Assessing cat personalities through owner questionnaires

In my view, it's not possible to gather accurate information about the personalities of different cat breeds by surveying their caregivers. This is due to the subjective nature of owners, who, in my honest opinion, may not possess the objectivity necessary to make a personality assessment meaningful. Moreover, personality assessment itself is inherently imprecise, especially when applied to domestic cats.

Scottish Fold owner filling out questionnaire on the personality of their cat. Image: MikeB

There are two imprecise processes at play: an evaluation by an owner who is biased due to their strong attachment to their cat, and the ambiguous task of assessing personalities, which tends to yield unreliable information. This is the case with the Burns Pet Nutrition survey, as reported by the Daily Mail online.

They say that the Burns Pet Nutrition survey has revealed that the Scottish Fold has been named as the top cat by the British. The survey participants said that they were most intelligent cat breed (75%) and the most affectionate (67%). 

Taylor Swift and other celebs have promoted this cat. That too has had an influence on responses to the questionnaire.

Of course, at this stage I've got to mention the fact that the Scottish shouldn't be a cat breed at all because it is inherently unhealthy due to the genetic mutation which it carries causing the cartilage of the cat to be malformed which results in the flat ears and potentially defective cartilage throughout the body. 

Breeders of the Scottish have to be incredibly careful and they can't breed Scottish Fold with Scottish Fold because if they do the result in offspring are unviable.

This is why there are many "Scottish Straights". These are Scottish Fold cats without the folded ears because half the cats that the breeders produce don't have folded ears because of the above-mentioned breeding requirements. I don't think enough people realise this.

And I don't think enough Scottish Fold owners realise that this is a very contentious cat breed which in Germany would be banned because of their torture breeding laws.

Anyway, to return to this survey. "A whopping 92% of cat owners found them [the Scottish Fold] the easiest to train compared to other breeds."

I find this last point extraordinary. How many people train their cats in the first place? Very few. I think what this means is that Scottish Fold owners found that their cat companion picked up routines and habits through informal training which happens in every cat owning home. I think this is a very subjective finding.

The survey also found that over half of British cat owners rated Ragdolls as the most affectionate ahead of Maine Coons at 46%. And in terms of personality more than 50% of Brits said that Ragdolls had the biggest personalities 46% choosing Maine Coons and 41% preferring Bengals.

There were over 2000 participants who also said that the calico cat is easiest to train with 80% of owners reporting that they responded best to instructions. The calico cat is a tortoiseshell-and-white cat and nearly always female. Once again I think this is a subjective assessment which should not be taken seriously.

Apologies for the negativity, but I am aiming for realism. If you consult scientists conducting thorough surveys on feline behaviour using questionnaires, they will agree that the results are often dubious. It seems to depend on how the questionnaire is drafted and if it allows for crosschecking and weeding out inaccurate responses. There might be some merit to that, but generally, questionnaire surveys of cat owners, such as this one, ought to be regarded with skepticism.

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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.

Reason why pro tennis players grunt but pro golfers do not

The picture was created by an AI bot and it looks like a couple of gay professional sportsmen made of plastic. They appear to be stereotypes. It looks like DALL-E has decided to go particularly woke and politically correct. Fine. I like it.

There was a time when pro tennis players were silent when hitting the ball and they changed ends without sitting down and the time between first and second serves was seconds. Now pro tennis is frenetic when play is in progress but ponderous when not.

Why do professional tennis players grunt/shout when hitting the ball while professional golfers do not?

Professional tennis players often grunt during matches as they strike the ball. This practice has been observed in both men’s and women’s games. Here are some reasons behind tennis players’ grunting (these come from a search of the internet except for item 4 and 5 which are mine):

1. Timing Mechanism: Grunting can serve as a timing mechanism. Players who grunt while hitting the ball tend to time their shots optimally, transferring the right amount of power through the racket.

2. Masking Auditory Information: Anecdotally, players suggest that a well-timed grunt can mask important auditory cues used during ball contact. By focusing on the grunt, players may inadvertently impair their timing. 

3. Release of Tension: Grunting can also act as a release of physical and mental tension, potentially improving a player’s performance.

4. My preferred reason is that when a player grunts at the moment of striking the ball it enables them to fully release all their energy which is why golfers could or should do it when driving the golf ball from the tee. Distance is very important when driving the ball and grunting may improve it.

5. Another reason of mine would be that the shout/grunt stops the mind thinking which frees up all the muscle memory gained over years of practice. The player plays instinctively which is better than allowing the mind to intervene and tighten up the action. Once again this might benefit golfers and I can see some golfers adopting the habit in due course. The only problem is course etiquette. Golf is a silent sport. For a player to start grunting when hitting the ball might be frowned upon by some.

The conventional conclusion: In contrast, currently professional golfers do not typically grunt during their swings. The differences between tennis and golf, such as the nature of the sports, the equipment used, and the rhythm of play, likely contribute to this distinction. While tennis requires explosive movements and quick reactions, golf emphasizes precision and finesse. As a result, tennis players may find grunting beneficial, whereas golfers do not rely on it for their game.

The unconventional conclusion: golfers might start doing it one day. I am sure many golfers talk to themselves while hitting the ball to ensure rhythm. The same kind of thing.

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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.

The public blame influencer for losing her indoor/outdoor Bengal cat to thieves

Olivia and Haukie who was stolen as he was let outside unsupervised. Image: Olivia's Instagram account.

This Aussie, female influencer, now realises that owning a Bengal cat presents a difficult problem of caregiving: should I keep my athletic, energetic and intelligent cat inside the home all the time or let him out through a cat flap?

I have hinted at the problem. The wild cat hybrids like the Bengal, even down to the F5s, are sharp mentally and demanding physically. They need exercise and entertaining.

Can you as an owner create an indoor environment which mentally stimulates a Bengal cat? The answer is that you have to. No choice as you can't let Bengal cats outside free to roam as they please because they are too pretty. 

They are liable to be stolen which is what happened this Aussie influencer whose name is Olivia Mathers.

She let her male Bengal, Haukie go outside unsupervised and he was stolen. She thinks she knows who stole Haukie and she thinks the cat has been sold to a new owner and taken to Brisbane from her home on the Gold Coast, QLD.

As she is an Instagram influencer she used the platform to try and recover Haukie. She told her 760,000 followers what happened. Some were sympathetic while others brutally criticised her for letting Haukie out unsupervised.

This is the problem; she was probably concerned about ensuring Haukie was happy and mentally stimulated so decided to let him out but you can't do it with a Bengal cat particularly with a Bengal cat living in Australia where a substantial percentage of citizens genuinely believe that cats must be confined to the home to protect wild life because they've be told this over and over again by the authorities who are having kittens over losing native mammals and marsupials to the skilled predation of Aussie's overgrown feral cats which have begun to look like another cat species endemic to Australia, the country were there were and are no native cat species.

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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.

Accident or assault? Metal bottle hits Novak Djokovic.

The man leans over the barrier with his left hand offered to Novak. His backpack is wide open and his metal water bottle is in it - at the top. Was this an accident or a very carefully orchestrated surreptitious assault on Novak? Was it an assault made to look like an accident? You decide. Novak has a lot of detractors. He is unpopular with a lot of people.

Being of a suspicious mind and having watched the video several times, I am beginning to believe and allege that this man did it deliberately and that it was not an accident.

• Why the metal bottle and not the usual plastic?
• Why did it fall from the backpack so easily?
• Why wasn't he shocked? Look at his reaction. Passive.

Here is another version:

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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.

NONSENSE citrus peel hack to deter cats from your garden

The hack the news media says deters cats - lemon peel scattered around flower beds. Image: MikeB

I've seen this a lot. News media websites restating what they say is the greatest domestic cat deterrent for your garden and it only costs 30p in the local supermarket. They say that citrus peel i.e. lemon and orange scattered around the flower beds is the best deterrent because cats hate the smell of citrus peel.

Immediately I can think of two things wrong with this suggestion which make it less than wonderful and probably ineffective after an hour if it was effective in the first place.

Lemon peel dries out in the sun quickly, perhaps in about one hour. It will lose a lot (almost all, I'd argue) of its smell after about an hour or so and it will no longer become a deterrent if it was originally. Do we expect the gardener to race around to pick it all up and re-scatter a fresh load every hour on the hour? Nah! 😢😃

Secondly, a person who is concerned about a domestic cat coming into their garden and onto their flowerbeds is going to be someone who is a good and concerned gardener as well. 

They're going to want to protect their flowerbeds because they are beautiful. And because they've put a lot of effort into them. 

It's impractical to suggest that this person, so proud of the appearance of their flowers, will find it acceptable to scatter piles of lemon peel in between the plants. It's going to look ridiculous and unattractive.

The cure is worse than the initial problem and in any case it isn't a cure. After many years of writing articles about domestic cats including deterrents because it's one of those pet topics that the news media bring up from time to time (excuse the pun), I can say that the ultrasonic cat deterrent is probably the best with about a 50% success rate. I don't think you will get much better than that.

Do ultrasonic cat deterrents work?

You will find many other hack deterrent such as coffee grounds. I don't think coffee grounds work very well. There is an ancient cat deterrent which is the plant called Rue. Crushed rue I believe has a reasonable success rate in deterring neighbour's cat coming onto your back yard.

Infographic on herb Rue as a cat repellent

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.