Cats bring back prey because they know they can play with it without being attacked by predators

A form of feline behaviour which all cat owners are aware of and which the experts have spoken of is bringing prey animals back into their caregiver's home where they either eat the mouse if it's dead or they 'play' with it until it dies and then perhaps eat it.

Cat bringing prey home. Image in public domain.

Normal explanation

The normal theory for this form of cat behaviour is that domestic cats are bring their prey back to their natal den within their natal range because they have the mental state of a kitten and they are kept in that state by their human care givers who provide for them completely. They are bringing prey back to their mother in the den as she teaches them how to hunt (and see below - role reveral).

That is my preferred theory. 

New theory

A new theory has been proposed by Celia Haddon in conjunction with Dr. Daniel Mills FRCVS in their book Being Your Cat: What's Really Going on in Your Feline's Mind.

They say that domestic cats bring their prey to their owner's home because they want to play with it without being attacked by a predator. I have thought about this and these are my thoughts if you are interested.

Their suggestion indicates that the domestic cat makes a positive rational decision to bring prey back into the security of their owner's home to avoid predators and where they will have time to be cruel (in the eyes of humans) to the prey animal by playing with it.

Reasoning

Cats don't make rational decisions like that. They make instinctive decisions based on indoctrination. And their answer begs the question as to why domestic cats "play" with prey? The classic answer to that is that cats are not deliberately playing with a mouse to be cruel. 

Because they normally have little opportunity to exercise their natural desires to hunt, they want to extend the hunt by not killing the mouse immediately.

Secondly, they want to play safe by battering the mouse and killing it in a safe way rather than placing their mouth up to it and getting a bite which may harm them.

These are the classic responses to that scenario and I prefer them. The one aspect of Celia Haddon and Dr. Daniel Mills' response which is correct is that domestic cats will go back to the security of their home but this is for a general reason of security and to bring the prey animal back to their owner who is their surrogate mother.

Role reversal

Sometimes domestic cats kill the prey animal in a role reversal. In the wild, the mother teaches her offspring how to kill animals in the den. And in the classic domestic cat-to-human relationship, the cat is the kitten and the human is the mother.

But when an adult cat brings prey back home, they become the mother and the human becomes the kitten. The position in which the domestic cat is placed in the human home can be confusing to them. 

For example, it is automatically confusing for them to be constantly provided for as if they are kittens. They never grow up and have the opportunity to adopt the mentality of an adult cat except when they are allowed outside and suddenly within seconds, they become a wildcat until they return home again where they flick the switch and within about 15 minutes become a tame human companion. 

At that point in time, they are adults as they've just left the wild. When cats are outside, they become adult wildcats. Back inside the home and they adopt the characteristics of a tame kitten.

Like me, Nike, finds the shooting of 2 million wild kangaroos every year for leather products unacceptable

NEWS AND OPINION - USA AND AUSTRALIA: Like me, Nike, find the killing of 2 million kangaroos every year objectionable and they are doing something about it. They've announced that at the end of 2023 they will no longer be using kangaroo leather in any of their products. Note: this is a cross-post as it is very important in animal welfare.

Perhaps the best-known product in which they use kangaroo leather (K-leather) is football boots. The uppers are often made of kangaroo leather because it is flexible, durable and more functional. As I understand it, many professional footballers have kangaroo leather football boots.

The problem is the source of the leather. We are looking at about the shooting of 2 million kangaroos by shooters employed by harvesters and professional marksmen sometimes at night for their meat and leather.

I have a deep sense of unease about this. I think a lot of the shooters don't just do it for the meat and leather i.e. the commercial interest, but because they enjoy shooting animals.

There must be a better and more humane way of stabilising the kangaroo population in Australia. The argument that the shooters and commercial enterprises spout is that if they don't shoot them like this in large numbers they will starve to death if there is a drought. 

But they don't want, it seems to me, to comment on the morality and ethics of their enterprise and whether there is a more humane way of stabilising the population.

Nike is following in the footsteps of other top brands such as their German rival Puma and an Italian brand, Diadora. The luxury fashion houses including Gucci, Prada and Chanel have also stopped using kangaroo leather. As has the British label, Paul Smith.

Victoria Beckham has also spurned kangaroo leather and I'm told by The Sunday Times that her husband, David Beckham, stopped using kangaroo leather football boots (Adidas Predators) while he was the England captain.

In America, California has a statewide ban on kangaroo products. Oregon's legislature is debating a statewide ban. Nike has their headquarters in Oregon by the way.

Let's remember that when they harvest (a highly objectionable word in my opinion when it relates to sentient creatures) kangaroos it means shooting wild kangaroos. They are not farmed and driven to slaughterhouses to be killed as humanely as possible but they're simply shot by marksmen as mentioned. This must result in untold suffering.

It's impossible to envisage kangaroos being shot cleanly every time. Many hundreds of thousands of them must've been shot badly and died of their injuries slowly. This is clearly inhumane. It is clearly objectionable and it surprises me that it has continued for so long.

Apparently, Nike's change of mind has been brought about by a very long campaign by the Centre for a Humane Economy which was supported by celebrities such as Ricky Gervais's and Woody Harelson (see video above).

For me, this is great news. There may be a federal ban in the US one day because there is an attempt to push through the Kangaroo Protection Act which if passed would create a nationwide ban in America for kangaroo products.

Presence of cachavirus in Chinese pet cats

A study (lead scientist: Jun Ji) detected the presence of cachavirus in Chinese pet cats, with a low infection rate of approximately 1.17% in diarrheic cats (cats with diarrhea). The virus was found to co-infect with FPV (Feline parvovirus) in one sample, and there was no statistically significant association between the presence of the virus and diarrheic signs.

Tabby and white street cat in China. Image in public domain.

The study suggests that larger investigations and animal inoculation experiments are needed to determine whether cachavirus may be pathogenic (a pathogen such as a bacterium or a virus causing disease). The phylogenetic trees based on NS1 and VP1 indicate that the cachaviruses from dogs and cats belong to the same branch, suggesting a recent common origin. However, the cachavirus strains detected in Chinese cats were quite different from the fechavirus and more closely related to the virus previously found in dogs in the United States. 

The study only obtained a partial genome sequence, and further studies are required to obtain the complete sequence and confirm the difference. Compared with Cachavirus-1A and Cachavirus-1B, the cachavirus from cats demonstrated changes in amino acid sites, and some mutations changed the tertiary structure modeling of the two major viral proteins as predicted. 

Further studies are needed to investigate whether these changes lead to changes in the virus's function and pathogenesis. In conclusion, the study identified a novel parvovirus, cachavirus, in Chinese pet cats, which now appears to infect both dogs and cats. The findings of this study enhance our understanding of the tropism of different members of the Carnivore Chaphamaparvovirus 1 species.

Canine Cachavirus was novel parvovirus species has been firstly identified in dogs in USA.

The study referred to: Genetic Analysis of Cachavirus-Related Parvoviruses Detected in Pet Cats: The First Report From China. Link: https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2020.580836

Dogs

A similar study concerning the same virus in dogs was published 3 days before this one. It is called: Molecular characterization of Cachavirus firstly detected in dogs in China. 

The highlights are:

• This study firstly reported the presence of Cachavirus in pet dogs in China.
• A low rate of Cachavirus positivity (1.23%) was found only in dogs with diarrhea symptoms.
• Most mutations were found in NS1 of Chinese Cachavirus strains compared with the two strains from the United States.

Note: Google does not help me in providing details of this virus. Nonetheless I feel that the study is useful.

Toxoplasma gondii infections in Chinese and ethnic minority races in China mainly caused by eating raw meats

The people who dislike cats say that cat owners and other people get toxoplasma gondii infections from cats through cat faeces as the feces can contain oocysts for a short period. And there's lots of discussion on the Internet about this and whether a pregnant woman should have a domestic cat companion. Toxoplasmosis is a zoonotic disease.

But the experts, and I would include myself in that, say that the major way people contract toxoplasma gondii infections is through their handling of and their eating of certain foods. I'm referring to undercooked or uncooked foods and handling raw foods and then using their hands to eat cooked foods. This creates cross contamination.

And in this vein, I've picked up a study on the Internet about Toxoplasma gondii infections in humans in China dated 2011.

The study is interesting because in certain parts of China they have very specific eating habits. Sometimes these eating habits exacerbate the likelihood of contracting toxoplasmosis.

The first human case of toxoplasmosis in China was reported in 1964 and there were many human cases reported in China after an epidemic survey on toxoplasmosis was carried out in Guangxi province in 1978. The difficulty is that it is hard to glean information from Chinese documents because little information is published in English.

Interestingly, and this point needs to be made, based upon the documents surveyed, the prevalence of toxoplasmosis in humans in China is lower than in France for example (50-75% seropositive). A lot lower in fact. Although in the provinces in China the incidences of toxoplasmosis increased from 5.2% in 1988 to 7.9% in 2004.

Guizhou province and Guangxi province had the highest levels of prevalence at 15.1% and 12.7% respectively. The ethic group Miao and the highest incidence of Toxoplasma gondii infections in people at 25.4%.

They state that the eating habits of the ethnic groups surveyed were an important part in being infected. For example, people living in south-west China enjoy eating raw or half-raw meat. Or they eat animal organs as part of their tradition. They might eat sour-meat or pork or beef which is half-raw. The Mongol people like to eat their traditional food using their hands after contact with animals or raw meat (Mongolian Finger Mutton).

The study points to the fact that the greatest risk of being infected with toxoplasma gondii is through eating or handling raw meat. A toxoplasma gondii infection is usually harmless (asymptomatic) but can cause serious illness.

The incidence of Chinese citizens with tuberculosis and hepatitis B of a toxoplasma gondii infection was much higher at 35.3% and 19.2% respectively. Most of the cases were chronic infections. And they state that "70% of individuals infected with T gondii and tuberculosis had the experience of intimate contact with animals."

The study concluded that the oral route of a T. gondii infection is the major route. And pigs in China are often infected. The infection rate in pigs in some parts of China is 53.4% whereas in the USA it is 2.7%. The Chinese like their pork. As I recall, they are the biggest consumers of pork in the world.

The conclusion that one takes from the study is that the greatest risk of being infected with T gondii is through the handling and eating of raw or semi-raw meats due to cultural traditions.

In the West, such as in America, the greatest risk will be through handling raw meat in the kitchen. Veterinarians will tell you that people get the disease from eating raw or undercooked pork, beef, mutton or veal or unpasteurised dairy products which contain toxoplasma organisms.

It is the handling of these products and the consuming of them and the necessary regulations and advice issued by governments concerning these matters that count in terms of reducing infections. 

Educational programs are important to help people change their habit of consuming undercooked meat. Lastly, water that hasn't been boiled in certain districts of China are an issue because oocysts can survive up to 3 years and be transmitted by water through direct drinking.

The study: Zhou, P., Chen, Z., Li, HL. et al. Toxoplasma gondii infection in humans in China. Parasites Vectors 4, 165 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/1756-3305-4-165

Domestic cat suffers huge, rhythmical body twitch and it's very strange (video)

Screenshot marked up.

Well, this is on the Reddit.com website. The cat's owner asks whether his cat should be doing this. NO, is the answer but no one could say what is happening. I have never seen this before. 

Sensibly, he took his cat to the vet who diagnosed a body twitch but it is enormous and rhythmical in time with a heartbeat it looks like to me. But I am wrong it seems. It is a rhythmical muscle spasm. There you go. But don't be surprised if you find out the cat died.

Should my cat’s body be doing this?
by u/TheStockRavager in catcare

It is likely that the video will be removed from Reddit in which case it will stop working here.