Cats inherit prey killing skills but they are refined with learning (infographic)

Image in the public domain.

You might, in an idle moment, ask yourself if domestic cats inherit their ability to kill prey or whether they learn the skill from their mother. Fair question and the answer can been seen in the infographic below which I prepared based on my own knowledge refined with information from Dr Desmond Morris who I believe is still the world's best cat behaviour. He was the first to apply his considerable skills to writing a book - a bestseller the world over - 'Catwatching' about cat behaviour. He explains cat behavior so elegantly and logically. All subsequent books on cat behaviour follow his.

Is actually killing prey a learned behavior for cats? by Michael Broad

The domestic cat is a killing machine. Their anatomy has evolved over eons to be hight tuned up for killing prey animals. Hunting is the raison d'etre of cats. As kittens when they play they are practicing their hunting skills. All play for cats is based on hunting and killing.

I have argued that the inherited hunting prowess of the domestic cat stands in the way for many people of a good relationship. Think of their claws for instance. Some people hate them and ask their vet to remove them. A cruel act as far as I am concerned because claws are an important and integral part of the sophisticated anatomy of the cat. Without them their behaviour is affected and many declaw ops are botched horribly.

Cats are very quick. Their reflexes are faster than those of snakes. They can avoid being bitten by a snake as they can back of extremely rapidly in reaction to a lunge by a snake. Just one more example of the super-refinement of the domestic cat making them a wonderful hunter.

If the domestic cat was not such a refined hunter they would be better pets! We love the cat but we put up with their constant desire to hunt and the refined skills that accompany it.

The desire to hunt can be squashed out of a cat by keeping them indoors full-time long enough. They give up trying to express their natural desires and curl up and go to sleep. For me, this is a failure in our relationship. It is unfair. Humans fight for their basic rights. Yet millions of humans deny their cat some basic rights.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Kitten copies his rabbit companion and hops

This is a classic case of a kitten learning by observation. It just so happens that his owner has a pet rabbit as well inside the home and therefore we see the kitten hopping in following their rabbit companion. That's my take on what I see in this video. It is charming and it is cute. I don't think that it will become a habit that lasts throughout the adult life of this kitten. It's just a temporary state of affairs because of the kitten's observation of what he or she sees at that moment. 

When your cat thinks he is a rabbit too. Screenshot.

RELATED: Kitten Learns by Observing his Mother

It's a reflection of how kittens learn from their mother. They learn to eat prey animals and then to hunt prey animals from their mother. It's their journey to becoming independent at which point they leave their natal range and find their own home range if they are living in the wild and not in someone's home. I am referring to true wild cats and the ancestor of the domestic cat.

RELATED: Kitten raised on a military base learned to march.

You have probably seen domestic cats opening fridge doors, opening doors, even opening windows and other human activities which they've picked up through observation of their human caregiver. I've even seen a young cat watching boxing on television. The kitten started to box while sitting on his hind legs. It was an exact copy of what they saw on telly! Cats can copy complex human movements.

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.

Son and daughter kittens copy their mom when grooming

 

Pretty clear that the kids are copying the parent. And kittens learn a lot this way: observational learning. It's cute when they are in sync like this. It is another example of synchrony or synchronicity. 

Is it true that cats only meow at humans?

I am referring to domestic and feral cats. It is not 100% true that cats only meow at humans but you will find that feral cats do not meow at each other very often. This is because the meow is a learned request by the domestic cat living in the human home for something such as food or interaction.  It's been learned over thousands of years. That's what the experts say. It is quite rare for the average person to mingle with feral cats in a colony to check this advice. But it makes sense.

Feral cat colony. All shorthairs. Photo: in public domain.

In fact the domestic cat has refined the meow sometimes so that it sounds a little bit like a baby crying. Some cats have learned that this slightly modified meow is more effective in getting their way.

Long-haired feral cats?

As an aside, you will also rarely see long-haired feral cats. Why is this? It must depend upon how long-standing the colony is. You will get new cats coming into a colony and some of them may be strays having been abandoned and these cats may have long hair. But if feral cats have had time to evolve their family over several generations, within a colony, it is argued they will normally be shorthaired cats because shorthair is more effective when living in the wild.

This, though, must only apply to countries where the climate allows it. Arguably, in very cold climates you should see long-haired feral cats. Perhaps the argument about feral cats normally being shorthaired relates to most parts of the USA, particular the south, where the climate is amenable to a shorthaired coat which requires less maintenance by the cat to keep it in good condition.

Excessively long hair, we know, is beyond the means of a domestic cat to maintain themselves. This is why owners of Persian cats have to support their cat by grooming him or her. This is an anomaly and it would never have happened under normal evolutionary pressure.