Why does this cat chatter his teeth when he sees a fly on the window?

Normally you see this form of "vacuum activity" when a domestic cat sees a bird outside the window and the cat is normally a full-time indoor cat. In this instance, the same effect is seen when a young cat sees a fly on a window inside the home. There are many amusing videos of this on YouTube.

Young cat performs the vacuum activity teeth chattering practice bite when looking at a fly inside the home. Screenshot.

The same instinctive response takes place. The experts say that this form of, apparently, strange feline behaviour is a cat performing their highly specialised killing-bite as if they had the bird in their mouth already. This cat does not recognise the difference between a bird and a fly because the reaction is entirely instinctive.

Cats have a particular way of killing birds (normally). It brings about almost instantaneous death. A quick death is important in terms of avoiding injury. The cat crunches down with his long canine teeth aimed at the nape of the bird's neck. With a rapid juddering movement of the jaws, he inserts his canine teeth into the neck, slipping them between vertebrae to sever the spinal cord. 

This is what you see in this video when this young cat is 'chattering his teeth'. It's a bit like playing air guitar. There's no animal there to kill but as he can't get to the animal to kill, he perhaps, in frustration, does it all the same. My cat doesn't use this form of killing-bite on pigeons. He uses the neck bite which is a suffocating bite. This is exactly the same bite employed by the big cats when killing large prey animals. You have perhaps seen it on video. Basically, my cat suffocates pigeons which I think is horrible to see because he can do it right in front of me sometimes.

Note: This is a video from another website. 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. If a link it left behind, please click on it to be taken to the video.

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Eight-gram bat flies 1200 miles only to be killed by a cat

A tiny, eight-gram bat, a female Nathusius' pipistrelle, flew from London to the village of Molgino in Russia's Pskov region on July 30. A journey of 1,200 miles. Sadly, the cat was found by a village resident after being injured by a cat. The bat was taken to a rescue organisation but failed to recover and died from the attack. It's a sad ending and it is not a good look for the domestic cat. It is the kind of opportunity which is seized upon by ornithologists and conservationists of native species to criticise the domestic cat and to argue the case for keeping them indoors full-time.

 Nathusius' pipistrelle. Photo: BBC.

The bat had been ringed by a bat recorder, Brian Briggs, in 2016 at Bedfont Lakes Country Park near Heathrow airport in west London.

It was a great surprise to see that the bat had ended up 1,200 miles away. The Russians reported the finding to the UK's Bat Conservation Trust. Briggs said that the news was very exciting. He said: "It's great to be able to contribute to the international conservation work to protect these extraordinary animals."

It is the only record of this species of bat travelling this kind of distance from west to east. Most records concern males flying south-west from Latvia. The only other similar journey by this species of minuscule bat was in 2019 when one migrated from Latvia to Spain after a 1382-mile flight.

Experts say that the reason for the long flight is climate change and they expect more of the same in the future.

P.S. The bat is not a typical prey animal for the domestic cat. I suspect that the cat reacted to the bat's movement and attacked it. They decided it was inedible or even had no intention of feeding in any case. It was an instinctive response to the movements of a small animal.

4 scientists deserve praise for saying the truth about feral cat predation in Australia

This band of four scientists deserve praise for pushing back against the doctrine as disseminated by the Australian local governments and the federal government, which is that feral cats on the continent are decimating native species and killing wildlife in the billions. These four scientists have written an article for the website The Conversation which I think puts the record straight. I've been writing about this for years and it almost seems that they have got some ideas for me but I am being big headed. These are the four I'd like to praise.

• Arian Wallach, Lecturer, Centre for Compassionate Conservation, University of Technology Sydney;
• William S. Lynn, Research Scientist, Clark University;
• Francisco J. Santiago-Ávila, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Wisconsin-Madison and;
• Joann Lindenmayer, DVM, MPH is an associate professor in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University

Their article is titled: Don't blame cats for destroying wildlife-shaky logic is leading to moral panic. The moral panic aspect of the title is interesting. It implies that shooting, trapping and poisoning feral cats in Australia is morally unjustifiable. It certainly is. And they mention, as I have, that Australia has declared war on cats, particularly the feral cat. 

Mad bad and sick as far as I am concerned. Man carries tabby feral cat back to where? He's just shot it at night. He's having great fun saving Australia from native species Armageddon at the hands of feral cats. He is a member of the Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia with a cat he shot. Photo: Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

This has been going on for donkeys' years. It is almost as if the governments of the various states of Australia are minded to indoctrinate their citizens into believing that the feral cat is their enemy. I had the pleasure of interviewing an Australian on the topic of feral cats and she almost recited like a mantra what she's been taught by these governments. Although I respect her point of view.

But the experts that I mention on this page say that they have a shaky case against cats. They said the claim that feral cats kill billions of animals causing a catastrophe in conservation does not stand up to scrutiny. Feral cats fit into the ecology of the Australian continent and it is complex. For example, when humans denude places of its vegetation small animals are more at risk of predation by cats because they can't hide. That is a single example.

And they say the small animals are vulnerable when people kill apex predators such as the feral cat. There is a knock-on effect. In Australia dingoes hunt feral cats which relieves pressure on native small animals, they say. If you got rid of the cats would the dingoes hunt small animals? And cats can contribute to the conservation of endangered birds by killing rats and mice. Rats are very efficient predators themselves and they prey on birds.

They say that cats play different roles in different environments and you can't assume that because feral cats are a problem in one place that they are a problem in all places on the Australian continent.

And you can't extrapolate from one small study about feral cat predation on native species and say that that happens across the entire country. In the words of the experts that I want to praise, they say that "many scientists take specific, local studies and over-generalise those findings to the world at large."

They state that there should be a far more rigorous approach to the study of feral and domestic cats and such studies should be "mindful of the importance of ecological context and avoid the pitfalls of faulty reasoning".

These guys deserve praise because they're pushing back against the conventional mantra of these governments which, as mentioned, is indoctrinating the citizens. It is time that this stops and a far more nuanced approach is taken which is also ethical. Almost everything that these governments are doing in relationship to feral cats are unethical and cruel. Their slogan is to kill them anyway possible. Crude and stupid, I'd say.

Extinction of mammals on islands by introduced domestic and feral cats

When the predation of wildlife by feral and domestic cats is raised as a topic the devastating impact of cats on islands is invariably a major issue. Wildlife species on islands are particularly vulnerable because they are isolated from many of the diseases, predators and parasites that plague mammals on the mainland.

Stewart Island - Photo: Getty Images / tsvibrav

Dr. Bradshaw states that island species account for 83% of all documented extinctions of mammals. However, scientists can only implicate feral cats in the destruction of wildlife on these islands in about 15% of such extinctions. And further, within that 15% of such extinctions to which the blame is only the feral cat, other introduced predators should take their share of the responsibility according to Bradshaw in his book Cat Sense.

He says that mongooses, cane toads and especially rats are equally if not more devastating than feral cats on wildlife predation. Black rats a.k.a. ship rats, it is claimed, can do more damage than any other introduced predator. It is ironic, therefore, that it may be beneficial or there are at least some benefits to not slaughtering feral cats because cats are reasonably effective hunters of black rats according to Dr. Bradshaw.

If you attempt to exterminate feral cats (as is currently the objective of Australian legislatures) you might find that the outcome is far worse than imagined in terms of the population of black rats. He cites the example of Stewart Island off the coast of New Zealand. On that island feral cats have existed for more than 200 years with an endangered flightless parrot called the kakapo (owl parrot Strigops habroptilus). The cats mainly fed on the introduced species of the brown and black rat. Those species of rat have been held responsible for the extinction of several other species of birds in the same area.

Removing the cats in these places might lead to an increase in the rat population which in turn might lead to the extinction of the kakapo.

That's just an example because sometimes eradicating cats from an island can lead to a dramatic recovery in the population of certain vertebrate species. Bradshaw cites examples such as iguanas on Long Cay in the West Indies. Also, deer mice on Coronado Island in the Gulf of California.

Although, there is no doubt that the sheer number of feral cats in most places must have a significant impact on wildlife. The difficulty, as I see it, is quantifying that impact and the way that ornithologists and their organisations latch onto biased or estimated predation rates in rather poor studies to further their agenda which is to in effect kill large numbers of cats.

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.

A bird who can fight back when attacked by a cat

A bird who can fight back when attacked by a cat. Photo: Reddit.

This is just a bit of innocent fun. The picture of this parrot which works well motivated me to republish it on this website. I suppose, on a more serious note, it would be better for everyone except the domestic cat if birds could fight back when attacked. They are so vulnerable. All they can do is to evade capture which means flying away or staying out of the way. Domestic cat predation on birds is one of the big criticisms of the existence of the domestic cat. It is an existential crisis in some ways. If something approaching half of the human population either dislike or in extreme cases hate the domestic cat, domestic cat predation on birds doesn't help the welfare of the cat. It can lead to abuses but I won't go on. This is a bit of fun that is all.

An alternative to killing feral cats in order to protect wallabies

Historically, Australian authorities kill feral cats to protect native species which includes wallabies. It's understandable but it is a negative solution particularly when the killing is carried out with a complete disregard for the pain inflicted. 

The Daily Science website reports an alternative method which I would like to disseminate in the interests of the welfare of feral cats. They say that a program called "head start" doubled the population of the critically endangered bridled nail tail wallabies in the Avocat Nature Refuge in Queensland. What they mean by this is that they protect the young Wallabies against predation by feral cats until they are adult enough to be able to escape and survive.

Mad bad and sick as far as I am concerned. Man carries tabby feral cat back to where? He's just shot it at night. He's having great fun saving Australia from native species Armageddon at the hands of feral cats. He is a member of the Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia with a cat he shot. Photo: Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

Specifically, the researchers placed individual wallabies weighing less than 3 kg together with their nursing mothers in a 9.2-hectare enclosure which was free of predators except for birds of prey and some other predators, which are unspecified. They allowed them to live there over a three-year period beginning in 2015.

The mothers raised 56 wallabies in the enclosure and they found that the head start program more than doubled the population of wallabies over three years. There are 16 core members which increased to 47 of which 21 were inside the head start enclosure and 26 were outside. The survival rate of young wallabies increased, in that 15/20 juveniles (75%) survived past the age of weaning in the enclosure compared to only 3/12 (25%) in the wild.

Wallaby. Photo: Science Direct.

The researchers have estimated that the Avocet wallabies will become extinct within two years but for the head start program. They said that until they have a way to eliminate feral cats in the wild the head start program is a good idea.

I've written a lot about Australia and suggested many other ways of controlling the feral cat population size other than brutal killing in any way possible. If you are interested you can read some of these articles by clicking on this link.

Why do cats love laser pointers?

Well I think everyone knows why domestic cats and even the bigger cats, and every cat in between, love laser pointers (big cats aren't stimulated by them). But for the sake of complete certainty here goes. It is because their brains are hard-wired to respond to the kind of movement laser pointers make: fast and jumpy as the 'prey animal' tries to evade the cat.

Why do cats love laser pointers? Because they elicit the predator response.
Picture: Pixabay.

Laser pointers trigger the predator response which is deep within them. The defect with laser pointers is that they are silent and they can't be caught and killed.

Domestic cats are also very attuned to the sounds that prey animals make, especially mice. They can accurately pinpoint the location of a mouse from the sound the mouse makes.

The fact that cats can't kill laser pointers is bad news because they will eventually become turned off by the device. Perhaps the solution is short bursts. 

Are they unfair on the cat? I think they are. They are very effective but limited and I can't really recommend them. The best toys are homemade and fragile enough to be destroyed by a domestic cat.

2 ways to reduce your cat's hunting behaviour

There are two ways to reduce your cat's hunting behaviour and they are: providing your cat with the highest quality wet cat food which is grain-free and playing with your cat as much as possible. The advice emerges from the conclusion of a sensible study by scientists of 335 participating domestic cats in 219 households.

Feeding domestic cats wet food which is grain-free and which derives protein from meat plus play reduces predation on birds and mammals. Image: the scientists who conducted the study and reproduced here under an implied license.

The cats were split into two groups and strategies to curb their hunting behaviour. They discovered that feeding the cats with a high quality commercial food in which the protein came from meat and not plants, i.e. it was grain-free reduced the number of prey animals that the cat brought home by 36%.

Also, playing with a domestic cat for between five and ten minutes daily resulted in a 25% reduction in the same behaviour. The study is published in the journal Current Biology.

Martina Cecchetti, a PhD student of Exeter University, who conducted the study, said that despite some foods claiming to be a complete diet, they might leave the cats with a nutritional deficiency in micronutrients which compels them to hunt.

Another member of the study team, Professor Robbie McDonald, of the same university, said: "Our study shows that with entirely non-invasive, non-restrictive methods, owners can change what the cats themselves want to do."

They also concluded that when a domestic cat wears a bell on their collar to warn birds that they were being stalked by the cat, there was no discernible reduction in the birds brought back home. Further, they decided that the brightly coloured collars that you can purchase for domestic cats to reduce predation on birds were effective by 42% but they did not have any impact on predation on mammals such as mice. In other words, there was a 42% reduction in the birds brought home when the collars were worn. I have an article on that you can read by clicking here.

The study is important in two respects (1) it possibly highlights an issue with high quality complete diet wet foods, which needs to be further investigated and no doubt will, (2) there is, it seems, a connection between appetite and hunting desire.

We have constantly heard the mantra that a domestic cat's hunger is completely dissociated from their desire to hunt. But this study indicates that there is a connection between what a cat eats and the desire to hunt. And essentially it seems to say that if you provide a cat with the highest possible wet cat food they will hunt less.

It is thought that some cat foods contain protein from soy which may leave a micronutrient deficiency which the cats try and make up through hunting.

There is a general concern from both sides of the divide i.e. from cat lovers and cat haters about the predation by domestic cats on wildlife because the environment and the protection of wildlife has become a priority in the minds of many people. 

Therefore, the domestic and feral cat is under fire from environmentalists, nature lovers and ornithologists, and indeed animal lovers of all kinds. The common advice is to keep your cat inside at all times, but this also produces a deficiency in their lifestyle because cat owners tend not to substitute the natural behaviour they enjoy by hunting with play.

This is borne out in the study because one third of the cat owners participating in the study indicated that they would not continue to play with their cats as they did in the study but they will continue to feed them with premium cat food. There is therefore a reluctance to play with domestic cats. That's because it is boring for the person. Notwithstanding that, it is highly enjoyable and necessary for the indoor cat.

Why do domestic cats have vertical pupils?

Domestic cats have vertical pupils for two reasons:

1. On a scientific level it is said that a vertical pupil provides better depth perception which allows a domestic cat to measure distance better and/or focus on prey better. A scientific study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, decided that with vertical slits, predators see vertical lines behind the point of focus quite sharply but horizontal lines at the same distance are blurred. This allows them to have a greater ability to pinpoint prey animals.
2. The vertical pupil in conjunction with the eyelid allows the cat to restrict light to the retina more effectively than a circular pupil under bright light conditions. The eyelid passes down the vertical pupil like a blind which, to use a photographic term, stops down the lens to a smaller aperture than normal. This is needed to protect the retina which has a mirror-like film behind it (the Tapetum lucidum), which reflects light back to magnify the capture of light so that they can see better under dark conditions.

Photo in public domain.

Greater bilbies are to learn how to be frightened of feral cats

In a NSW conservation programme the Australian authorities are going to put greater bilbies into an enclosure where there are a limited number of feral cats. Those which learn to survive will then procreate and teach their offspring to survive in a landscape where there are feral cats. The objective is to create a large enough group of greater bilbies with an inherent fear of feral cats and the means to avoid them so that they can be released into the wild in Australia and survive.

Great bilby atTaronga Zoo. Photo Rhett WymanCREDIT:
RHETT WYMANAdd caption

The experts are calling it "accelerated evolution". It's a reference to the fact that this small native marsupial species did not have time, they think, to evolve avoidance skills of predators such as feral cats. They are giving them the chance to evolve quickly and develop that skill so that they can prosper in an environment where there are too many feral cats according to the authorities.

It's another take on how to protect native species. The authorities believe you either kill the predators or you train the prey animals or both at which point the prey animal has a greater chance of survival in the wild.

It had been thought that greater bilbies were extinct in the wild in New South Wales. They are rabbit-sized marsupials. The plan kicks off by placing 10 bilbies, five of each sex, into a 2,000 ha enclosure, within the Sturt National Park, which is free of feral cats and other predators (I presume). This small group of ten were bred in a zoo and selected to be as wild as possible. Once they have bred in their 2000 ha enclosure they will be placed with feral cats into a much larger Wildlife Training Zone within the National Park. The government is backing the program to the tune of AU$8 million.it is expected that it will take two years before the animals are released into the wild as I understand it. They are fast breeders!

Source: Sydney Morning Herald.

Buildings Second To Free Ranging Cats For Bird Mortality

The experts have spoken.  They say that buildings, particularly glass in buildings, are ranked second to free ranging pet cats as the cause of bird mortality in the USA.

It's all based on estimates, however.  There is no solid scientific study about the mortality rate of birds hitting buildings particularly windows.  But the estimates for the number of birds killed in America by buildings is from 100,000,000 to 1,000,000,000.  Let me repeat there is no solid scientific basis on which to base these figures and therefore they are estimates. Estimates should not be converted to "facts". They are often wildly out.

"there currently exist no U.S. estimates of building-collision mortality that are based on systematic analysis of multiple data sources."

As for cats the experts say that the free ranging pet cat kill about 4 times that number, which is quite a shocking figure but we really have to remind ourselves that, as yet, there is no nationwide, conclusive study on the numbers of birds killed by free ranging domestic cats in the USA.  I think actually you could add stray cats and feral cats to that but the expert uses the phrase “free ranging pet cats".  That implies domestic cat so you can see how confused the experts are because it is very important to distinguish between the various kinds of cat.

All studies about the predation on birds by cats are extrapolated from quite small studies and experts will agree that you can't do this with any degree of certainty.

There is a definite need, and there has been some time, for conclusive studies as to how birds are killed in the USA. There is a lot of concern by American ornithologists about the killing of native bird species and I can understand that but it is no good simply bandying around extravagant figures which less well-informed people latch onto and use to criticise the domestic cat and even on occasions abuse the cat.

The current state of affairs with regard to statistics is poor and I hope people realise that they should not go a website and simply recite what the author has quoted which no doubt comes from another website and so on and so forth  - and all of it is based upon estimated figures from “experts".

Source.

Why do cats like milk?

The fat in milk is what cats like. Whole milk contains 3.5% butterfat (fatty part of milk) content. Cats like cream as well and medium cream contains 25% butterfat. Fats are part of a cat's diet. They provide energy. The average man has up to 24% fat in his body. Men are mammals. Mice are mammals. I can't find a figure for the percentage of fat in mice but it would be similar to humans, I would have thought. So mice, the primary prey of the domestic cat, has lots of fat in it. Cats like fat and like milk because of that.

Also milk is the kitten's food source immediately after birth. There must be a connection there because we keep adult cats in a state of kitten-hood due to the fact that we provide for them in every aspect of their nutrition. A cat is drinking mother's milk even when she is 15 years of age!

I realise that mother's milk (colostrum) is not supermarket milk but there are great similarities. The problem is that most cats are lactose intolerant (due to insufficient lactase) because the milk at supermarkets is cow's milk. We, too, can be lactose intolerant. Have you tried drinking lactose free milk or soya milk to see if it improves your health? We are not cows.....

Biased Cruel Research Scientist

Some research scientists studying the predation of cats on birds in the USA are biased. This particular scientist, Nico Dauphine, 38, is both biased against cats and a convicted criminal. She tried to poison cats with rat poison whilst doing her research.

She worked for the respected Smithsonian's Migratory Bird Center researching the impact that cats have on birds. She appears to have made some startlingly biased claims, one of which was that the feral and domestic cat kills 1 billion birds every year in the United States. We don't know how many. We do know that cats are predators and their prey includes birds but they prefer hunting ground dwelling mammals.

Cat eating a bird - how often does this happen?
We don't know - Photo by doviende

I feel vindicated in my mission to publish articles that argue against scientists whose task it is to have feral cats slaughtered in even greater numbers than is the case at present.

There is a battle going on between so called bird conservationists and cat lovers. It is wider than that. Biased bird conservationists who hate cats are doing battle with people who like to see all animals treated properly and with respect and that includes the maligned feral cat.

Associated articles: Cats do not decimate bird populations and how feral cats affect wildlife.

i hate cats

i hate cats, no i hate f**k**g cats is what some people say when they dislike cats. But they nearly always don't explain why. It appears that they don't understand why. They don't understand how to write good English either as the title to this post indicates. A lot of them use lower case "i" to start a sentence, for example. And their grammar is appalling - lack of education.

Also, they rarely say, I don't like cats because...and then give a good, reasoned argument. They tend to swear and declare to the world how they would like to kill cats in a cruel way. They are probably the kind of people who'd like to hunt cats. They appear to be quite violent and angry people.

i hate cats - the picture above - my response

Before I make my comment about cat hating people's comments, I'd like to refer to the picture above:

"They never look happy". Well, they probably don't when they're around the person who did the drawing! Cats don't smile and laugh (as we do), yes, but neither does any other animal so if this is a reason for hating cats, you'll have to hate all animals and if you do that you are in real trouble because they are a major part of life and the world so you'll simply end up hating the world. Also, humans smile and look happy but the smile is often fake and humans look sad a lot of the time. If we are observant, we can notice that cats do in fact show contentment and sadness on their faces and in their demeanor. So, this statement is incorrect on a number of levels.

"Their claws suck". Well, there are lot of things about humans that "suck". There are a lot of things about humans that are good and beautiful and the same goes for animals. In any event humans are animals (meant in the biological sense). This comment is pointless. Anyway, what sucks more, a cat's claws or a human with a gun? Think about it. A cat's claws are vital to their lives. What particularly sucks is Americans declawing cats in an unnecessary and cruel operation. In 38 countries declawing is outlawed; it would be a crime.

"They will never try to save you". How many people would try to save you and how often do you need saving? How many animals would save you? How many animals have the physical capability to save you. The cat would have difficulty on a physical level. In any event this statement is also incorrect. Cats can, for example, sense the arrival of an earthquake. They will forewarn people of an earthquake. This could save many hundreds of human lives.

"No tricks". This is also incorrect. Cats can be trained and in fact there is an entire circus (The Moscow Cat Theatre - see video below) based on cats doing stunts. Sorry guys you just keep on getting it wrong demonstrating your ignorance. In fact, cats train their owners! And vice versa.

"They make your house f**k**g stink". Well maybe they make the houses of people you know stink but this is because of irresponsible cat keeping. Cats are very clean. If you provide a proper litter tray, they will use it instinctively. They groom themselves fastidiously. People are often dirtier. Litter does not stink if it is maintained correctly. This is about poor human behavior not poor cat behavior. We create the environment in which cats live.

"They kill babies". This is a cruel and a highly ignorant comment. It is completely incorrect. I think the person is referring to toxoplasmosis. You can read about this by clicking on this link. I am afraid that you will need to be educated, which is evidently lacking in the extreme. A note about education. A lot of the people who write "i hate cats" in lousy grammar are uneducated about cats (and a lot of other things, I expect). Combine that ignorance with ill-discipline and plain nastiness and the person is a severe hazard and real danger to cats. Or this is a reference to the old wives tail of cats sucking the breath from babies. That comes from Medieval times! It ain't true.

"Floppy" No idea why he mentioned this. Some cats are longer and therefore floppier but people would normally consider this an attractive quality. Cats are flexible which is why they are such good athletes.

i hate cats - the things these people say

Now I'd like to refer to the kind of comment that people make, the people who say"i hate cats". I can't quote them verbatim because it might be a copyright violation and anyway, they are not worth quoting except as a curiosity, but I can summarize their feelings:

---One person liked squashed cats on the road. He was pleased to say that he had seen one that was completely flat with a paw sticking up and another with just the head in the middle of the road. He seemed to take delight in this. Don't you feel that this person has a problem? He would seem to be very angry and the anger comes out in a hate of vulnerable animals or perhaps objects. He seems to me to be the bullying type.

---Another person said he whacked a cat with a rock at point blank range and the f**k**g stupid animal was to (this should have been "too") stupid to die. He seemed pleased with himself in inflicting an act of cruelty on a animal. This would be a crime in the UK. The way he writes indicates a lot of anger. A lot of criminals have difficulty with anger. In UK prisons criminals have to attend anger management courses which indicates that criminality and anger go hand in hand. The anger probably emanates from a poor childhood that lacked security and there may have been violence in the family. This is very often the case. Violence begets violence. And one way of expressing anger is through violence. It is easier to be violent towards a small animal rather than a big one (e.g. a person bigger than the person who hit the cat with a rock). I'd bet he wouldn't hit a big person with a rock. He is therefore probably a bullying type as well.

---Another person who said he hated cats said that cats are squishy and purple. Not sure about that. I haven't seen any purple cats. Maybe he wrote that while taking recreational drugs.

---Another person said i hate cats because they do nothing, they are stupid and can't be house trained (he refers to litter training), they won't play with you or show affection or emotion, they are unpredictable and will claw and bite you, they are filthy, cats are vermin and should be eradicated. Well I think that this person needs training or educating but I think training is more applicable. Pretty well everything he says about cats is incorrect. Cats love to play and use the litter naturally (99% of cats will and if not it is probably due to stress caused by the human or by illness). The cats that this person meets are probably frightened by him or he treats them badly and that is probably why he gets scratched. Cats are extremely clean animals. I could go on. He has had a bad education regarding cats and probably dislikes lots of animals.

---One agreed with the phrase, i hate cats because she saw a cat hunt and kill a bird on a bird feeder in her garden. She wanted the cat to be killed as a result. I wonder whether she thinks that a few thousand people should be killed for sport hunting wild animals and killing them. Or all the wild cats in Africa should be destroyed for killing wild animals to live. People kill for pleasure in sport hunting and cat kills out of instinct to survive. Which is more deserving of punishment?

---One person ran over a cat at night and it gave him a nice feeling. You are sick.

---One person, though, makes a good point, which should be addressed. He says i hate cats because they foul his garden and he can't do anything about it. He is not protected by the law and nothing really stops them. He refers to cats belonging to neighbors. I can sympathize with this. But we all have to suffer many things that displease us when we live close to each other. Noise is a big problem which is difficult to resolve, for example. When we live near each other we have to tolerate a certain amount of disruption to the way we want our life to be. Sometimes the person doing the disrupting will breaking the law and can be stopped. But if he is within the law the legislators (the people we elect) have decided that the nuisance caused is to be tolerated. As legislators act for the majority people who are upset with neighboring cats fouling their garden are in the minority. It is also worth mentioning that cats most often bury feces and most cats use cat litters in the home so this particular person was unfortunate to live next door to a person who was possibly acting irresponsibly.

Sometimes, however an action can be started in the tort of nuisance but the this is a difficult and off-putting route. Sometimes too the nuisance is minor for some but grave for others. In other words, the person doing the complaining has a problem with the problem and magnifies it. The person who doesn't like cats fouling his garden has a point but he probably doesn't like cats that much either.

i hate cats - Conclusion

I sense that these people have a personal problem - probably anger related. I'd bet my bottom dollar that they are sometimes people who are angry but don't know where the anger comes from. If it is not that it is probably a lack of education that makes them say, i hate cats....There are many stories on the internet where a man who was a cat hater becomes a cat lover because his girlfriend kept a cat and got to know cats. It is more about knowledge and experiences that will draw you to cats. One other thing, as women are more likely to prefer cats over dogs and therefore to keep a cat it is probably sensible for a man to get to like cats as it will improve his prospects of finding a good woman - practical point...

There is nothing in a cat or any animal that can be hated as they all behave naturally. If a person hates cats, he hates a natural animal. He therefore must hate nature and as nature is the fabric of our world, he hates the world but doesn't know it.

Update

Update - 21 January 2021. This is 13 years after the article was written. And still a substantial section of society anywhere in the world hate domestic cats. Perhaps America is best known for this split in society between those who love and those who hate cats. Or perhaps I'm being unfair. Australia is probably where it happens the most. This is because ornithologists i.e. bird lovers hate domestic cats for killing the birds they love. And when the birds are native species, it hurts particularly distressingly for bird lovers. And the problem is not going to go away. In fact, it's going to get worse because there are more cats as there are more people and therefore there will be more bird deaths at the hands of cat predation. You wonder where it will end up.

There is a lot of anger against cats from some people. It can lead them to taking the law into their own hands. These people sometimes shoot feral and stray domestic cats which, although a crime, is hardly ever treated as such because (1) law enforcement is disinterested and (2) people hardly ever see it happen and therefore there is a distinct lack of evidence which is a barrier to a successful prosecution which in turn feeds back to apathy amongst police officers. There is also the view that cats are 'just cats' and the police are too busy dealing with crimes against people. This is the age-old problem of humans being superior to cats and other animals of any species.

Some people ask whether it is normal to hate cats. Obviously, it is normal to hate gets but most people don't hate cats. And if a person hates cats, it is normally for the wrong reasons. It is normally because they don't understand the domestic cat or wild cats. Or it is because they are frightened of them. An extreme, irrational fear of cats is called ailurophobia. You might have heard of it. It is normal for humans to do a lot of strange things. Because humans can be very strange. It is equally normal to love cats. And there are more people who love cats than hate them. Although there are more people who hate cats than hate dogs. That's because cats are more independent than dogs. And dogs look up to their masters, the human as the pack leader. Humans like that. It massages their ego. That is why more people like dogs than like cats in my view.

Photo published under a creative commons license and by PDXdj

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