Best cat breeds for first-time owners?

I'm going to be brutally honest and provocative and say that the question in the title is a bit pointless and too narrow as it shuts out some great shelter cats with perfect personalities. I'll fully explain my thinking. It is a question that is probably not worth asking but because somebody did, I'm going to try and answer it honestly.

Pixie-bob cat breed is suited to first-time cat owners and kids. Image: copyright Helmi Flick.

Placid personality

The first great difficulty with the question is what kind of domestic cat constitutes one which is ideal for a first-time owner? There's no definition of that. I don't think people have discussed it that much.

The implication is that a cat suitable for a first-time owner will be one which is calm, placid and pliable. A cat that can get on with different types of people and not be provoked into scratching or responding aggressively to mishandling from a person who is unsure about how to handle a domestic cat.

Better to choose a specific cat not a breed

If that long definition is correct then you're probably not going to find the answer in a specific cat breed. You will find the answer in a specific cat which has been socialised properly and which happens to have a personality which is ideally suited to a new cat owner.

Ragdoll

That said, some cat breeds are generally gentler than others. Perhaps the two extremes might be this. The Ragdoll Cat is bred to be calm and placid. The first filial (F1) Savannah cat, a wildcat hybrid, is going to be far more active and intelligent and demanding.

Of these two, you would therefore pick the Ragdoll. One website claimed that there are 13 best cat breeds were first-time owners. That, in my view, is idiotic. There maybe one or two cat breeds such as the one I have mentioned which are pretty good.

But don't believe that all Ragdoll cats are going to be super calm and accepting of mishandling. Ragdoll cats are domestic cats like any other in many ways. They have the same desires and motivations as others. They are not plush toys.

Pixie-bob

Many years ago, I created a cat breed selector and within that application I have selected the Pixie-Bob as a domestic cat breed which is suitable for children. As children are likely to mishandle cats you might extend that assessment to new cat owners.

Not all newbies will mishandle cats

I've got to add a caveat. I'm making the presumption that all new cat owners are going to be mishandling their cats. This is not true. Many cat owners despite being novices to cat ownership are going to research domestic cats before they adopt them and therefore be quite possibly as good as anybody else in terms of cat caregiving.

That said, I believe I can stick with my original thought that the kind of cat breed which is suited to new cat owners is one which will hopefully be accepting of mistakes. That means a placid cat.

Persian

Incidentally, people think of the Persian as a part of the furniture indicating placidity but they are actually quite nervous cats predispose to a certain extent to inappropriate elimination i.e. peeing outside of the litter box. Therefore, being nervous, they are probably unsuited to a new cat owner.

Personal preference

Personally, I would go for the Ragdoll or a breeds such as the American Shorthair or the British Shorthair and the rare Pixie-bob as stated.

Shelter cat

Better still go and see the rescue cats at a nice animal shelter and ask for a cat who has coped really well with the stressful circumstances of shelter life and plump for him/her as a good companion for a first-time cat owner.

Bosses have decided that homeworking is a disaster. What happens to your cat?

During the long Covid lockdowns both myself and my friend, Barry, agreed that the extensive periods of working from home which employees enjoyed would lead to disasters in terms of productivity. 

Bosses have decided that homeworking is a disaster. What happens to your cat or dog? Image: MikeB

It was a common-sense assessment. Notwithstanding this, the government promoted the benefits of working from home and of course employees in general loved it. 

They had found utopia and many took the opportunity to adopt a cat or dog. They might have been thinking about it for a long time.

However, very often this was a short-term decision. Adopters during Covid lockdowns were often not looking long-term. They was simply taking advantage of that moment and seeking animal companionship.

And now, getting on for three years after those early days of Covid, bosses are gradually becoming enlightened about the lack of productivity that working from home brings to their corporation.

It is human nature to take advantage of a lack of supervision. Humankind is essentially lazy. And if humans can gain advantage for free, they will. Not everyone falls into this mentality but the vast majority do.

It seems that many leaders simply forgot this basic characteristic of human nature. There is an article in The Times today by Gerard Baker - an opinion piece - which he has titled: "Zoom and bust: why homeworking's a disaster".

He states that Netflix streaming data used to show that peak usage was during the weekends but now, in the UK, it is weekday afternoons! Does that surprise you?

Homeworkers are taking an extended break in the afternoon to watch a movie on Netflix or one of their series. Richmond Park is inundated with cycle riders mid-afternoon, mid-week.

There are numerous tales of a sharp drop-off in aggregate work performance over the past years according to Gerard Baker. Labour productivity has plummeted since the middle of 2020. And he says that "anecdotal evidence of the inefficiency of working from home is plentiful".

The tech companies of Silicon Valley are shedding staff in their tens of thousands. They hired extra staff during Covid lockdowns. There's been a big falloff in activity and share values have also plummeted. Even Google's market value is down by one-third from its peak about a year ago. Meta's value (formerly Facebook) has dropped by nearly two-thirds.

The truth of the matter is that these big tech companies got very fat, lazy and sloppy. They were making too much money. It was too easy. I have visited Google's offices in London several times to work with them. Compared to the average office theirs is a like a playground for adults. Rows and rows of computer stations without anybody using them. Free food, free this and free that. The average wage is £250,000 according to my research. And many of the employees are in their mid-20s. It was unsustainable in my view. Perhaps that unsustainability has come to fruition.

That is the long introduction. The bosses want the workers to come to the office and return to the status quo and work harder, I guess. Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter points to a radical rethink on how big tech operates.

James Gorman, chief executive of Morgan Stanley, had a warning for employees: "They don't get to choose their compensation. They don't get to choose their promotion. They don't get to choose to stay at home five days a week."

They've got to come in. For the cat loving aficionados and dog owners this can spell the end of a good relationship if they were thinking short-term or if they hadn't really foreseen the possibility of being forced back to work at the office.

They're going to have to give up their companion animals. For someone like me the critical issue is not the person but the animal. What's going happen to them - the animals? They're going to end up in a shelter. They're going to end up being sold online, on Facebook. They going to end up, some of them, being euthanised at shelters because suddenly the marketplace is full of unwanted cats and dogs.

I have painted a very bleak picture and I don't think it is actually that bleak because many people will retain their companion animal. But even under those circumstances the animal is going to be left alone all day. Some dog experts say that a dog should not be left alone for more than four hours.

Many people believe that the domestic cat is temperamentally ideally suited to being left alone all day. Wrong. Cats are sociable animals. They rely on the human caregiver very often for the only company and interaction that they have. We can't expect them to be alone all day, snoozing and killing time and be content. They are liable to suffer stress, over-groom and perhaps develop cystitis.

All these problems are due to a lack of foresight. The whole of the UK was lockdown for many, many months. Sweden did not employ the lockdown. They relied upon their citizens to use common sense to socially distance. They lived normal lives with this modification.

This was a much cheaper way of reacting to Covid. The £400 billion borrowed in the UK to give 80% of their salary to people confined to their homes plus grants to businesses has left this country with a £17 billion monthly bill on interest payments alone. 

This is killing any possibility of spending into welfare which is greatly needed. For example, there is a great need to fund social care. That's impossible now because the money has run out and we are being bled dry by interest payments.

It's a disaster both of people and their pets. They should never have believed that working from home was viable for the long term. It suits some professions but even then, employee should not stay at home because they lack productivity.

People have to come into work and interact and be stimulated and supervised. When they do that, they will have a different perspective on whether they are in a position to adopt a companion animal. Very often they should not because they cannot provide quality caregiving.

Cat ownership in Finland. What is it like?

I wanted to discover some definitive laws about cat ownership in Finland, specifically with regard to whether domestic cats can go outside and wander around freely. I wanted to ask this question because Finland to an outsider is a cold place. It would seem to be inhospitable to domestic cats to be outside. Of course, I am stereotyping but what is the general rule about letting cats go outside?

Domestic cat in Finnish weather. Image in public domain.

I couldn't find any really good specific details but people who have lived in Finland say this.

They say that outside of the cities free roaming cats are quite common. The same applies to semi-feral barn cats and what the Finish called "summer cats". These are cats which have been adopted during summer months and then abandoned when winter arrives. That sounds rather unpleasant I must say. I would have expected better from the Finish.

I don't know of any specific law which states that domestic cats living in Finnish cities have to be kept indoors. I don't think they exist. I think the general rule is that domestic cats can't wander into certain places. To achieve this, they should be under supervision when outside the home.

Apparently, the law is "pretty clear" as per a person who has lived in Finland. They state that "any animal free roaming is supposed to be supervised by its owner. Any animal without its owner close by can be considered abandoned and, for example, a free roaming cat without its owner found on the property of someone else, might be killed."

They further state that there are hunters in the countryside shooting at stray and feral cats. They have the right to do this provided the cat in question is unsupervised and therefore the owner is not nearby and, further, they don't have a collar with an identification tag.

The general consensus in Finland appears to be that domestic cats in cities should be kept indoors and those that live in the countryside can roam freely or it is tolerated despite what I've said in the last paragraph!

I think, judging from my reading of this topic, the situation is rather vague and untidy. I could not find specific laws about indoor/outdoor cats. And I'm good at researching on the Internet.

People who have lived in Finland provide rather vague answers to the question whether domestic cats are allowed outside unsupervised.

This appears to be leading to the shooting of cats without sanction from the authorities. On that topic, if there is a law regarding keeping cats indoors, it is apparently unenforced or enforced poorly.

As in other countries, the Finish apparently are drifting towards the idea of full-time indoor cats. Although, you still see indoor/outdoor cats outside in the bigger cities. But it is apparently "technically illegal".

My research also indicates that sterilising domestic cats is not mandatory, which leaves many indoor/outdoor cats living in the countryside unsterilised, free to breed and procreate thereby encouraging shooters to take pot shots.

Cat owner's in medieval England advised to keep cats out of the bedroom

The French adage "plus ça change" comes to my mind immediately.  It is a phrase which means that things don't change because basic human nature does not change even over thousands of years.

Medieval bedroom with woman and her cat. Photo-edited pic by MikeB.

And so back in medieval times (500-1500 AD) a well-known book which can still be found on Google, "Boke of Nature", advises in the strongest terms to keep domestic cats out of the bedroom:

"Dryve out dogge and catte, or els geve them a clout"

I guess you can understand it but it must mean:

"Drive dogs and cats out of the bedroom and if they enter hit them!"

Nice. A bit unfriendly to say the least. 

There is a strange medieval story of a knight and a lady he loves. She has a cat companion. She rejected the knight's advances. He goes to her bedroom at night in disguise. Her cat scratches him. She softens as a result and becomes his mistress but he refuses to marry her because he is scared of her cat! 

Some knight of the realm 😒. Lacking a bit of courage. Although the story is very modern in that the woman has the cat and the man appears not to be very keen on them.

The debate about domestic cats in bedrooms continues. I expect it has been a firm discussion topic since the domestic cat was imported into Britain by the Romans!

The best solution is compromise. Allow cats into the bedroom as it is so important to them. It is a major part of their home range. Don't deny them access. 

Make a nice, warm bedding area for your cat in the bedroom full of delicious cat owner smells and hope that she uses it. I understand the difficulties as cats disturb sleep but you get used to it. It is one of those human behaviour adaptations that cat caregivers have to transition to.

Source: Medieval Cats by Kathleen Walker-Meike.

Man, who has eight companion animals struggles to survive under the cost-of-living crisis

In case you have missed it, in the UK, there is a cost-of-living crisis. This is due to inflation and inflation has primarily been caused by Putin's invasion of Ukraine compounded by post-Covid pandemic inflation caused in part, in my opinion, by greedy profiteers who've inflated their prices because people expect there to be inflation.

Ashely Goudou. Image: Mirrorpix. If there is a problem in using this picture here, please contact me in a comment. Thanks.

In this instance, a 20-year-old factory worker, Ashley Goudou, near Bristol, UK, struggles to pay his energy and food bills.

He is paid £6.81 per hour which is substantially under the national minimum wage at £9.18 an hour, which means that he has to work 10 hour shifts seven days a week to make ends meet.

But the key aspect of the story for me, is that he has eight pets according to the Mail Online. These are rescue animals and they cost him £3000 a month to support (seems inflated to me)! He earns £2000 a month!

He says that he bridges that income and expense gap with donations from his veterinary clinic. But to be honest, and I don't want to be critical of a man who is kind animals, he doesn't have to have eight companion animals comprising four cats and four dogs. And the vet can't be a charity to the tune of £1,000 per month. That's ridiculous.

It's expensive maintaining a companion animal. Even one cat is expensive if you do the job properly. Cat food is as expensive as human food. And according to the newspaper, the cost of looking after cats and dogs has surged in recent times in fact tripling from £1000 a month to £3000 a month for this man.

Ashley refuses to give up his pets because he is concerned that nobody else will be able to look after them to the same level.

He told the Mirror Newspaper that: "Handing them into a rescue isn't an option for me. I wouldn't have the heart. I rather not feed myself."

Ashley said that the presence of his animals is good for his mental health. But you could argue, too, that the stress that they place upon him in terms of their maintenance is bad for his mental health. He lives in a one-bedroom flat which is hardly ideal for one man and eight animals.

The underlying point that I want to make is that, in the UK, a lot of people plead poverty because of the cost-of-living crisis but they are not managing their outgoings properly.

You can make savings in a whole range of ways without detrimentally impacting one's life substantially. And in the case of Ashley, I think he needs to talk to his employer who appears to be in breach of the law in paying him two-thirds of the national minimum wage!

It almost looks like that he has an animal hoarding problem. That's being a bit harsh but really you can't have eight pets in a one-bedroom flat.

There are stories in the UK of people abandoning or relinquishing their companion animals to shelters in large numbers because of the cost-of-living crisis. In a lot of cases, I suspect, that the abandoned pets are those that were adopted during Covid in order to keep their owner company during those long lockdown periods.

If a person adopted a dog during Covid and then relinquished them after Covid, we have to be critical of that person. This is because you adopt a companion animal for the life of the animal. There is no other way to do it.

I would like to see less moaning about the cost-of-living crisis and a greater emphasis on how to manage expenses or outgoings in the family home in a way which minimises the impact upon the lifestyle of that person.

What about pay-as-go mobile phone contracts that cost £10 per month and not £50! Buy a cheap smartphone (sim only) and go for a cheap contract. And reduce TV streaming services. That kind of thing. And no takeaways. 

Prepare your own food cheaply. There are ways and means to cut costs.

Dogs suffer from less motion sickness in electric vehicles (EVs) than conventional ones

There is a study currently out, hot off the press, which, according to the researchers, clearly indicates that dogs prefer being in the back of electric vehicles (EVs) compared to conventionally powered vehicles. And they prefer it because they suffer from less motion sickness otherwise known as travel sickness or car sickness.

Dogs suffer from less motion sickness in electric vehicles (EVs) than conventional ones. Image: Image by Ferenc Tóth from Pixabay.

And the professor, Prof Mills, who led the study in the UK with the assistance of the second-hand car retailer CarGurus, said that he believed that the lower vibrations and lower noise in EVs is a major contributing factor in their findings.

Both cats and dogs suffer from motion sickness. I'm not sure that many cat owners know about this. We know that cats don't like travelling in cars when they go to the veterinarian, but they might not realise that their cat might also be suffering from car sickness.

Car sickness in people, and pets, is caused by a clash in the sensory signals coming from the inner ear which regulates balance and the eyes which also helps to orientate the cat and dog in terms of their position in relation to the surroundings. It is worth noting that cats and dogs have excellent hearing and that cats don't understand cars. They see them as hostile creatures when travelling.

Prof Mills said that he believed that the lack of noise and vibrations helped to put the dogs at ease. Although the research is about dogs, I've taken the liberty of extending it to relate to cats because their anatomy is very similar. Although research is required on cats as well because I think this research reveals something which is very important to dog and cat owners.

Car sickness is a big problem for dogs. It is common. In this study they employed 20 dog participants who were placed in the back of a Genesis diesel vehicle and an electric vehicle. We don't know the manufacturer of the electric vehicle employed.

The professor found that the dogs were more settled when sitting in the back of the EV compared to the diesel vehicle as the tended to break their lying down posture in the diesel. The data revealed that dogs broke their lying down position 50% more often when in the diesel car compared to the EV.

He also found that two of the dogs suffered from nausea and car sickness when in the diesel Genesis test car. Their heart rate also spiked, and their behaviour indicated distress. Car sickness and dogs can cause whining and pacing, lethargy and distress combined with drooling.

The professor found that when the two dogs travelled in the EV their heart rate decreased by almost a third.

Prof Mills said:

"There were two dogs that, when I looked at them, they looked like they suffered from car sickness. They really started to salivate a lot and various other signs and although they weren't actually sick, they looked to me as though they were nauseated."

And he added that: 

"They seem to be much better in the electric car than the diesel cars and I found that quite an intriguing result and I think it's something that we ought to look at more because car sickness is a big problem for dogs."

The study revealed that dogs prefer less vibration and noise. Diesels are known for their vibrations. Electric vehicles are very smooth by comparison. I think we need to add in Toyota hybrids which are also incredibly smooth. These are vehicles driven by both battery and petrol engine simultaneously.

The findings have been submitted for peer review and they are important. Prof Mills added that given the high number of dogs that have difficulties in travelling and that they are very much members of the family, these findings will encourage people to buy EVs.

The findings suggest that dogs suffering from car sickness may be cured if their owner purchases in EV! The problem is that EVs are very expensive and the secondary problem at the moment is that the cost of electricity is highly inflated because of Putin's invasion of Ukraine and therefore the differential in the cost of running an EV compared to petrol engine car is not as great as it was.

Note: this is a cross post from a similar article on the main website.

Stupid risk averse Westerners don't set off fireworks like this!

Take a look at this. I know that it is not directly about cats, but it is indirectly because it is about being risk averse.  Risk aversion goes to the heart of everything we do and achieve. Modest risk aversion is good but being overly risk averse is bad as it stunts development and experiences. It leads to less of a life. This philosophy affects how we care for our cats. 

Risk aversion is part of decision making in cat caretaking - Michael

In fact, it goes to the heart of the debate on full-time indoor cats and indoor/outdoor cats. I am not saying that the full-time indoor cat life is bad. Far from it. Often it is very sensible. I am saying though that a lot of the time the reason why cat owners confine their cats to the home is for peace of mind. It is primarily for the benefit of the human and not the cat.

This guy (not living in the West) is not risk averse. No sir. Image: Screenshot from video. Sorry the quality is so poor.

And there has to be an 'and', when domestic cats are confined to the home for their life, they become zoo animals in effect. The owners do not compensate by entertaining their cat sufficiently. The environment is insufficiently enriched. 

I can think of only one example where the cat owner truly committed to designing the interior of their home half for the benefit of their cat companions and half for themselves. And I have seen tens of thousands of pictures and examples.

This is the big, hidden failure of the full-time indoor cat argument. If all homes with full-time indoor cats were built half for cats and half for humans plus a large catio, I'd accept it. But it is not like that.

2 tips to keep down cat poop odours

One of these tips is common sense and the other I had not heard of before. A lot of cat owners are probably concerned from time to time about the smell from their cat's litter tray. On the Internet, there is a lot of discussion about keeping down odours. 

I remember one resourceful man with about a dozen cats having an entirely odour free home because he had built a very sophisticated extraction system for several cat toilets. I was very impressed because his home was entirely odour-free. Not many people can do that.

RELATED: Foul ammonia odour exposes homes where there are too many cats.

Coffee grounds are an odour suppresser apparently. Image in public domain.

The first obvious tip is to clean the cat litter as soon as your cat has gone to the toilet. That solves the problem more or less. The difficulty is that you have to be retired or working from home to do this.

Many more people work from home thanks to Covid. So, this obvious tip can be employed.

And it helps to have a litter tray which is easy to get out. There are some beautiful pieces of furniture with litter trays inside them. They fit into the elegant home very well. But access to the litter tray inside is trickier. 

This slight barrier to getting at the litter tray may put off the owner clearing up the litter. This means that odours could leak out of this elegant furniture. The suggestion is that you should have a litter tray which is not tucked away in a nice bit of furniture. This comes down to how houseproud you are and how practical and pragmatic you are.

Multi-cat homes are an added problem in this respect. You should have one cat litter tray per cat. I'm sure people living in multi-cat homes get used to the odours. That's the next tip! Ignore the smell. Get used to it. And don't have any guests in the home! And keep your windows shut 😎. My neighbour does all of this.

I've just read other fancy little tip about reducing the smells of use cat litter. I guess people throw it away in the trash can or waste bin. My cat goes to the toilet outside these days. When I had a cat litter tray, I used to bag it up very carefully which kept the odours in before throwing it away.

Note: read the last paragraph, please.

But a lady from Edinburg in Virginia, USA says that she throws a handful of cheap coffee grounds in the container which effectively suppresses smell. She said: "There's no longer a smell of something dead being in there".

I researched coffee masking or suppressing the smell of poop. Coffee contains caffeine which contains nitrogen which increases carbon's ability to eliminate sulphur from the air. Fancy stuff.

However, you have to carbonised coffee grounds to make them useful as an older suppressant. Perhaps coffee grounds still work to a certain extent in suppressing the odour of cat poop. That must be the explanation as to why the lady from Virginia found it so effective.

You might like to give it a try and if you do, please make a comment.

P.S. Coffee grounds can be used as a cat deterrent! People shouldn't use coffee grounds to suppress the odour of cat poop by putting them next to the cat litter tray. I think that's important. Cats like the smell of their poop. They don't like their litter tray to be deodorised and smelling of perfume. It can put them off using it.

Also, caffeine apparently is toxic to cats and dogs and therefore this tip is only about suppressing the smell of waste cat litter. That's important too.

Humans moan about feral cats, but human carelessness created them

Every day on the online news media - every damned day (yes, I am annoyed) - we see hundreds of articles on local, state and federal newspapers and from other countries particularly Australia, about feral cats and the nuisance that they cause. The biggest complaint about feral cats is that they kill birds. But of course, they kill other animals too, sometimes native species, which really irritates local authorities and going higher up to federal authorities.

This sort of picture annoys millions of people, and they blame the feral cat. Let's go one back and blame the people who are careless cat owners. Image in the public domain.

They moan and moan and they criticise feral cats over and over again. The dreaded feral cat is a constant concern to the authorities. They speak of feral cats as if they are monsters from another planet. They just arrived out of the ether, and they are a damned nuisance.

The old saying 'don't shoot the messenger' comes to mind. The feral cat is the bringer of bad news to people in the community. They don't tell citizens the bad news through vocalisations but by their presence. The bad news is that careless people created the feral cat.

But it would help if the people who moan about feral cats sat down and counted to ten and reflected on why feral cats exist and the reason is...wait for it...human carelessness and negligence. They should then moan about the people who caused the feral cat problem! And leave the innocent, persecuted victim - the cat and the messenger - alone or at least treat them decently unlike the bloody Aussies.

If the news media and the local authorities are going to moan about feral cats, they have to moan about people as well because they are the root cause of the problem.

And I want to see some more moaning about people and I don't want to see the feral cat victimised over and over again by ignorant journalists who don't really get to the bottom of these problems. They simply regurgitate what they read on some other online news media site. The articles are often written by a person with very skimpy knowledge of cats and without an opinion of their own.

Let's drill down and see why feral cats exist. It goes back to the beginning in Australia when migrants came to the country, but the problem has been perpetuated and exacerbated to further carelessness in domestic cat ownership and therefore when you talk about feral cat nuisance and that they need to be either eradicated or humanely euthanised after being trapped (or just shot), you have to talk about proactive steps to stop more feral cats being created. 

That can only take place through education. It has to be widespread education, probably part of the general school curriculum if you really want to get to the bottom of the problem.

You have got to change attitudes, fundamental attitudes in a small section of society because it is only in a small section of society, perhaps around 5% of cat owners, who spoil it for everybody else by not spaying and neutering their cats to ensure that they don't procreate. And by limiting the number of cats that they possess. In short, showing some self-discipline and demonstrating to others that they care about cat welfare and are not self-indulgently simply acquiring cats willy-nilly without proper controls and management.

There are even some people - even today - who believe that a female cat needs to have babies before she can be complete which is pure mumbo-jumbo. If all the people who think that that their female cats need to have babies, you have a cat problem and some of those kittens will grow up to be adult cats that are unwanted and some of them will become feral cats.

The more you read about domestic and feral cats the more you have to conclude that the domestication of the Middle Eastern wildcat has been a failure. This is because half the world's population of "domestic cats" are actually feral cats. So, if there are 500 million domestic and feral cats in the world, there are at least 250 million feral cats and that might be a conservative number.  It was never meant to be this way, but humans have learned to reluctantly accept feral cats which means they accept a ton of misery in animals that were created out of negligence.

Although we do not know the number of domestic and feral cats in the world. We have to guess. But my guess is that there are more feral cats than domestic cats when looking at all the world's domestic and feral cats.

This is because in Asia and specifically in India the majority of cats are 'community cats'. They are semi-feral. They are not true domestic cats. They are sometimes fed but they are not taken the veterinarians when they become sick. There is little or no medical care. The level of care to community cats is average-to-poor to very poor.

I just want to sleep! My full-time indoor cat keeps me awake all night.

There is a classic cat caregiving problem on the Reddit.com website from a woman who is at the end of their tether. They have 2 cats and the boy was neutered recently (and therefore is young) but he is stopping them from sleeping. They tried ignoring him. They allowed him to come into the bedroom but then they stopped him coming into the bedroom. 

I just want to sleep! My full-time indoor cat keeps me awake all night. Image: MikeB.

But he continues to wake them up at least twice between 3 AM and 6 PM every night. He chews "and destroys everything on our bedside tables, knocks things over, and steals things and runs away with them". They have given him a lot of toys which he happily plays with but it isn't enough. His owners want to sleep more than four hours a night.

I'm sure that they are describing a not untypical situation in any home with any full-time indoor cat. Male cats tend to be more of a problem because they have bigger home ranges than females and therefore the confines of a home will be more difficult to adapt to. This couple have tried all they can to play with him and to stimulate him to no avail.

The problem, as we all know, is that the domestic cat's circadian rhythm is totally out of sync with the human circadian rhythm. They tend to be active at dusk and sometimes throughout the night and then at dawn and they sleep from around mid-morning to mid-afternoon. The opposite can be said about people. And we buy into this difficulty when we adopt a cat. The problem is exacerbated with full-time indoor cats because they will tend to be bored because they are under stimulated through play.

It is almost an intractable i.e. unsolvable problem because of the inherited behavioural traits of both humans and domestic cats. They simply are not compatible in terms of the time that they are active. Of course, I'm sure there are some people who are active at night and sleep during the daytime and this must suit their cat companion tremendously.

The answer apparently to try and tire your cat out to try and shoehorn their behaviour into the circadian rhythm of humans. And Jackson Galaxy, the well-known American cat behaviourist has written about this in his book Total Cat Mojo.

Stop your cat waking you at night as per Jackson Galaxy

I've written about it myself based upon his book and therefore all I can do is to suggest you read the linked page above. However, I am sceptical about the outcome. I don't think that it is going to be easy to solve this problem. I suspect that in most homes people find a reasonable solution (compromise) which gets them by but there is always this underlying problem. Cats will wake up their owners at night. Even indoor/outdoor cats. Mine does.

Perhaps it might be worthwhile, before adopting, to consider what type of cat you want to adopt. For example, I think females will be less active at night than males. And I think perhaps the Ragdoll, a laid-back cat, might be less active than a non-purebred cat. Certainly, a male Bengal cat is not going to be very quiet at night. The wildcat hybrids are generally more active than the standard domestic cats. And old cats will be less active than youngsters. Adopt an old cat. They are often left on the shelf at shelters.

Of course, the other solution which goes against the grain of a lot of people's thinking is to allow your cat outside at night. That is unsuitable in many locations but if it is considered suitable in terms of safety then it would substantially solve the problem. But even them it won't be the magic solution.

Cat owners don't need to abandon their cats during the cost-of-living crisis

There are reports online in the news media websites that cat owners are abandoning their cats to shelters as the increased cost-of-living bites. This refers to the UK but I am sure there are inflationary pressures and cost of living pressures in other countries. This is the big discussion at the moment: how to reduce your living costs in order to cope with the dramatic rise in gas and electricity because that megalomaniac Putin is holding the world to ransom by stopping the supply of gas. 

Please note that I'm referring to standard, typical households. I realise that there are many households where costs have already been cut to the bone and I have great sympathy for these people. But I have to talk about typical family homes in this discussion.

I have probably waffled a bit too much in this article but the point of this article is that cat owners need to do all they can reduce household expenses other than those expenses to do with maintaining a domestic cat and providing them with excellent care. This is because it is far easier to shave off costs on households running costs then it is to cut corners and skip on the funding needed to provide excellent cat caregiving. 

Cat owners don't need to abandon their cats during the cost-of-living crisis. Think thermostat! ✔️

The reason why electricity goes up when the price of gas goes up is because there are gas fired power stations generating electricity. And the reason why the cost of wholesale gas has gone up dramatically in the UK even though we do not import gas from Russia or at least very little of it is because wholesale gas is priced internationally.

I don't think you need to abandon your cat to a shelter. What cat caregivers need to do is sit down and think very seriously about how they can reduce their household expenses OTHER THAN those relating to cat caregiving. 

They may surprise themselves that great savings can be made. And the key in making savings to household expenses is this: the price of gas and electricity has risen about fourfold i.e. it is four times as expensive now as it was about a year ago. This is shocking to many people but because it is so expensive small changes in reducing the amount of gas used can bring equally dramatic reductions in costs.

On the conventional formula (at previous gas and electricity prices), it is said that if you turned down the central heating thermostat by 2°C you can save £200 a year. That's based upon the previous costs of gas. If the cost is four times higher the savings will be four times greater. Also, I am making a presumption that you will be turning down your thermostat from about 22°C to 20°C or from 21°C to 19°C. 19°C is perfectly acceptable if you wear warm clothing indoors.

Therefore, you might save £800 a year by simply turning down the thermostat and putting on a nice warm dressing gown! You will then be able to keep your cat because the cost of keeping a cat is about £1500 max. per year.

Reducing your heating costs, in effect, halves cat caregiving costs. And you can turn off the thermostat in the room that you don't use in your home. Or you can turn off the central heating completely and use a small bar heater to heat the area around you.

There are other aspects of living which can be adjusted to save costs. You can turn off all your appliances and devices, which are usually on standby, at the socket save around a hundred pounds a year potentially. Just these two aspects of living should be able to allow you to keep your cat.

And I don't think people should be skimping on the cost of food and veterinary care. Also, there are some good aspects to this cost-of-living crisis as it is called. It will make people think harder about how they live and where their money goes. It will cut some of the fat out of their lives. It will make people more resilient. It will make people more self-discipline, hopefully.

It will help reduce food waste. There is an awful lot of food waste in the UK and other countries. If people bought food more carefully and ate all the food that they bought they would save hundreds of pounds annually. This would offset the cost of keeping a cat. Do you eat all the food that you buy?

I do not want to sound like a saint but I eat 99.9% of the food that I purchase. And I do not think that it is that difficult to achieve this. It's a question of building up habits. People become deeply entrenched in habits and don't see how they can change them. But the trick is to make the change, to make that first step and then you set up new habits which become perfectly acceptable but which seemed unacceptable beforehand.

The conclusion is to think hard about surrendering your cat and before you do so work out how you can reasonably cut household expenses, particularly with respect to gas and electricity because it is here that the best savings can be made.

Animal charities swamped due to UK's cost-of-living crisis

There is another report today in the news media about animal charities being swamped with abandoned cats and dogs because of a double whammy of major problems. Firstly, there was the surge in cat and dog ownership during the pandemic with those owners now giving up their pets because they've decided they can't afford to keep them which has been exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis. 

In isn't just the cost-of-living crisis which is causing this abandonment of pets. People adopting pets during Covid now see the reality of cat and dog caregiving and have decided that they were unprepared or uncommitted for a lifetime of cat or dog caregiving.

RSPCA shelter. Image: RSPCA

The RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) has reported a 25% increase in abandoned pets during 2022. They say that their employees are overwhelmed at their call centre from owners reporting that they are struggling to feed and care for their animals.

During the first seven months of this year, they recorded 22,908 cases of abandoned pets paired with 18,373 during the same period last year.

They have reported such events as a terrier dog being thrown from a truck travelling at 50 miles an hour and 20 puppies being abandoned in a box in a layby in Essex.

They put most of this problem down to the extraordinary number of 3.2 million cats and dogs that were bought or acquired during the lockdowns coupled with the increased pressure on the finances of many cat and dog owners in the UK who are facing extraordinary bills to heat and power their homes this winter. 

Some economists have predicted 22% inflation in the UK thanks to a projected £6,000 annual bill for a typical family home to provide gas and electricity to that home beginning in the early part of next year.

Cats Protection has seen a rise of 46% in the number of animals on the waiting list in July of this year compared to last year. Peter Shergold, the head of operations at Cats Protection said: 

"This is the worst situation in organisational memory in terms of the pressure on our services to take in cats. The rise is directly linked to the cost-of-living crisis."

I can also see, by the way, problems with the cost of running animal charities. There are reports of numerous small businesses going under because the cost of gas and electricity is just too high so their overheads become unbearable. I can see some small animal charities having to close at least potentially because of the extraordinary rise in the price of gas which has a knock-on effect on the cost of electricity in the UK.

Pet owners are struggling to afford basics such as food and litter for their cats. The extreme cost of gas is due to Putin's attempt to force Europe to loosen their sanctions against Putin. It's blackmail basically. He doesn't care about killing thousands upon thousands of innocent Ukrainian citizens and he doesn't care about the dramatically negative effect that the price of gas is having upon so many organisations and individuals in the UK. In fact, he wants the Brits and Europeans to suffer.

I can remember reading an article about a man who said that he has to use the dregs from his shampoo in order to make ends meet. He could then, and only then, maintain enough funds to look after his cat. But it occurred to me that most people add some water to the bottom of their shampoo bottle in order to get out the last bits because by doing this you can get two or three more washes. I don't think that it is a particularly clever thing to do or something which indicates that a person is on their uppers.

I can remember reading an article about a man who said that he has to use the dregs from his shampoo in order to make ends meet. He could then, and only then maintain enough funds to look after his cat. But it occurred to me that most people add some water to the bottom of their shampoo bottle in order to get out the last bits because by doing this you can get two or three more washes. I don't think that it is a particularly clever thing to do or something which indicates that a person is on their uppers.

I can remember reading an article about a man who said that he has to use the dregs from his shampoo in order to make ends meet. He could then, and only then maintain enough funds to look after his cat. But it occurred to me that most people add some water to the bottom of their shampoo bottle in order to get out the last bits because by doing this you can get two or three more washes. I don't think that it is a particularly clever thing to do or something which indicates that a person is on their uppers.

Also, I think that a lot of people have built into their lives overheads such as subscriptions to smart phone providers, Sky television all broadband Internet. Or they are buying a car on hire purchase as opposed to outright. So, they burden their lives with overheads and they are not prepared to release themselves from these overheads which leads them to a precarious financial situation under the current cost of living crisis. 

They should divest themselves of some of these expensive overheads and ensure that their expenditure is less than their income and then they can put some money aside for those unexpected veterinary bills in a self-insurance policy. 

Here's your chance to stop your cat bringing in prey! OnlyCat cat flap.

If you are one of those cat owners who really objects to your cat occasionally bringing in prey animals, through the cat flap, into your home and really can't wait to do something about it, well you can now! You can subscribe or you can be an early bird and buy this smart cat flap today and get big discounts. 

OnlyCat® cat flap. Screenshot from their kickstarter programme.

On the downside, its projected retail price is £499. Sadly, I will have to conclude that that is just too much even if you don't like your cat bringing in prey. You've got to have quite a lot of disposable income to want to pay that kind of money for the convenience of a bit of peace and quiet. And don't forget even in homes with cat flaps sometimes the backdoor is open or the patio doors are open in warms summers. The cat will prefer that route of entry.

And the UK is currently embarking on a cost-of-living crisis which is set to become much worse when gas and electricity prices more than double shortly.

That said, it is, by the look of it, an excellent product. It is called OnlyCat®. You can get a discount if you participate in the kickstart program and there is about 23 hours of the program remaining. The manufacturers have been backed by 57 people to the tune of £24,504 as at the date of this post.

If you purchase the cat flap before it goes into manufacture in the UK, it will cost £379 which is 24% off the retail price. The estimated date of shipping is April 2023. This discount has been claimed by, on my understanding, 22 people. If you pay a £7.99 p subscription which I believe is another way of acquiring the device now, you pay £149 for the device.

This would seem to be a way of getting around paying the heavy initial charge. And distributors can buy 10 OnlyCat® cat flaps for £3,690 which is a 26% discount.

Your cat, they say, will typically kill 110 animals per year and bring 80% of them inside the home. They use advanced AI vision technology to detect the prey. It can detect mice, birds, rabbits, rats, squirrels and other animals large enough to be seen by the camera.

RELATED: Smart cat flap donates money to a bird charity when cat with prey tries to enter.

If your cat approaches the cat flap and tries to get in with a mouse in their jaws the cat flap won't open and they will have to turn away and eat the mouse in the backyard.

This cat flap connects to your Wi-Fi and sends a short video clip of your cat's movements to your smartphone. You will feel connected to your cat and receive an alert whenever he or she attempts to bring prey into the home.

The video explains all.

I can tell when my cat is genuinely hungry by his weight

It sounds improbable but I can tell when my cat is genuinely hungry by his weight when I pick him up. I can feel the differences in his weight. I believe that cat caregivers need to fully understand when their cat is genuinely hungry and will eat the food that is put down before them as opposed to those times when domestic cats sometimes are seeking what I will call "food therapy". Too much wet cat food is wasted. Think how many millions of tons of cat food is waster annually.

My cat has a 'primordial pouch'! Not call domestic cats have them. As you can see he has a perfect body weight or BMI! That's because he is active and eats well.

  

Sometimes domestic cats eat out of boredom I believe or because it is just there and instinctively, they eat some of it. But I know my cat's weight or the feel of his weight by picking him up. And I can tell the difference between when he has lost some weight and when he has gained a little bit of weight. The difference is subtle.

When he feels light, I believe that if he is asking for food at those times, he is genuinely hungry and will eat the entire bowl of food that I put down for him. This has been proved true time and again.

If I'm correct, it is a useful check. I don't know about you but I feel that I waste too much cat food. I decide to give him food with care and with as near certainty as possible that he will eat it. However, sometimes he shows some interest but then leaves it. In that instance you have almost certainly thrown away an entire sachet of wet cat food. 

Perhaps cats vary in this aspect of their behavior. Perhaps some cats are more predictable. But then again perhaps some cats always eat their food and are obese as a consequence.

Sometimes, and I stress that this is quite rare, he does come back to wet food that has been left out for quite a long time and eats it. He does this because it smells stronger and domestic cats are scavengers unlike their wild forebears and so he might scavenge some hours-old wet cat food during the night.

I'm trying to figure out some scientific reason why there is a link between my cat being genuinely hungry and being lighter than normal. I think is because he has gone to the toilet and a few or more hours after going to the toilet his eating rhythms kick in and he is ready for food. That is a guess. Or he is simply more active at some times and eats later than normal. Under these circumstances he burns some fat and therefore feels lighter.

But I can quite definitely detect the difference in how much he weighs simply by picking him up. I can also combine this with palpitating his body. Sometimes he feels a little bit thinner than at other times. There's a natural weight fluctuation. I am sure that this is entirely normal and happens with humans.

Detecting his weight helps guide me as to whether he needs genuinely needs food or not.

Tip to check your cat's teeth

Here is a useful tip to check your cat's teeth and gums. In fact, it checks on oral health which is important as feline oral health is a major health issue in domestic cats. It is a hidden problem as it is hard to check your cat's gums. This is the tip! You buy some cotton buds and use one to run it around the gum line. Your cat should accept this 😎 if done quickly and at an opportune moment. I would hold my cat by the scruff of the neck (not too hard) which would 'deactivate' him for a few moments and long enough to employ this technique.

Image by Pitsch from Pixabay.

If there is blood on the cotton bud and/or your cat shows signs of pain, you can assume that there is a problem and your vet should be booked to take a proper look. Gums should be uniformly pink. If they are blue your cat is anemic.

Ideally you do not want to get this far because, as you might know, if teeth need to be removed your cat will need to be anaesthetised. There is a risk to a cat's health and welfare when they are anaesthetised. I'm sure that you know this but it seems that it is very easy to overlook a cat's oral health.

RELATED: How to check a cat’s mouth for oral health.

Gingivitis is the early stages of gum disease. The gums become inflamed and red. Eventually they bleed. At this point treatment is needed and if not, the health problem progresses to periodontal disease or periodontitis. 

Periodontitis is more serious as bone (jawbone) is irreversibly lost which leads to the teeth becoming loose and being lost as well. Also, the teeth become more brittle and break. An abscess might occur. A linked health condition at this stage is "feline odontoclastic resorptive lesions". These are similar to cavities in our teeth but they are not caused by the same bacteria.

If your cat has a serious oral health problem they will be in pain. They will become anorexic and stop eating. They may drool. Bad oral health can be detected through bad breath, a reluctance to eat, food drop from the mouth and then eaten, pawing at the face or mouth and ruling as mentioned.

Although I never did it myself, I think it would be useful if you adopt a kitten to get them used to a mouth inspection. You know that you can train your kitten to accept all kinds of things which can be highly useful when they are adults. Another thing you can train them to accept is a lead and to walk on a lead. And to accept having their claws trimmed. I missed my opportunity through carelessness but if I had it again, I would train my kitten to accept all the things that are useful to me in providing good care.

Woman's new home came with two stray cats and they changed her life

Julia Davis, 24, begins the story of her relationship with 2 stray cats that she met at her new home by saying: "The new house that I'm moving into literally came with a cat". She subsequently found another! So, her new home came with two cats, one white and one black, and they changed her life.

Davis, Coop and in the background the chicken coop where he was found. Image: Julia Davis.

She already had a TikTok page and decided to document the story of her new cat companion who with the help of TikTok visitors decided to call him 'Cooper' because he was found in a chicken coop at the back of the house (is it a chicken coop?). I guess he had used it for cover and as a home. As she approached the construction, she saw the fluffy, white stray cat.

The video explains what happened. 

@julia_adavis Drop name suggestions in the comments! Bonus-I really like names that are nouns or names that have shorter nicknames that end in the “e” sound #names #cat ♬ original sound - Julia Davis

Note: This is an embedded video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source or the video is turned into a link which would stop it working here. I have no control over this.

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She noticed that he had not been cared for and was therefore a stray perhaps formerly owned as he was very friendly. She adopted him there and then it seems to me. She decided to take him to a veterinarian pretty well immediately and I guess as soon as possible because his ears were in a bad way and he needed to be checked over and receive some basic veterinary care. He had probably been in fights with other cats. That's how their ears get scratched and torn.

RELATED: No One Owns Stray Or Feral Cats.

A few days later Davies posted another TikTok video showing the discovery of a second cat, this time black, sitting on the roof of the chicken coop and waiting to be adopted! He was also in poor health. She named him 'Rufus' and decided to take care of him as well.

She provides regular updates on her TikTok page about her relationship with these two friendly stray cats who are no longer strays. As long as her viewers are interested - and they are - she said that she would continue to provide updates.

And she kindly said: "I honestly like to say these cats belong to all of us. Everyone who watches my videos has played a part in their care. It's been a massive group effort that's restored my faith in humanity."

She said that because of the help that she had received from the community of TikTok users, "These cats have a better life than they had before. I think that's really awesome".

And of course, they have helped her. She has a better life than before it seems to me with TikTok success. And the backstory is a good one: cat welfare. Two cats have a much better life; a life that they should have as domestic cat companions and not struggling strays. You can see how keen Coop was to receive the touch of a human hand in the video.

P.S. There have been instances of people moving home who have deliberately left their domestic cat companion behind because either (1) they want to get rid of their cat or (2) they believe that domestic cats should stay with their home as they are wedded to their home range.

Confident cat is a happier cat

A confident cat is a happy cat. Why? Why is it good to live with a confident cat? Before I tell you why I think it is a good thing, I would like to say that I am drawn to cats that lack confidence. I see their vulnerability and I want to make them stronger. That sentence gives a clue as to what I am about to say.

Confident looking Bengal cat enjoying himself. Picture: Pinterest.

You can apply the same rules to people and cats when it comes to discussing confidence. A confident person is less likely to be anxious about the sort of things that are around him and which affect him/her. As anxiety makes you unhappy, less of it makes you happier or more content. Also, a confident animal is more able to deal with what is thrown at him or her. This is good.

The same rules apply to cats. A confident cat is a happy cat. They are able to express their views and natural instincts and behavior. This is shown in positive vocalizations in asking for food, for example. A cat that asks for food in a positive way is a cat that feels at home and that has become a part of the family. 

Vocalizations are good. They might irritate a bit from time to time but they are a sign of a contented cat that is part of the family. It means the cat feels like an equal, which is what we strive for as concerned cat caretakers.

When you select a kitten from a breeder, pick out the confident cat that comes to you. On second thoughts, why not try this: pick out the timid cat who is frightened, adopt them and take them home. Love them and fill them with confidence to allow them to be happier. This is my preferred choice as an adopter.

Of course, it perhaps goes without saying that a cat's character is dictated by their genetic inheritance and the environment in which they are raised and live. You can't change the former but you can improve the latter and therefore improve their confidence.

The point is that some timid cats can be drawn out and made more confident but they will always remain somewhat timid. There is, though, a great charm in a timid cat and there are advantages. One springs to mind immediately: they are less likely to roam if allowed outside and get into trouble and as a consequence be injured.

It is the foolhardy, young and confident male cats who are more likely to be hit by a car on the road. Confidence can lead to unhappiness sometimes.

Why do people abandon their cats? Lots of reasons!

Rescued Ragdoll cats. These cats were voluntarily relinquished by the person who bred them or who is breeding them. Photo: MSPCA.

There are many reasons why people abandon their pets. In descending order of importance, I have listed 10 below the spreadsheet. There are actually at least 3,207 reasons (😢) to relinquish your cat according to a study by the Regional Shelter Relinquishment Survey (Salman and others in 1998). Here are the top 41 reasons. Below that list are the reasons that I thought of before I discovered the 3,207 reasons!

Here are my reasons which came to my head fairly quickly.

1. Moving home. It sounds frivolous and careless but it is apparently true. People for whatever reason do not want to take their animals with them sometimes. I suppose the classic reasons are that the new home does not permit pets or is too small (leasehold contract). The downsizing may have been forced on the person for economic reasons. However, often the true reasons are not disclosed. Indeed, the person may even deceive himself.
2. A second reason for abandoning a pet is that the person adopted the companion animal when he or she was a cub or kitten and then is surprised (overwhelmed) at how large the animal has become when adult. This problem applies to dogs.
3. Purely economic reasons - the owner can't afford to keep a companion animal. This may be because of misplaced expectations or dire financial circumstances beyond the control of the person.  You will probably find, though, that the car stays as will the iPhone and the $100 a month telephone bill!
4. Another reason is that the companion animal was bought as a present and the person receiving the present becomes disinterested after a while. This may happen when parents give a child a kitten as a present. If the child gives up caring for the cat, the parents take over and then they give up later.
5. Expectations about maintenance and costs can be misplaced and when reality clicks in the owner gives up and abandons the cat or dog. This can be avoided by reflection and careful objective consideration before adopting.
6. For cats, so called "behavior problems" are a big reason for abandonment. These "problems" are often human expectation problems because the cat behavior is normal cat behavior and their owner does not like it. Once again it is about expectations and education before adopting. Should education be obligatory before people acquire a pet? If it was, you would need licensing. This is one of those moot questions. There is a need for better cat ownership to minimise the creation of feral cats.
7. Inappropriate elimination (urinating outside the litter tray) is a potential reason for abandonment. The reasons behind this behavior might be found in the environment that the person has created (too stressful for example) and nearly always will be or the cause is medical. Inappropriate elimination is appropriate for the cat because the simply react naturally and instinctively to forces beyond their control.
8. Another and controversial reason why people abandon their cats is declawing. Declawing a cat can result in behavior problems such as being unable to use litter trays as it hurts too much. This can lead to relinquishing the cat to a shelter.
9. Sometimes people become too old, frail of sick to continue caring for a cat or cats.
10. Rarely cat hoarders have a light bulb moment and realise that they can't cope and seek help. This as mentioned is mightily rare.

Click this link for Elisa Black-Taylor's thoughts on this topic.

RELATED: 3207 Reasons To Relinquish Your Cat.

Picture of a man evacuating Kyiv, Ukraine with rifle, aquarium, cat carrier and wearing a helmet

This is a strange picture of a man who I would consider to be heroic. He was apparently evacuating his home in Kiev, Ukraine to get away from the fighting. He has a rifle which I'm going to presume was given to him by the state to defend the city as a lot of volunteers are doing this, and he is carrying a mini-aquarium and a cat carrier with I believe a cat inside. 

He is wearing a helmet to protect his head. Although I would think that he would be too preoccupied in not splashing the water out of the mini-aquarium to be that concerned about whizzing bullets. He has a lot to carry and be concerned about and I don't foresee a great outcome especially for the aquarium.

Picture of a man evacuating in Kiev, Ukraine with rifle, aquarium, cat carrier and wearing a helmet. Photo: social media.

I don't know how he is going to make it out of there with all his worldly possessions. I'm being facetious because I have to presume that he has left a not behind. The number of refugees travelling west primarily into Poland and other bordering countries has reached about 400,000 according to the last report.

On the BBC, I saw a young woman interviewed by a BBC reporter on the border with Poland I think it was. She had a young cat on her lap. There was no cat carrier and she had apparently carried this cat all the way to the boarder from perhaps Kiev. It must have been a nightmare. 

The cat looked content but anxious because of all the noise and commotion around her. It makes you think. I don't see much chance of that cat getting to where she is going because there will be so many hazards between where she is and finding some sort of shelter when she gets into Poland. 

She needs a cat carrier and some cat food. She also needs a lead. It is a very fraught situation for companion animals. She told the reporter that the cat had already escaped once and gone into the engine compartment of a car to hide. I believe that she had struggled to rescue the cat on that occasion. You can see something similar happening in the not-too-distant future.

He’s 60 years old in cat years but clings to me like a new born child. Why?

A Reddit.com user, Faris-Hilton said: "He’s 60 years old in cat years but clings to me like a new born child". Why is this? The man was impliedly asking a question. It appears that he couldn't understand why. I think I know why. And I am using the knowledge of Dr. Desmond Morris a world-famous zoologist and animal behaviourist. 

His theory, and I totally agree with him, is that we keep adult domestic cats in a state of mind where they believe that they are kittens for the simple reason that we provide all their needs. We are their surrogate mothers. This suspends their growth in terms of their mentality. It doesn't stop them developing as adults but it is suspended until they bring home a mouse at which point, they believe that we are their kitten and they need to train us how to kill a mouse.

Reddit user Faris-Hilton says his middle-aged cat is 60 in cat years but a child in his behavior. Photo: Faris-Hilton.

This might not happen every time but in the wild, the wildcat trains her kittens by bringing home prey animals which are still living. She might kill them in front of the kittens to teach them how to kill. Eventually they follow her outside the den to watch her preying on animals. In due course they become independent.

It would seem, therefore, that domestic cats can flick a switch from being a kitten to being a mother and in their minds, we can be the mother and a kitten. But to get back to this gentleman. He says his cat is 60 years old in cat years but behaves like a kid, in his mind he is a 60-year-old kid 😂.

There is another reason why he clings to him like a kid. He loves to be near him and in contact with him. Cats like to physically connect with their caregiver and other animals with whom they are friendly. Just like humans. It is a natural consequence of a close relationship. And it emotionally and phyisically warm.