Infographic explains the basic differences between cat and human sleep

This is a cross-post as I think it is a quite important topic for cat caregivers.

Comparing cat and human sleep quality. Infographic. by Michael Broad

-----------

I did this because there are lots of articles on the internet telling us that cats sleep 18 hours a day or more. Not true really. They nap for a lot of the time but this is not really sleeping. I hope this infographic straightens out some misleading thoughts. 

You can read a little more on this by clicking on this link.

-----------

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. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

Do cats actually use cat beds?

Yes, cats do use cat beds but it depends on several factors whether they will or not and when it happens. And the idea of a 'bed' is very fluid for a cat. It might be a bed like you see in the photo or it might be under a bush in the backyard or on a dinning room chair which is pushed under the dinning table (a roof over the head). It might be a vase containing a pot plant. I've seen that before.

Often it might take a long time before they use a new bed. A cat product that you thought would be very welcome and used all the time as it was expensive might be resoundly rejected.

The clamshell type bed referred to in the article. Image: Quora.com.

You might know that the problem with cats and cat products is that people buy the product because often they are designed to be attractive to people but cats have a different perspective on human made products and what is attractive 😉👍.

They don't think of beds or any other commercial item as being good because it's expensive or because it is of high quality. Domestic cats are not concerned about quality and expense. They just take a fancy to something and an old cardboard box might be as popular as the most expensive cat bed you ever saw.

That said, sometimes they come around to using the new product. Or they may use it for a while and then move on to another one and have a kind a rota system where they will use different locations in different beds over the month or year.

They might have a preference after a while and stick to that reference and then occasionally move out from it and try something else and then move back to their favourite place.

In this instance, concerning the photograph on this page, a quorum.com user asked whether cats actually use cat beds because she got him a bed and would not use it. No surprise there for me.

It is the bed you see in the photograph. A kind of clamshell. Very plush and soft she said. And she learnt that cats do come around to using these products sometimes. There's no guarantee though.

In this case he ignored it for two weeks and then when she came home from work his toy was gone and later that night he slept in it (with his toy). He then regularly used the bed.

Each cat has their own preferences and you can't really decide beforehand exactly what your cat might like. You might think you can but I don't think you can predict the outcome. That's why I sometimes believe it is foolhardy to buy nice products for your cat. Sometimes they simply go to waste.

My failure - I should know 😊

I have a beautiful bed for my cat. It was manufactured in The Netherlands and shipped over. It cost me about £200 and it's a nice piece of furniture. He used it once, perhaps twice but has not used it again and it's been in my house for nine months now. It was a waste of money (perhaps) and is now a decorative item!

The £200 bed my cat rejected. He used it once and not since. I hope he tries it again.

He might use it one day. I'm not sure why you didn't like it. Perhaps it's just the way he felt and there's no knowing. It may have been because the product is made of wood and it had been polished. The smell of the polish had not subsided enough before they shipped it. It may have been about the smell which put him off.

He preferred an old cardboard box from Amazon which is not untypical of domestic cats. He now sleeps in the utility room on a shelf which is well protected and warm and cosy and not far from the boiler.

I guess, if you wanted your cat to use a bed you should put it near the boiler. 💕🤔 Warmth is a massive factor. But this clamshell-type bedding you see in the photograph looks incredibly warm so I would see it as being successful normally.

-------------------

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.

What do domestic cats dream about? My thoughts.

What do domestic cats dream about? 

Past experiences and emotions reprocessed in the rarefied and distorted environment of a dream in order to mentally process them to help make them emotionally acceptable. - My thoughts.

You can tackle the question in the title in two ways: you can rely on your personal experience in observing your cat and how they behave when they are dreaming or you can rely on research which in the USA would suggest that cats may dream about things that have happened during the day or in the distant or recent past which is similar to the way dogs and humans dream.

We are going to have to guess and that's exactly what Dr Desmond Morris has suggested. It's a question that he can't answer and neither can anybody else with certainty but I think we can rely on our personal, human experiences and the dreams that we can recollect and what they mean.

I have suggested that a lot of the dreams we have are a means to divest ourselves of anxieties. A lot of my dreams are about becoming anxious in trying to do something that can't be done such as catch a train at a station which is impossible to get at or hitting a golf ball which is impossible to hit or take an exam which I am bound to fail. These are expressions of frustration in trying to get things done and the anxiety that they produce.

Indoor/outdoor cat

In dreaming about them I believe that we can divest ourselves of these anxieties and renew the brain for the next day's fight.

I know that my cat dreams and has nightmares sometimes or a feline's version of nightmares. He might suddenly wake up with a start and he might vocalise his difficult experiences during his nightmare. I can only guess that he has encountered a fox or had some other very bad experience in his dream which has woken him up.

But his dream will be based on his day-to-day experiences, possibly a particular bad one that occurred outside in which he now dreams about. It may have happened a long time ago or recently.

Indoor cat

I don't think you can expect a full-time indoor cat to have the same kind of dreams experienced by an indoor/outdoor cat.

In fact, I would suggest that a full-time indoor cat is rarely if ever going to have nightmares unless they are being bullied in a multi-cat home. And I would suggest that their dreams are going to be less difficult and painful or distressing particularly if they are well looked after in a pleasant home by a nice and considerate caregiver.

If it's true that a person or cat processes their anxieties in their dreams, I would expect very few dreams to be recalled by domestic cats that live a cosseted and pleasant indoor lifestyle. 

They have nothing nasty to process. They should have no anxieties because all their needs are met. They have security, warmth and food and a loving caregiver. There is no room therefore for anxiety. Perhaps they just dream about nice things. Every dream is a pleasant experience.

Dreaming experiences

But the bottom line is that either people or cats dream the things they've experienced but in a dreamlike way which is distorted but ultimately, in my case, these negative dreams boil down to a feeling of anxiety and my brain's desire to process them to make them more acceptable. 

The image is by Bing Co-pilot using DALL E 3.

--------------

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.

The domestic cat is NOT weird as stupid newspaper journalists claim

Online newspaper journalists have a tendency to claim that the domestic cat is "weird". It just plain stupid. Domestic cats behave as they instinctively have evolved to behave. They behave differently to humans and from a cat's perspective, no doubt humans behave weirdly. 

In fact human behaviour is far more weird than cat behaviour. Look at what humans are doing to the planet at the moment? They are destroying the planet upon which they rely for sustenance and for all their needs. If that isn't weird I don't know what is.

But a website called Your Tango says that cats are weird and they list 15 facts to prove it. So what are these facts? I will touch on a few of them to illustrate my argument.

Perspiration

The first one they list is that "cats sweat through their paws". What is weird about that?! That's perfectly normal. Cats can't sweat through their bodies because they have a coat which is highly functional. And they keep their coat clean all by themselves without having to go into the shower! Far more practical than human behaviour. 

Also when they groom themselves it helps to cool them through the same scientific process which makes sweating effective: the latent heat of evaporation.

Tasting sweetness

And they add that "cats can't taste anything sweet". So what? Cats are obligate carnivores. They've evolved to eat meat. They don't need to be able to taste sweetness. 

Look, if humans couldn't take anything sweet just like cats there would be much less human obesity. Around 40% of Americans are obese. It is a similar percentage UK residents. This obesity is nearly always caused by overeating and eating the wrong foods including foods high in carbohydrate i.e. sugars. Sugars and salt are addictive to humans.

Ironically, the only reason why domestic cats can be obese (and there are too many obese domestic cats thanks to poor human caregiving) is because of the high carbohydrate content in the unnatural dry cat food that they are given so often. Humans have passed on their obesity to the domestic cat.

Grooming exaggeration

Then Your Tango begins to get things wrong. They add that "cats spend up to half their lives grooming themselves". Wrong! Completely wrong! Cats are fastidious groomers but they don't spend half their lives grooming themselves.

Sleeping exaggeration

And they say that cats spend 70% of their lives sleeping. This is incorrect as well because cats, particularly full-time indoor cats, spend a lot of their time perhaps even more than 70% sometimes of their lives not sleeping but snoozing. That's because they've nothing to do thanks to full-time indoor living and a sterile environment. They are not sleeping in the proper sense. We know this because they leap into action at the slightest activity near them.

DNA

The journalist also adds that domestic cats shed 95.6% of their DNA with tigers. That's probably correct and there is also nothing weird about it at all. It's what you would expect because thanks to millions of years of evolution both the tiger and the domestic cat stem from the same ancient cat-like animal. 

Their evolutionary paths split millions of years ago but their ancient origins are the same. Nothing strange about that. It is all nature, evolution and scientific.

I won't bother to go on because I'm wasting my time. I've made my point. Online journalists need to be more careful and stop using click bait words and tactics. I've seen too much of it; too much stupidity and carelessness.

------------

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.

The reason why domestic cats curl up in a ball when sleeping

Domestic cats don't always do it but they often curl up into a ball when sleeping. There are two basic reasons why they do this.

Safety: when they curl up into a ball, if they are a tabby cat - and the tabby cat coat is the original camouflaged coat - they look like a snake. Snakes are known within the animal kingdom to be dangerous. So curling up into a ball protects the cat. Also it provides good camouflage against their surroundings.

Let's remember that all domestic cats back in the day, thousand years ago, were tabby cats. So curling up to look like a snake was effective in those days and that trait has carried through to today even though many domestic cat are not tabby cats.

Heat retention: there are two elements to this. When a cat curled up into a ball the surface area of the cat compared to their volume becomes more favourable in terms of retaining heat. This is based on the principle that bigger animals can retain heat better than smaller animals because the surface area of bigger animals compared to their body mass or volume is lower than for small animals and therefore there is less opportunity for heat to be lost into the atmosphere. This is a well known physical property.

And secondly, when the cat is curled up two surfaces are pressed together and therefore rather than body heat being lost into the atmosphere the heat passes from one surface to the other and warms up the cat.

RELATED: Picture confirms neighbourhood cats crave warmth.

Conservation of energy: cats sleep for long periods. Adopting a curled up position is helpful in the conservation of energy through minimising muscle usage.

Instinctive behaviour: this is all instinctive behaviour from their wild ancestors.

Spread out: Sometimes they spread out and this will normally happen when the ambient temperature is high and they want to cool off. Alternatively, sometimes when they are on their human caregiver's lap they might spread out because it means the heat from the person's lap has more opportunity to pass upwards into the cat. Once again, it's a way of maximising warmth.

Inherited: This desire to be warm is inherited from the domestic cat's wild cat ancestor which lived and still lives in North Africa and Asia. But in North Africa the temperature is high and the domestic cat has retained the need to live in a high temperature environment. And where they can't they have evolved very dense longhaired coats such as for the Siberian cat. Two other examples are the Norwegian Forest Cat and the Maine Coon to a lesser extent because these coast of America is not quite as cold as Siberia!

RELATED: Awesome Real Siberian Cats in Siberia.

In conclusion, the reason why domestic cat curl up into a ball when sleeping is to retain heat and to maintain security.

-------------

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.

Duvet cover tells cat where to sleep

Duvet cover tells cat where to sleep. Shame they can't read English. Image: FB.

I like this duvet cover. Cool idea and it looks good. Shame cats can't read English. The duvet does tell a big story of cat intrusions on the bed. They do tend to hog it and sometimes interfere with sleep. You could write a book about cats in the bedroom.

There is the ever-present question of whether to let your cat come into the bedroom at night or whether you keep them out of the bedroom at night. A lot of people keep their cat out of the bedroom at night but I think it is a bad idea. So does Jackson Galaxy the American cat behaviourist. The bedroom is a great place for a cat but, I admit, it isn't so great for the person using the bed at night.

But cats just love to be with their owner on the bed at night. You are going to tell me now that your cat doesn't like to sleep on your bed with you which is fair enough but most cats do like to do it.

And then you've got a hold another chapter to write in this book about how cats wake their owners up at four in the morning because they want their breakfast. That's about domestic cats being crepuscular. Everybody knows that now. I think when you have a domestic cat you can expect to have your sleep broken sometimes at least. But it's a great trade-off. It's worth it. All cat owners would more or less say that.

You know what Jackson says is the best compromise about allowing your cat into the bedroom? It's to make a little bed for your cat in the corner of the room and that bed contains smelly items from you and your cat so they feel very comfortable sleeping on it. Because cats are attracted to the bedroom by the smell as in the words of Jackson, the bedroom has a "scent soaker". He means that it is soaked in the body odour of their owner. Yes, it doesn't sound great to humans but it is wonderful to cats.

One cat needs 4 covered beds in different places as they like to rotate them

This is a really quick note. I was prompted to write it because I was looking for my cat this morning. He had been out and active all night. This is usual for him. He goes to bed at about 11 AM and stays there until the mid or late afternoon. And he likes to rotate the places where he sleeps, which is why it can be tricky to find him sometimes. 

My experience tells me that four different hiding places that are covered and in different locations around the home is about ideal. What are your ideals?

And he particularly likes places in which to sleep that are covered. In fact, he almost insists upon it. The reason is obvious: he feels more secure. Even better for him is when there are four walls and a roof with an entry point in one of the walls as you can see in the photograph.

Domestic cat's sleeping place is covered and enclosed for a sense of security. Image: MikeB

Note about the picture above. You see that well-worn scratching post? That's good as it is infused with his scent due to long usage which will encourage him to continue to use it and avoid the couch or armchair!

It's all about feeling secure and secondly, it's all about having options for a domestic cat to choose from because they like variation. They like variety. They can get bored like people. And they are particularly prone to boredom when they are cosseted and provided for all their lives as they are when living in good homes. 

They can often lack challenges. Domestic cats actually need challenges. They need them to be mentally stimulated.

Domestic cat's sleeping place is covered and enclosed for a sense of security. This is an expensive one at £200! Too expensive but pretty. Image: MikeB

And it's ideal if those little hiding places are off the ground and it doesn't matter if they are high off the ground. It might even be better for some cats. Although of course for older cats they need to be easy to get into because they might suffer from arthritis which makes it very difficult due to pain to climb and jump.

That is the point of the article. Try and provide a variety of little protective hiding places around the home where your cat can sleep. And there might be one or two outside the home if you live in a part of the world where the climate is very amenable for a cat who wants to sleep outside at night. 

Sometimes it's cooler for a cat to sleep outside at night and therefore a similar-type enclosed "bedroom" could be constructed outside as well.

Sleepy cat emerges from claw machine

BRAZIL: Cats will sleep anywhere. Sometimes in the most peculiar places which look uncomfortable to us. This ginger tabby appears to have made this game arcade his home and in doing so found it very comfortable to snooze on the plush toys inside this claw grabbing game. When the participants grabbed hold of a plush toy, the toy didn't emerge out of the exit but the ginger tabby cat did! He must have been disturbed by the claw grab moving around. It must've irritated him and he decided to find a quieter spot.

No, this is not about declawing. You might have thought that which is why I pitched the title as I did. I needed to get some hits! Sorry but the internet is massively competitive, almost impossibly so.

I caught him sleeping like this in his cat tree

Nothing unusual about the way that this cat is sleeping, on his back completely zonked out. However, what is unusual is the photograph as a whole because he's sleeping half in and half out of his little den towards the top of his cat tree. It makes for a really nice cat photograph which is by Twitter user Michael's Cat. I decided to make the image circular. I think it looks better as it focuses on this sweet cat.

Pop song, Epik High (에픽하이) - Rosario from S. Korea puts cats to sleep!

Rosario. Screenshot.

Well, according to one tweet this Korean pop song puts cats to sleep. She tweets:

So I’m genuinely surprised @blobyblo I’ve seen so many people use lullaby for a cat but i just experienced it 1st hand. It’s 3:33am here and our kitten got the zoomies. He would not chill so I played the song I kid you not 1 min in and he passed out on my slippers.

 This is the song:

I can hear nothing in the song that is likely to put cats to sleep. The beginning is reminiscent of cat music but the remainder is human pop song stuff so I am not convinced that this song a feline sleep-inducer as stated. The video caption is: Epik High (에픽하이) - Rosario ft. CL, ZICO Official MV. See some articles featuring the search term 'cat music'.

Domestic cats are polyphasic sleepers

It is important for cat owners to be aware of the fact that domestic cats are polyphasic sleepers This is a cross post because it is an interesting topic in my opinion (read the other article by clicking here). You don't see this topic discussed very often. Polyphasic sleep means sleeping many times during the day as the prefix 'poly' means many and 'phasic' means phase. 

There are two other types of sleep namely monophasic and biphasic. People are generally monophasic sleepers which means they sleep at night and work during the day. It's a convention but a lot of people are biphasic and retired people are often polyphasic, napping throughout the day combined with broken sleep at night.

 Domestic cats are polyphasic sleepers. Photo: Pixabay.

Boris Johnson is a good example of a person who has a biphasic sleep pattern because he uses a power nap in the afternoon to energise himself for the remainder of the day.

Polyphasic sleep for domestic cats fits in with their lifestyle. Innately they hunt during the day and night. Although they tend to focus on crepuscular activity which as you probably know is activity at dawn and dusk because their prey animals are more available at these times. Another reason for a domestic cat's polyphasic sleep pattern is because they have to fit in with the human lifestyle.

The human's biphasic sleep pattern because of their circadian rhythms is in friction with the domestic cat's lifestyle which is more fluid. The domestic cat is motivated in terms of activity to hunt. That is the raison d'être of their life and it requires fluidity. They need to hunt whenever they can because they are opportunistic hunters. The end result is a fluid lifestyle and a fluid sleep pattern which means that they are polyphasic sleepers.

The sleep pattern of domestic cats depends somewhat (at least) on whether they are full-time indoor cats or indoor/outdoor cats. The full-time indoor cat is likely to be the sort of cat who will sleep more often. This is not true sleep but napping and snoozing to kill time. The indoor/outdoor cat can behave more naturally in that they can hunt which means they're likely to rest and snooze less but they are still polyphasic sleepers.

An interesting point worth making is that because domestic cats are polyphasic sleepers they give the impression to people that they sleep a lot more than they do. There must be a million articles on the Internet about domestic cats sleeping for inordinate lengths of time, up to about 18 hours or more a day. I'm going to say that these are misleading articles, everyone of them.

Domestic cats are polyphasic sleepers. Image: PoC.

Domestic cats are not actually sleeping during these phases. They are snoozing and resting. Based upon careful observations of my domestic cat, I can confidently state that when he is apparently sleeping he is only in genuine sleep, including REM sleep, for about 25% to 30% of the time. The rest of the time he looks like he is sleeping but he's alert and ready to get up and do things. I know this because at the slightest sound he gets up. And his ears are constantly mobile.

There is a misconception which is sadly disseminated and constantly reinforced on the Internet that cats sleep far more than people. I'm going to argue that domestic cats do not genuinely sleep more than people. If you add up the many phases of their sleep - and it may be 4 or 5 or 6 times in a day - you will find that they genuinely sleep for about 8 hours or maybe even less. This is a similar amount of time to people.

It is arguable, in fact, that domestic cats genuinely sleep less time than people.

Be Honest: Your Cats Keep You Awake at Night!

Are you getting enough sleep or are you being kept awake by your cat?  Doctors at the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota state that pets may inhibit our sleep.  They state that having a pet next to you can keep you awake at night.  I agree with that completely but I still let my cat sleep next to me at night although sometimes I politely ask him to give me a little bit more space!

Apparently the scientists at the Mayo Clinic discovered that snoring, whimpering dogs and wandering kittens are the main reasons for keeping us awake.  Well I can add to that.  My cat keeps me awake because he lies next to me and he's hot, he's dammed hot and he is very static.  He's a hot water bottle that you can't get rid of and I can't turn and adjust my position.  This is what keeps me awake.

The research also concluded that there has been a small rise of 1% since 2002 from pet owners complaining about being kept awake by their pet.

Many people probably sleep even better with their cat or dog beside them.  If they read this article they would find it hard to believe but some people have different experiences.  It must depend upon the individuals, both companion animal and person.

The Mayo Clinic was researching sleep problems and they concluded that about 10% of pet owners in 2013 blamed, at least in part, their companion animals.

Another problem would be that some pets act as alarm clocks.  That must be a reference to the domestic cat because the domestic cat is crepuscular waking up early at dawn demanding food probably as that is the time they would normally go hunting for prey.

Multi-cat households must have a greater potential impact on a person's sleep. There may be an increase in multi-cat households hence the small rise in complaints.

Why does a cat sleep so much?

The domestic cat sleeps no longer than a teenage person, in my opinion. In other words, the domestic cat sleeps for a total of about 8 hours daily, perhaps a little more and the rest of the time the cat is snoozing and resting. You only have to look at the cat's ears while they are “sleeping" to realise that they are not actually sleeping. The slightest noise or disturbance and the ears of a cat prick up immediately and the cat awakens almost instantly. No one can tell me that a cat is genuinely asleep under those circumstances.

F1 Savannah cats snoozing. Photo copyright A1 Savannahs

I believe that there is a lot of incorrect information on the Internet with one author copying from another ad infinitum and eventually creating fact out of fiction.

As far as I'm aware, there has only been one definitive assessment as to how long a cat sleeps and that was with respect to the lion and the lion slept for about 9 hours daily on average. There is a lot of discussion on the Internet about how long the lion sleeps, as well, and that discussion is misleading because you will see times as long as 19 hours and people claiming that the lion sleeps the longest of all the world's cats. I don't believe it. It is more or less Internet chatter.

The conventional viewpoint is that the domestic cat sleeps for around 14 or 15 hours per day. As I mentioned, the domestic cat will only sleep a total of about 8 hours per day and this is made up of small sessions of sleep. It is not continuous as is the case for people.

Some domestic cats, particularly full-time indoor cats, will spend a lot more than 15 hours a day apparently sleeping when in fact they are simply killing time by resting because often there is little to do and the owner of the cat is probably too busy and preoccupied with other things to provide entertainment and stimulation.

I have written a page about this topic which expands on what I have written here.

Does Your Cat Sleep In Your Bed?

By Elisa Black-Taylor (USA)

Does your cat sleep in your bed? I've done a little research on the subject and found that female cat owners are much more likely to allow their cat to cozy up in bed with them at night. According to a survey taken by webMD, 62% of cats sleep with their owners and another 13% sleep with children.

Care to join us?

Is it a good idea to allow your cat to sleep with you? That's a whole different story. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) reports that more than half of all pet owners allow their pets to share their bed. Personally, I'm a sucker for a cat meowing at my bedroom door wanting to join me for a little snuggle time. Whether my cats want to share the bed or hide under it for a long nap, I'm not one to deny it.

Unfortunately, the CDC also has a lot of information trying to scare us about out four legged bed buddies. Cats can carry fleas and ticks. They may also carry diseases classified as Zoonoses, which are infections transmitted from animals to humans. This includes MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and meningitis.

Disease isn't the only concern. Those with allergies shouldn't even have a pet in the same room where they sleep. But people who are allergic to their cat and really love their cat are more likely to seek medical help through allergy shots to build up their immunity to their cat rather than to kick the cat out of the bedroom at night (see: Fel D1).

The Mayo Clinic even did a study several years ago showing 53% of those who sleep with their dog or cat have some form of insomnia. Dogs are just as likely to snore as a human, and cats tend to jump all over us as we try to sleep.

Veterinarian technician and feline consultant Ingrid Johnson believes the bed (and bedroom itself) should be all or nothing for a cat. Either the cat is welcome or it's not. Don't allow your cat bedroom access one day and then block it the next. Cat's don't react well when you take away "territory" and may begin displaying destructive behavior.

There's also the relationship status to consider. If you're part of a "couple" then both of you must agree to the cat sleeping arrangements or there's bound to be trouble in the relationship.

Many cat owners claim they can't sleep unless their cat is in the bed beside them. They not only nurture the cat, but also see the cat as a nurturer.

How do the readers here feel about cats and bedroom rights? Does your cat sleep in your bed? Personally, I have to have a cat or two in my bedroom at night. I can't stand the thought of one of my cats outside of my bedroom wanting in and my ignoring it's pitiful cries to join me. A few of my cats like to sleep on top of me. I've had to teach them that's not allowed, as I can't sleep that way.

The CDC and everyone else can keep their advice as far as I'm concerned. My cats are treated for fleas and ticks and hopefully I won't come down with a case of jungle fever or anything else. Anyone else feel the same?

For those of you who don't allow your cat to share the bed (if there's anyone who falls into this category), is your reason related more to insomnia or disease?



Related article at www.pictures-of-cats.org/cat-on-the-bed

Why do cats sleep so much?

Domestic cats sleep a lot. Some wildcats don't sleep a lot. I don't think you can generalize about the length of time that a cat sleeps.

We know that our domestic cats sleep for about 15 hours a day or more. Geriatric cats might sleep or doze all the time except for feeding and eliminating.

However, taking just two examples of the sleeping patterns of wildcats, you will see that not all cats sleep a lot.

Binnie - very old lady sleeping out in the open - Photo: Michael

The sand cat, a pretty and small wildcat species that is the only true desert living cat, starts to hunt before sunset. The cat will hunt all night and sometimes into the early morning. This is a full night's work and more. This cat cannot be said to sleep a lot or at least it sleeps no more than people.

The black-footed cat also hunts all night long and lives in an arid habitat. They are very active and successful as hunters. The black-footed cat will kill prey every 50 minutes. In captivity this cat is less active but will do a lot of walking in the enclosure.

The lower activity levels in captivity seem to give us the clue. Domestic cats are kept in a perpetual state of kittenhood by us, as I have mentioned before. They have it all on a plate. What do you expect? They are bound to sleep a lot. It depends on what the cat has to do to survive. In the wild where prey items are scarce the cat will have to work harder and sleep less.