Cat wedding - yes, two cats get married!

The caption to this black-and-white photographic print reads: "Dawn Rodgers officiates at "wedding" of formally attired felines Tigger and Kirby, held by daughters Summer and September". Photograph dated: July 25, 1986. 

It is a non-digital photo. Old-style photo. Some people like to marry their cats. Some people like to marry their cat! I've seen that before :) . But is this an example of humans living their life through their cats?

Domestic cats get married. Photo in public domain.

There is not much to say, is there? It is a bit of fun although I suspect that the participants took it seriously. There is nothing wrong with it if it pleases the people concerned although it is eccentric behaviour. The cats don't know a thing about it. It all goes over their heads in a mysterious blur. I would expect that they were good buddies and the ladies decided that it was a good idea to formalise their relationship. Perhaps they wanted to get married themselves (the humans, I mean!) but sadly had failed and so decided to marry their cats instead. A substitute for the real thing. I am speculating and probably being unkind.

Should feral cats be regarded as wild cats?

Are feral cats wild animals? No, they are not. It is wrong to regard feral cats as wild cats as one journalist has in an article about TNR in New Zealand (which Kiwis nearly always criticise). Feral cats are really domestic cats that have gone feral. It is important to distinguish between feral domestic cats and true wild cats. They are very different animals. Often feral cats are semi-domesticated at which time they are referred to as community cats.

Feral cats of a well-known Mumbai park. Photo: Mid-day.

A young person may become 'feral' if the parenting is neglectful. Essentially the feral cat is a domestic cat but because they've not been socialised and domesticated, they become fearful of people. This gives the impression that they are wild cats. However, there is a distinct difference between the character of feral cats and wild cats. Note: of course, feral cats are born feral too.

THAT SAID, SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT SOME AUSTRALIAN FERAL CATS HAVE EVOLOVED INTO TRUE WILD CATS!

You can domesticate, through socialisation, a feral cat. It may take a short time if you are dealing with a kitten. If you are dealing with an adult cat, it may take several months or even a year. But it can be done. If you try and domesticate a wild cat you never get to the same point that you would with a feral cat. The wild cat retains their wild character because they do not have 10,000 years of domestication behind them.

10,000 of domestication has resulted, in my view, in the domestic cat carrying that domestication in their DNA. It is gene memory. So, when a domestic kitten is born, all it takes is a little bit of socialisation in the first seven weeks of their life for them to become domesticated. You try doing that with a wild kitten, say a bobcat kitten, and you won't get the same result.

The feral cat and the small wildcat are different animals even if they are pets. Sometimes people like to keep exotic pets and this includes servals, caracals, cheetahs et cetera. These true wild cats always retain a different character when semi-domesticated compared to a feral cat that has been domesticated. Essentially, it is wilder. For the wild cats, that harsh, predator personality is not removed by socialisation.

I say "semi-domesticated" because that is how it happens for the wild cat species when they been socialised. But they feral cat can be completely domesticated to behave exactly like a domestic cat.

Common sense ways to protect your cat from sunburn and possible skin cancer

Summary: what you know about protecting yourself from sunburn applies to your cat as well. Use common sense to protect your cat from skin cancer.

Some online articles are saying that they have an expert to tell you how you can protect your cat from sunburn and possible cancer. It's actually all about common sense. You don't really need an expert for this. The world and their dog know that you can get skin cancer if you are consistently sunburned. That's why we have sunscreen and stay in the shade (or most of us do unless you're obsessed with getting a tan). And everything to do with skin cancer applies equally to humans and cats. So, what you know about human sunburn you can apply to cats. That's the end of the discussion theoretically but I'll carry on because there are some slight differences.

Fluff was sunburned and had to have his ear flaps removed due to skin cancer. This cat is a bicolor. The piebald gene causes the coat pattern, mainly white fur with no pigmentation in the hair strands to defend against the sun's UVB light. Photo: Cats Protection.

The difference with cats is that there are only two places, really, where sunburn is a genuine problem and that is the tips of the ears because the hair is very thin over the ear flaps. And white cats are particularly susceptible because there is no pigmentation in the hair strands because of the presence of the dominant white gene. That, by the way, is why some white cats are deaf and have blue eyes or odd-eye color. It's the same gene doing its work. The gene prevents the development of melanin in the iris of the eye causing it to be blue through the refraction of light.

So, you have an ear flap with very little protection in white cats from UVB and UVA. The ultraviolet light in the sun's rays penetrate into the epidermis and dermis of the skin damaging the individual cells of the skin. It damages the DNA of the cells which causes them to produce cancerous cells.

If you want to know a bit more about the science of how cancer develops from sunburn, you can click on this link.

Common sense dictates that the way you protect a cat from this serious health condition is to keep them inside during the hot weather. This may be difficult but I'm told that in America around 7/10 of the cats are indoor cats anyway. That said - and this is not common sense! - most UVB is stopped by the glass in windows and therefore an indoor cat snoozing under the sun behind the glass of window should be okay in terms of getting sunburned ears. But check this point if you wish.

We know that cats like to find little pools of sunlight and the home if they are confined to it. I'm waffling a bit but you simply protect the cat from the sun if you want to protect them from sunburn. Common sense. Sunscreen, as mentioned, is an alternative. You can buy sunscreen for pets online on Amazon but you might wish to consult with your veterinarian before purchasing it.

And if you cannot confine your cat during the hot weather because they insist on going out it'd be wise to provide shady spots in your backyard. Cats will normally find the shady spots but the problem here is that some don't because if they did, they wouldn't get sunburn on their ear flaps, would they?

It is interesting that you can buy an ear wrap for dogs. It's a band which goes over the ears. I am thinking aloud. If a cat could wear something which protected the tips of their ear flaps that would be a winning result. The problem is that cats wouldn't realise the benefits and would simply do their best to get it off. And they'd succeed. They may also have a tendency to wash off sunscreen. I'd watch that.

The bottom line on this topic is that you have to keep your cat indoors if the weather is really harshly hot with bright sunlight throughout the day if you want to guarantee protecting your cat's ears from sunburn. This will certainly apply much more for all-white cats than other coat types.

P.S. At the other end of the spectrum frostbite can also lead to the amputation of ear flaps (and paws). Once again, a cat's ear flaps are particularly vulnerable because there is very little covering of fur.

Prophet Muhammad's love of cats transformed a Muslim cat hater to a cat lover

Qais Hussain's mother had an irrational fear of cats. She suffered from ailurophobia. Her son, Qais Hussain, in complete contrast, is a confirmed ailurophile; a cat lover. He has written a very interesting article for The Guardian. During the coronavirus lockdowns he wanted to adopt a kitten like many other people in the UK. As he lives with his mother it was impossible to introduce a kitten into the household.

Muslims with cat at mosque. Photo in public domain. Not all Muslims are this kind towards cats however.

He believes that her irrational fear of cats may have started when she watched a scary video about a cat in her childhood. She remembers seeing a black cat with green eyes jumping into a man's mouth and suffocating him. He also says that his mother actually hates all animals believing that "Cats are Satan incarnate, who use their cuteness and their adorability to bewitch and do the devil's work."

It seems to me that his mother had also been indoctrinated by many stories of mediaeval Europe when black cats were the familiars of witches and persecuted for hundreds of years. During that black era of humankind's relationship with animals, the black cat was seen as the devil incarnate, which is exactly what his mother believed.

He was desperate to adopt a cat and had the idea of reminding his mother of the stories of the Prophet Muhammad's love of domestic cats. There are many hadiths about how domestic cats and indeed stray cats should be treated by Muslims. Hadiths are believed to be a record of the words, actions of the Prophet Muhammad. They are reports of what Muhammad said and did. And therefore, they carry great weight.

IS DESEXING A CAT HARAM?

Once Qais Hussain's mother had been reminded of hadiths it flicked a switch in her brain it seems to me. She fully accepted cats and embraced their company. Her change in attitude allowed him to adopt a kitten who she adores. They named him Milo and she treats Milo as her fifth child.

IS IT HARAM TO SELL CATS?

Initially she was fearful and unsure around him but gradually got to know him. One day Qais returned from college to see Milo sitting on her lap while she watched TV. She now looks after him and in his words "she runs down the stairs to kiss him in the morning."

It's a good story. I'm not sure why his mother didn't already know the stories of the Prophet Muhammad and his love of cats but that's neither here nor there. She now loves them which is the right attitude!

I just hope that now she can learn to love other animals as well. As a postscript, Qais admits that Muslims treat dogs unfairly. Dogs are treated incredibly unfairly as they are regarded as unclean. Cats are regarded as clean. This is speciesism and I would hope that the senior clerics in the Muslim faith clear up this false anomaly.

Harmless objects might NOT seem harmless to a domestic cat

There is a popular video on YouTube and on the website Rumble with the title "Cat remarkably startled by harmless object."

But if you know a little bit about domestic cats, you have to come to the conclusion that the title is plain wrong. The person who wrote the title doesn't know domestic cat behaviour. This is one of those classic cucumber-and-cat videos. It's quite a good example although a bit dingy because the lighting is so bad.

 Harmless objects might NOT seem harmless to a domestic cat. Screenshot.

And once again the person who made the video had to scare their cat to make it which I don't like. But putting that moral issue to one side for a second, a cucumber placed behind a cat which the cat then turns and sees does not seem harmless to that cat. The cat does not know what the hell it is! It is a new, unknown object and it might be a threat. In order to play safe they jump out of the way. It's common sense. Note: the cucumber looks as if it could be an animal to a cat. It is a plausible analysis.

Cat remarkably startled by harmless object

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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.

People do this all the time. Many people are fearful of so many things and they avoid them. The Covid pandemic is a good example. People have been avoiding each other for 16 months. Even when they've been double vaccinated, they still go around wearing a mask in the open air or in their car. Animals and humans are alike in this respect; in general fearful of the unknown.

We should not, therefore, be surprised when a cat behaves like this. But people are surprised and amused at the same time period and we should not be amused either. This is neither surprising nor amusing behaviour. It is normal behaviour and an abuse of the domestic cat. But I'm becoming far too serious no doubt for the vast majority of people.

CLICK FOR SOME PAGES ON FUNNY CAT VIDEOS

But people should be aware that all these funny cat videos are at a price. And the price is the emotional welfare of the cats in the videos. A study found that a significant percentage of these cats are stressed and anxious because the person who made the video put their cats through a stressful situation in order to create something funny. And it is funny (strange) why people find frightened cats and cats put into difficult situations as amusing.

I would like to see a slightly higher standard of animal welfare and an attitude which reflects that if that is at all possible, please.