"Curiosity killed the cat" is an adage which was "Care killed the cat" meaning anxiety

We all know the old saying "Curiosity killed the cat". It's a saying which fits cat behaviour. Domestic cats are, indeed, very curious. It gets him into trouble sometimes which is why they can be harmed because of their curiosity and even, rarely, killed. Therefore, the adage has some veracity.

Domestic cats' lack of understanding of activities and objects in the human world makes them nervous. Photo: Pixabay.

But the original version of this proverb, from its first appearance in the 16th century until the end of the 19th century was, "Care killed the cat".

Care meaning anxious

In this saying, the word "care" means to worry about or to be anxious about something or other. It points to the possibility that cats could become so anxious and worried about something that it could even kill them. And this, apparently, used to be a belief by many people back in the day when the saying was first created.

And interestingly, this concept of worry killing cats is being revisited by veterinarians. Perhaps it's being revisited in terms of the fact that anxiety in domestic cats can harm their health which can lead to on occasions a serious health problems and even death.

But apparently, about 25% of cat owners surveyed in a 2008 study believed that their cat was incapable of feeling anxiety or sadness. Times have changed thanks to the internet I would say which has educated many cat owners. It is believed now that cats can at least experience the basic emotions that humans experience which includes anxiety or sadness.

And if asked today, scientists would agree that the old version of the proverb is to a certain extent true. Anxiety does present as a serious and real affliction for many domestic cats.

Anxiety is defined as a fear of something that is not currently happening. And you will find that there are, today, some anti-anxiety drugs which have been developed for humans which can be used on cats off-licence. Although, we are still unsure as to whether domestic cat feels the same kind of anxiety that humans feel but we are sure that feline anxiety is similar to human anxiety.

Elavil for anxious cats sometimes. Last resort. Image: MikeB

Interestingly, in the study I mention, more than 60% of cat owners thought that domestic cats can be jealous. Almost 20% of the participants thought that cats can feel the emotion of embarrassment and more than 20% believed that cats can feel shame. Around 35% believed that cats can feel guilt and 40% were sure that cats experienced grief. About 60% thought that domestic cats experienced empathy.

Home range issues

The most common cause of anxiety in cats is to worry that their home range i.e. their territory is about to be invaded by other cats in the neighbourhood. This might apply to full-time indoor cats when looking out the window into the back yard.

Or they might feel this anxiety when living in a multi-cat home and where their territory is very compressed. Under these circumstances home ranges overlap a lot and there is a greater possibility for cats to develop anxiety because of intrusions into their home range.

When Dr. Jon Bradshaw conducted a survey of 90 cat owners in suburban Hampshire and rural Devon in 2000, the participants reported that almost 50% of their cats regularly fought with other cats. They confirmed that 40% of the cats were fearful of cats in general.

He states that he has a colleague, a veterinary surgeon, Rachel Casey, specialising in cat behavioural disorders who regularly diagnoses anxiety and fear. She believes that these emotions are main factors driving cats to urinate and defecate indoors outside of the litter box.

Forced to live with cat they don't trust and owner absence

As about half of domestic cats on that survey suffer from anxiety the old adage that I mention above carries some truth. And this leads to inappropriate defecation and urination inside the home. When cats defecate on bedsheets which by the way happened to my ex-wife's cat after my divorce, the cat is desperately trying to mingle their own smells with their owner's smells to establish ownership. 

It can be reassuring for a cat to do this. In my ex-wife's case I don't think this was about ownership of space but more about anxiety about her absence. Although she had introduced a new cat to the home which would have probably compounded the matter.

The stress of being forced to live with a cat or cat that they don't trust can affect a cat's health. The classic illness caused by stress is cystitis which veterinarians call idiopathic cystitis because there is no apparent cause of it.

66% urination problems

Dr. Jon Bradshaw tells me in his book Cat Sense that "As many as two thirds of cats taking to vets for urination problems-blood in the urine, difficult or painful urination, urinating in inappropriate places-have no obvious medical problems, other than inflammation of the bladder and intermittent blockage of the urethra by mucus thereby displaced from the bladder wall. The factors triggering such episodes of cystitis are therefore psychological."

Lack of understanding

When you think about it, there are a lot of things about the human world that domestic cats are going to struggle to understand because they are human. They can become acclimatised to them but constantly fail to understand them.

Certainly, new events and activities can make them anxious because of this failure to understand.

It's a reminder that we are different species and that our relationship as is an interspecies relationship and therefore quite special.

There are numerous activities which occur throughout the day and throughout the year which can cause anxiety and which are exclusively human in nature such as fireworks, delivery vans outside, the doorbell going off, the hoover being used and so on and so forth.

Owners aware

I think based upon this article that many cat owners should really be switched onto the possibility that their cat companion is going to stressed at some stage of their lives and they should look to the causes, the most common of which, as mentioned, is another cat or cats.

In San Francisco it is NOT cats who are defecating in public places but PEOPLE!

Decayed San Francisco. Image: DALLE-E

Ron DeSantis, the presidential candidate, recently threw his hat into the ring on the discussion about the new woke culture. It's said that he made a bizarre speech. He was speaking to the Conservative group's Road to Majority conference and was discussing wokeness. And he made this comment about it:

"When woke overtakes our criminal justice system — like it has in San Francisco, like it has in Los Angeles — the average person becomes less safe in their communities as a result.” He vowed to leave “woke ideology in the dustbin of history.”

“Don’t tell me it doesn’t affect people’s lives. I was just in San Francisco. I saw — in 20 minutes on the ground — people defecating on the sidewalk. I saw people using fentanyl. I saw people smoking crack right there in the open, right there on the street. It was a civilization in decay.”

Yes, he is saying that he saw the gross degeneration of society's values to the point where adult humans were defecating on the sidewalk and getting high on fentanyl and so and so forth. And he put it all down to wokery; the new woke culture.

It's quite nice in a way to see humans being criticised for defecating in public (if it is true) because so often we see criticism of feral and domestic cats who are pooping in a neighbour neighbour's garden for instance or in a public place which neighbours don't like. The feral and outdoor domestic cats get a very bad rap in the news media concerning going to the toilet in the wrong places.

You might be wondering what the word "woke" means. 

Well, as I understand it, it means that the people who have adopted the woke movement are enlightened enough to see the truth in society. To be ENLIGHTENED and to act fairly towards everybody even if their attitudes and standards are different. And this applies a lot to the binary and non-binary discussion about people's gender.

The woke culture would argue that there are a spectrum of genders or sexes whereas the non-woke person might argue that gender is binary, either you are female or male based upon your biology/anatomy.

Afghanistan

When I was in Afghanistan in the 1970s it was common practice for the citizens of Kabul, the capital, to defecate down a side alley. The trousers had a sort of vent in them to allow them to shit without pulling them down! True.

San Francisco

Note: San Francisco is said to have gone downhill massively because of slack and soft administration resulting in a crime wave and people moving out of the city in droves.

Singapore resident blocks access to HDB apartments with barricade and sign "NO CATS ALLOWED!"

SINGAPORE NEWS AND COMMENT: In Singapore a high percentage of residents live in blocks of flats owned and managed by the authorities called the Housing Development Board. They obviously have access points for the residents. One resident, clearly frustrated with stray cats defecating and urinating in common areas (as she/he saw it) decided to take the matter into her own hands by placing a home-made barrier using various items across the access point and attached a sign saying NO CATS ALLOWED!

The photo comes from the Stomper website hence the embossed wording.

Singapore resident blocks of access to apartments with sign "NO CATS ALLOWED!". Source: Stomper.

He or she had to take the barricade down because it's obviously against the terms of the lease. She was asked to take it down by the authorities and she complied. The authorities say that they routinely clean common parts on a daily basis to 'remove any urination and defecation found in common areas' to use their words.

It is a snippet of Singapore life where they do have community cats which are either liked or loathed it seems to me. They do seem to polarise people as they do in the West. The answer to them is the same answer that you apply to any country and any place: education, to ensure that all domestic cats are spayed and neutered and properly cared for. That they are not abandoned at any time or under any circumstances and that proper TNR programs are managed throughout Singapore supported by the state. That would be my solution. I understand this person's frustration but it appears to have been more a statement rather than a functional effort to stop cats coming into the common areas of this block of flats.

It's always the smell that exposes homes where there are too many cats

Pretty well every time that a person is exposed for having too many cats it is because a foul odour emanates from their home and a neighbour picks it up and complains to the authorities. It's about the person who owns a lot of cats being unable to manage. And the smell is of urine and perhaps faeces. It is an ammonia smell (urine). Which means that some of the cats are urinating inappropriately and perhaps defecating inappropriately as well. Or, it means that the person in charge is not cleaning out the litter trays properly. Both of these things are happening simultaneously. For the cats they are urinating appropriately by the way. Let's get that straight.

What it looks like in a home with too many cats. Chaos and massive smells. Singapore cat hoarder seeks help. Photo: Instagram page of the rescue who is helping her: Cats of Anchor Vale.

It is likely to be the former because if you have 20 cats in a home there are going to be stresses between the cats leading to inappropriate elimination. It will also potentially lead to spraying to mark territory which still happens even when cats are sterilised. When cats are boxed together like this in a very small space, they cannot enjoy the normal amount of space that domestic cats require which in my estimation is going to be a number of acres. 

Of course, domestic cats are adaptable and they can get used to living with much smaller territories (home ranges as they are called) but instinctively, given the freedom to enjoy a natural home range it would be much larger than can be provided inside a home with many other cats. This results in stresses among some cats.

The foul smell that emanates from these homes which is picked up by neighbours is waste product produced by the cats lying around the home which the person is unable to cope with. It is a carelessness in adopting too many cats combined with that same carelessness in being unable to manage the cats to the point where there is no smell in the home. Can you imagine that? I home in which there are 15 cats, let's say, and no smell. Is it possible to achieve that? It is and it has been achieved.

On December 23, 2019 I wrote about a man who has 15 cats and 22 litter boxes. His home smells perfectly! His name is Peter Cohen and he lives in a beautiful Californian home.

If you read the article, the first point that you will notice right away is that he has 22 litter boxes and 15 cats. This is in line with Jackson Galaxy's advice that there should be more litter boxes than cats. And Cohen puts litter boxes in closets i.e. an enclosed space and critically, because he is a builder and knows how to do this, he creates a negative air pressure inside the litter box closets by running a ventilation fan around the clock which sucks the air from the spaces to the exterior.

Finally, I presume that the air sucked out is pushed up through the roof because there'd be no point in pushing smelly air left and right of the house into neighbour's properties.

So, that's how you do it. And, you know what, the sort of systems that Mr Cohen has set up are going to prove impossible for the typical owner of many cats. Therefore, I have to conclude that if you have 15 or 20 cats living full-time inside a typical home it's going to be impossible to keep the smell down unless you have a huge amount of energy, time, commitment, and intelligence and building skills. If I'm correct in that assessment, it tells us that there must be an upper limit in the number of cats that a person can reasonably manage when they are confined to the home.

And here is the clincher: they have to be confined to the home. If they are allowed to wander around outside of the home the neighbours will complain anyway. Cat hoarders always confine their cats to the home. And they don't bother to build an enclosure in the garden because I guess that would also expose their activities to neighbours. They try and keep things secret, away from the prying eyes of neighbours. This of course exacerbates the problem making it impossible to stop massive odours building up.

And they have to open the window sometimes and in doing this the odour escapes. Because the odour is so pungent even small amounts of this air gets into neighbours' properties. It just depends how tolerant the neighbours are as to whether they complain or accept it.

I am therefore drawn to the only sensible conclusion which is that local authorities must have bylaws restricting the number of cats that a person can own to around five. This, I think, is a reasonable number which is manageable. And this rule will apply to any country anywhere. Although most of the news about cat hoarding comes from America it does not mean that cat orders only live in America, it happens anywhere. It's just that most cat news comes from America because they love their cats which, by the way, makes it very strange that they declaw them, an act which is totally against love between species.