction in safety together with predation on wildlife.

The indoor-outdoor cat debate. Image: MikeB based on Pixabay image.

There appears to be a general trend towards keeping cats inside. What is the motivation for this? Is it genuinely to improve domestic cat safety or is it more about convenience for their caretakers? Perhaps it is about both. I am generalising. There will be people who are thinking solely of their cat. And the cat comes before wildlife I believe.

People don't want the inconvenience of taking their cat to veterinarian who has been seriously injured on the road. There will be high cost and plenty of stress for the person and an incredible amount of pain, stress and discomfort for the cat. Life is far more even and undisturbed for the full-time indoor cat and owner but it is at the expense of boredom and an unnatural world for the cat, which is infrequently made more exciting by the caregiver.

The argument about indoor only or indoor/outdoor cats. Image: PoC.

I feel like I have to take cynical approach on this and claim that people are drifting towards the indoor solution because it suits them. There is also the anxiety factor. If a good cat caregiver is genuinely concerned about their cat's health, which they will be, to allow their cat to go outside is to invite anxiety not in the cat who is highly energised and excited but in the person who is anxious as to whether their cat is going to be injured or worse, killed.

The major dangers are road traffic, in America predators such as coyotes, and there is always that nastiest of animal: the miscreant, abusive young male human who takes pleasure out of taking pot shots at domestic cats with a BB gun or even a .22 rifle. That's the worst-case scenario almost or there is a poisoner somewhere out there who takes pleasure in poisoning cats with antifreeze. Even stabbing them seems to please some people such as the Brighton Cat Killer.

So, I think this big debate comes down to the personal feelings of the human caregiver and what they do is dictated by which decision improves their lives. That sounds like selfish and uncaring attitude but I stress that I am generalising. Humans are inherently selfish. That's why the world is in a mess. And humankind has a habit of ranking themselves above animals. When push comes to shove, the animals take second best (e.g. house fires: cats die, humans escape). 

The cat, himself or herself, doesn't understand these nuances in the argument. All they want to do is to go outside and hunt. They don't understand why they've been kept inside but they learn to accept it over many months and snooze and sleep the days away. They don't see the danger and when and if the danger arises, they accept it. It is a natural event to them. They don't rationalise that but it's a simple acceptance.

Domestic cats don't fear death like humans. They don't think about the future and whether they might be killed when they go outside. They live in the present. All these complicated thoughts about what the future might hold and whether a domestic cat might be killed are in the heads of cat caregivers. That's why they are at the root of the debate and in my view, it boils down to convenience and I don't blame people for that.

Image: MikeB

Life is complicated for people. They want to simplify it and keep their life as calm as possible. They don't want massive emergences and upsets and catastrophes to occur. They want their life to be controlled and controllable. This is at the root of the debate about indoor/outdoor cats and full-time indoor cats.

Best dozen US cities for cat lovers

According to a US lawn care and landscaping business, LawnStarter, the best dozen cities for cat lovers are listed below. This is an image and not an interactive table:

So, what do you make of this table? I'm not so sure about it myself, to be perfectly honest. No doubt they have done quite a good job. They have used various criteria such as access to veterinary clinics, the availability and cost of cat sitters and the feline friendliness of local rental properties. All good criteria but not comprehensive. I don't know what their full list of criteria is but I would rank as the top qualification for a city to be cat friendly as lack of road traffic. 

About Orlando they say:

Orlando has a place for your kitty with a good share of cat-friendly rental homes (No. 26), boarding establishments (No. 1), and cat sitters (No. 1).

The place where road traffic is the lightest and where the risk of your cat being run over by a vehicle is the biggest single fear for many cat owners when they decide to let their cat go outside.

People don't use cat sitters that much, in general, and all cat owners try and avoid the veterinary clinic for obvious reasons. So, I think the big issues really are more about how good the neighbours are by which I mean how good they are about accepting the presence of cats and how much traffic there is.

Neat and cheap catio or cat enclosure. Always a good facility for domestic cats. Photo in public domain.

If you live in a place where the neighbours don't like community cats or even outside domestic cats because they think they spread disease and are a nuisance, it's going to be a bad place to live if you have a cat. Also, there is bound to be big variations across a city such as Orlando, Florida where some parts of it are very cat friendly and other parts are less so.

I'm just picking a few holes in the idea of ranking cities in any country by their cat friendliness. It's more just an exercise to attract viewers to a page which no doubt was the purpose for LawnStarter. Nonetheless, it is quite interesting and quite useful provided you take it with a pinch of salt. My intention is not to undermine the people who did the survey, which appears to have taken quite a long time, but to simply provide my opinion.

Britons are more open to the idea of taking their cats on staycation holidays thanks to Covid-19

This pain in the bum pandemic has impacted human life dramatically. Most of it is negative for obvious reasons but for some it has been positive and, in that category, I think we have to add domestic cats and indeed domestic dogs. The huge surge in employees working at home is clearly very beneficial to cats. Both cat guardians and their pets have become closer. It has helped to cement the relationship. Home working for some will be permanent. It is said that in the UK staff will like a diet of 3:2 which means three days in the office and to at home. It is a Covid-based revolution in working patterns. I expect other countries to be undergoing this sort of revolution as well.

Britons are more open to the idea of taking their cat on staycation holidays thanks to Covid-19. Photo: Pixabay.

With the cessation, pretty well, of travel abroad out of the UK, many cat owners have decided to take their cat companion with them on holiday within the UK. A 2,000-pet owner poll conducted by Direct Line Motor Insurance tells us that the reluctance to take cats in cars on staycation holidays has evaporated. 20 million people in the UK said that the holiday habits have changed this year because of the pandemic. Normally 20% of Britain's would not drive on a UK holiday and 14% would not normally take their pet on the UK holiday, but this year they will.

The poll indicated that 3.6 million cat owners plan to take their cat on a road trip over the next months. Each trip will be on average about 98 miles so in total cats will be travelling 348 million miles on staycation holidays in the UK.

This trend is being driven by young cat owners. It is people in the age bracket 18-34 who are keener to take their cat on holiday. Those over 55 are much less likely to pick up the challenge. It can be a bit of a challenge at least emotionally because of the potential dangers for a cat. It does take some organisation.

I've done it myself successfully, thankfully. I bought a very large cat carrier (actually a dog carrier) which is more like a mini-enclosure (cheap on Amazon). It just about went inside the back of my car with the rear seats folded down. This allowed him plenty of space to walk around within the car but being secure at the same time. His food and sleeping quarters were inside the enclosure. He could look out the window and enjoy himself and be stimulated. He remained in it throughout the journey which took all day. He appeared to enjoy himself. I encountered no real issues.

On another occasion I took my cats to Ireland on a holiday. There were no problems even on the ferry. Cats are adaptable although initially they may be nervous about getting into a car, they do settle down. Obviously, supervision is required at the destination because cats will be staying in a strange place, perhaps a holiday cottage, which may motivate them to do something silly. You don't want to lose your cat on holiday! I suspect, though, that these holidays work out pretty well and above all else they give a cat a change of scene and plenty of mental stimulation.

Perhaps one of the big weaknesses of modern cat ownership is that domestic cats don't get enough in the way of challenges and mental stimulation. A staycation holiday might be a good opportunity to pull that cat stroller out of the attic and use it again. I have decided that cat strollers do have a place in the life of a cat guardian. They can be useful because once again they allow a cat to see new places in safety. They allow a cat to join their owner on walking trips in safety.

I suspect that young people in the age bracket of 18-34 have been motivated to take their cats on staycation holidays because of quite large number of stories and Internet videos of adventurous cat owners taking the cat on trekking and hiking holidays which look wonderful. You have to harness train your cat but that is doable with patience. The survey indicated that 33% of owners in that age brackets are taking their cats a holiday. This is a distinct change in the human-to-cat relationship which is for the better by and large.

Cat wedding - yes, two cats get married!

The caption to this black-and-white photographic print reads: "Dawn Rodgers officiates at "wedding" of formally attired felines Tigger and Kirby, held by daughters Summer and September". Photograph dated: July 25, 1986. 

It is a non-digital photo. Old-style photo. Some people like to marry their cats. Some people like to marry their cat! I've seen that before :) . But is this an example of humans living their life through their cats?

Domestic cats get married. Photo in public domain.

There is not much to say, is there? It is a bit of fun although I suspect that the participants took it seriously. There is nothing wrong with it if it pleases the people concerned although it is eccentric behaviour. The cats don't know a thing about it. It all goes over their heads in a mysterious blur. I would expect that they were good buddies and the ladies decided that it was a good idea to formalise their relationship. Perhaps they wanted to get married themselves (the humans, I mean!) but sadly had failed and so decided to marry their cats instead. A substitute for the real thing. I am speculating and probably being unkind.

Is Chris Packham a cat hater?

Dr. John Bradshaw in his book Cat Sense writes that the "British wildlife TV presenter Chris Packham, a self-confessed cat-hater, appeared on BBC radio describing cats as sly, greedy, insidious murderers and calling for them to be shot".

Chris Packham. Photo in public domain.

John Bradshaw was writing about the predation of domestic cats and wildlife and how bias can sometimes be introduced into dissertations and studies by scientists on the predation of wildlife by cats. And the bias normally leans towards denigrating the cat. Perhaps the bias is inadvertent but it comes from an inherent bias within some people including scientists, sometimes.

Chris Packham's interview with Yahoo News way back on January 30, 2013 makes it clear that he is not a cat hater and that he admires the athleticism of one of the world's top predators. He doesn't want to criticise the cat per se but he wants to criticise the people who own cats and who don't take sufficient steps to ensure that their companion animals do not prey on wildlife.

He was responding, in the interview, to an article at that time about a Nature Communications study which claimed that in America domestic and non-owned cats kill up to 3.7 billion birds and 20.7 billion mammals annually. It was claimed that cats were more dangerous to wildlife than traffic accidents, pesticides and poison all together!

Dr. Bradshaw, by the way, said that in one study about the impact of cats on wildlife in the UK and which was carried out in 1997, the questionnaire sent out to cat owners was inherently biased. That study produced an estimate of 275 million animals killed in Britain each year by pet cats. He claims that the questionnaire was designed in a way which encouraged the people who completed it to submit their results only if their cat had brought in some prey during the five months of the survey. This introduced bias. The problem is that this figure of 275 million is still widely quoted by many influential organisations such as the RSPB, the British Trust for Ornithology and the Bat Conservation Trust. What is not fact, becomes fact over time and it is the cat who becomes a victim.

The answer to the question the title is that Chris Packham is not a cat hater but he wants cats to wear collars which he believes would reduce the predation rates on birds and animals by 45%. He also claims that if pet cats were kept in at night it would reduce predation rates on birds and animals by 50%. And he also says that a problem is that "cat owners do not neuter their pets". Well, I think a lot of them do neuter their pets but there are some who don't and as usual there is a minority of cat owners who are irresponsible.

Chris Packham believes that there are too many cats in the UK. I don't think we know how many cats there are in the UK! The same applies to America and other countries. We make estimates but we don't know exact figures. In 2010 it was estimated that there would over 10 million owned cats in the UK but the Yahoo News article states that the number had shrunk to 8 million.

But we have to add the recent surge in pet ownership during the coronavirus pandemic. I have read that there has been an increase of 3.2 million companion animals in UK homes over the 16 months of social distancing. That's an extraordinary increase but once again I suspect that these are estimates that we can't truly rely on.

Obviously, reducing the number of pet cats in the UK will reduce the number of animals that they kill. That is the simple argument of Chris Packham. It's an argument which is undeniable whereas proposal such as registration of domestic cats, limiting the number of cats that somebody owns, mandatory sterilisation and curfews might not lead to a recovery in local wildlife says Dr. John Bradshaw.

Horace Walpole's favourite cat drowned in a goldfish bowl

Horace Walpole (1717-1797) was, by all accounts, a careless pet owner. He was an English writer, artist historian, man of letters, antiquarian and a politician. He is described as an 18th-century Gothic writer by The Times. The newspaper reports that his favourite cat, Selima, drowned in a goldfish bowl while trying to grab the goldfish. As a consequence, Walpole the author of The Castle of Otranto, asked his friend, the poet Thomas Gray, to write an epitaph for his beloved cat. It is called: Ode On the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes. The poet described her as the "demurest of the tabby kind". His favourite cat was a tabby cat.

That famous goldfish bowl was placed on top of the pedestal as a memorial to Selima and it is to go on display at Strawberry Hill House, the Gothic-revival mansion in Twickenham south-west London, the home he built from 1749 onward. I have visited this house. It is a very interesting place and the photograph below was taken by me which gives you an impression of what it's like, I hope.

The goldfish bowl is being displayed as part of a series of exhibitions about objects associated with the property. The reason why I have stated that Horace Walpole was a careless pet owner is because The Times also reports that in 1739 his King Charles spaniel, Tory, was killed by a wolf in the Alps. The next dog that he lived with, Bettina, died when falling from a balcony in Florence. Another spaniel that he lived with, Rosette, died in a fire.

Perhaps he wasn't careless but just too busy to really care for his companion animals carefully. He created a pet cemetery at Strawberry Hill.

Why does my cat spend so much time away from me?

The question in the title is asked by a cat owner whose job requires them to work long hours leaving early in the morning and coming home quite late at night. They think that their cat should be particularly pleased to see them when they arrive home but he barely acknowledges her existence. Sometimes he misses meals and he has stayed away for a couple of days at a time.

Outdoor Cat. Photo by Andrew Currie on Flickr.

This, on the face of it, is a classic case of a cat migrating away from the home in which he lives to find a new one. And sometimes, albeit rarely, domestic cats return to the wild, voluntarily. That might seem strange but it does happen. It happened to my mother about 40 years ago when her ginger tabby upped sticks and went to live on the golf course opposite her home. He came back about 15 years later riddled with arthritis for some warmth and attention. She put him down which I think was an extraordinarily cruel thing to do. I don't like my mother although she's been deceased about 10 years now.

Back to the point of this article, sometimes domestic cats do leave their home and find a new home as you probably know. They don't understand the concept of ownership, as you also know, and they might go to where they think life is better. Particularly if the current owner is rarely there. Many domestic cats visit neighbours' homes either to simply visit as part of their meanderings and wanderings and sometimes to feed and perhaps meet another cat to play with. The concept of trespass does not apply to domestic cats incidentally.

Being away from home a lot would encourage this and indeed neighbours sometimes encourage it by feeding neighbours' cats. It's just one of those things and it happens quite a lot. But what can you do about it?

Your lifestyle might not give you many options. If your work demands are high, you will be torn between caring for your cat and earning a living. You may find yourself in the position where you have, through no fault of your own, become a poor cat owner. You may have started off as an excellent cat guardian but end up being rather bad at it through a lack of available time.

You may consider rehoming your cat. You may consider allowing your cat to migrate to your neighbour's home. You might do a bit of research and try find out where your cat is going. I have used a radio transmitter on a collar for my cat. The receiver picks up the transmission. You can locate your cat this way from about 100 yards. It is not as good as a GPS tracking but it is much cheaper and reasonably effective.

My cat was not disappearing and is not disappearing. He loves me tremendously and vice versa. It's just that I wanted to know where he was going and I found out; it was a neighbour's garden where I think he rests. I do feed a neighbour's cat as well who pops in from time to time and plays with my cat. I quite like her visitations because it gives my cat the opportunity to play with a cat rather than me, a human.

But sometimes domestic cats visit a nearby home and eventually stay. At that point they've chosen a new caretaker. This would normally be distressing to the original owner. I'm sure that there have been many difficult discussions between neighbours on this topic. Sometimes neighbours become very fond of a visiting cat and they might surreptitiously try and adopt that cat.

The owner may complain and there may even be civil litigation in the courts about ownership. It's an interesting concept because cat ownership can be very fluid. It can be difficult to pin it down.

What can you do then? Well, you can ask your neighbour to stop feeding your cat if that is happening. Try and keep the peace because you want to have good relationships with your neighbours. There's nothing worse than having a constant row with your neighbour because it affects the amenity of the area in which you live quite profoundly.

You can think about giving your cat better quality food if that is a problem. Give him some treats but not to the point where he becomes obese. You can try and reschedule your work to enable you to work at home more often. The Covid crisis has certainly benefited cats in this regard. These long lockdown periods have been fantastically beneficial to the relationship between people and their pets but when it comes to an end the reverse happens and there will be some distraught cats and dogs suffering from separation anxiety.

Try and play with your cat more. Play is a great healer and it's a great exercise for creating a good bond between human and cat companion.

You might even consider keeping your cat indoors but that probably won't work because once you've allowed a cat to explore the outdoors for a long period of time it is impossible to keep them in in my opinion. Although you might think of a compromise which is a large enclosure around the back garden. This, too, might prove difficult for a cat who has a habit of wandering for hundreds of yards around your property. Back garden enclosures can be constructed for about £3,000-£4000 in the UK.

My cat Gabriel in his garden cat enclosure. He is very active. Photo: Me.

It is, though, a difficult problem to resolve because it comes back ultimately to the cat owner and how much time they have to interact with their cat. If they are hamstrung in this regard, they may not be able to find a solution. And cats do have their own preferences and there can be a chemistry between cat and cat and cat person. There may be a breakdown in the chemistry between the owner and their cat. Perhaps the owner was never quite up to the task in any case i.e. he or she was ambivalent about cat ownership.

On that topic, I think that there are many instances of cats leaving their home and going to a neighbour to live for the right reasons. These owners are probably quite pleased that their cat has left them because it resolves a problem that they've been chewing on for quite a long time namely how to get rid of their cat in a moral and humane way?