« JUST FOR KICKS – FUN STUFF TO KNOW! | Home | FULL GALE DALE (A few election remarks!) »
C.E.O. CAT Chapter 3 Cat history & language – Uncle Fred
By fred | November 13, 2008
For those of you that have cats, the following may be of some interested related to the history or cats on this earth.
These so amazing of God’s creatures can we wonderful companions, especially for a senior person, an elder.
If as a senior, an elder – you feel left behind, the young are so busy, your children have their own lives to live, many of your dearest friends, family, wife, husband are gone, you are alone much of the day. If only part of this is true, go to the nearest shelter and take home a kitty.
That decision you will never regret.
You will have to show your new kitty that you are trustworthy, that you will love your kitty, but once that period is over you will have a friend for life. Yes, kitty may decide that you need to be taken care of and may seem almost like having a boss, yet it will be a loving one.
He or she will make you laugh, will give you love. It is a proven fact that elders when there is a cat in the family will live longer and have far more healthy and productive lifes. Your cat will give you something to live for, you cat is an animal that I think of as almost human – that kitty will care for you – as you care for it!
Chapter Three – Cat history and language.
Cats first appeared over 70 millions of years ago during the time of the dinosaurs, we are talking about some big cats, the saber toothed tiger comes to mind. Smaller cat like animals emerged some 12 million years ago, give or take a year or two.
It is also interesting to note that Australia a huge island area has no native cats, the only logical reason is that it was 180 million years ago when the landmass of Australia broke away from the mainland continent. This is far before the emergence of cats as we know them.
In reading the history of domestic cats it is interesting to note that in one society cats are revered as a object of worship, they are cherished as a protector of the home and loved almost as god’s. In another society they can reviled as a instrument of Satan.
Even today a large amount of superstition persists related to cats. Never let a black cat cross your pass or it will bring bad luck. Don’t laugh I have many friends and family and I including myself that will not take any chances and if the situation allows will cross a street to NOT cross a black cats path. Stupid, yes, however it just goes to show how ingrained some of these old beliefs are.
Even today a large amount of superstition persists related to cats. Never let a black cat cross your pass or it will bring bad luck. Don’t laugh – I had many friends and family, including myself that would not take any chances and if the situation allows will cross a street to NOT cross a black cats path. Stupid, yes, however it just goes to show how ingrained some of these old beliefs are.
Two years ago however, after our last kitty died of old age at the age of 16 we found a all black, part Siamese female that we decided to take home. At the shelter with all those cages stacked one on top of another she had reached through the cage wire with her paws and yelled at us. It was clear she wanted my son Rick and myself to adopt her, wife Sally stayed home as she said it would be just too tramatic, she would want to take all of the cats home. None of the other cats seemed to care if we were there or not. So we adopted her, her name is Nina. I have to say she changed our ideas about all black cats.
Nina has been a wonderful companion, HOWEVER, once the stuff about her getting a new home was over she soon began to consolidate her position. She is now in full control of my wife Sally, my son Rick, and myself. She makes the decisions about when we go to bed, get up in the morning and when there is play time for Nina, when she gets her snacks, breakfast, dinner. In the morning the front shades have to be lifted so she can have a unobstructed view of the neighborhood. If any dogs or cats should step on our property she raises holy hell.
How a cat can be in a cage for months (the shelter folks said they had Nina for almost a half year just because no one would adopt a all black cat) – and after all that time in ‘stir’ – jail, whatever she soon feels comfortable enough to tell us how to run our lives is amazing.
One example is, if I should decide to stay up after 10 P. M. working in my home office she will come in and jump up on my desk and start re arranging my papers, or if I am using my scanner to take photos of jewelry for future sale in my eBay store, may pick up a bracelet and run away with it. All very distrupting if you are trying to work and get things done.
Her object is to get me to bed, if you shut the office door she may sit outside in the hall and start to yell at me. Not a good idea if my invalid son Rick and my wife Sally are sleeping, so – I got to bed – Nina wins again. Amazing, two years after getting out of a six months cat jail sentence our all black cat has gained control of our lives it is now her world and we are her slaves, and will damn well do as she says or pay the price! If a human could just have half this ability each of us would be top guns at the biggest corporations in the world making hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Back to history related to these amazing creatures. In the middle-east and the far-east cats of those areas were revered.
In the middle east and the far east cats of those areas were revered. In ancient Egypt cats were worshipped in the form of the goddess ‘Basht.’ In the far east such as Siam and Japan cats were revered. In Siam the Siamese cats were bred to guard holy treasures in their Temples. It is said that they would fearlessly attack anyone attempting harm or trying to steal treasures they were trained to protect. This has never been confirmed to my knowledge however having owned two Blue Tip Siamese I believe it to be true. Siamese are extremely intelligent and with patience I firmly believe they could be trained as ‘watch cats.’
During the medieval period in ancient Europe cats were persecuted and hated as sinister creatures linked to Satan with one notable exception. Rats became almost aggressive, hordes of rats invaded their medieval homes and castles until someone finally figured out that the persecuted and hated cat could save the day, this was an uneasy and short lived truce for our cats. They were linked by the knowledgeable of those days to occult, witchcraft, that link and hatred remained for most of 500 years. It was not until the 17th century that cats began to regain a element of respectability in Europe and the realization of the benefits of maintaining a cat in the family. It was found that losses of grain storage and family food was reduced and restricted to only small losses when cat was a member of the family to protect the family against rats and mice.
Is it true that cats always land on their feet? If the drop is a few feet they will. Cats have semicircular canals in their ears linked to the brain and therefore in a instant they will turn and land on their feet. Their hearing is far superior to man’s we will relate some examples of that in our following family tales.
Believe it or not one very common act of your cat is not yet fully understood and that is purring. This simple expression of pleasure that those of us that are cat lovers enjoy so much. It is thought that in purring membranes near the vocal cords are somehow exercised to make the sound. Your cat will often show his happiness by purring when petted, when it’s favorite food is being prepared or when kitty is curled up next to you, well fed, warm and happy. It is difficult to explain the pleasure it gives me to have a loved family feline express its love and pleasure in this manner.
Studies have concluded that elders in old age homes will often be better off health wise and live longer if cats are introduced to the elders daily life. This is a proven fact, a domestic cat can give so much to the enjoyment of life of elders they should be included in ever environment where elders live.
Purring is just one of your cats methods of communication. ‘Murmuring’ with their mouths closed is another however this is seldom heard except in intimate contact with another cat, like having sex with a female. Sometimes this ‘murmuring’ is emitted when being petted, it shows extreme pleasure.
If your cat issues short specific calls, generally those calls are to call your attention to something that needs to be done. It could be that the kitty’s crunchy food dish is empty and needs refilling, the water dish needs to be refilled,isn’t dinner ready yet? Maybe the potty box sand is dirty and needs to be cleaned out and kitty wants some action. When you hear these short calls for action you should start thinking of what needs doing? What is kitty talking about?
If the cat calls are more aggressive and teeth are showing, it is usually that he or she feels that another cat is invading it’s territory. Or it could be some other animal is near, a unfamiliar dog, a raccoon, any animal that highly concerns your cat and makes it fearful of conflagration.
A normal ‘Meow’ is your cat showing a ‘nice’ somewhat submissive request for something, often before a meal when kitty figures it is time for chow. It is just a polite ‘chat’ letting you know it is being nice but get on the ball before I get ticked off.
Hissing and spitting associated with loud calls means kitty is frightened and getting angry. When your sweet kitty is in this state of mind, be very careful, do not attempt to pick him or her up or handle kitty as kitty is highly pissed off and may inadvertently scratch you in the process. Try and eliminate the problem, the source of it’s concern. If the back is arched, fur raised tail straight up this means that kitty may attack whatever it is fearful of. Again try to eliminate the problem whatever it is and your kitty will return to normal. I repeat – do not touch your cat if situations described above should exist, you could accidentally be harmed in the process.
A slightly twitching tail is the beginning of your cat showing some discontentment of whatever is happening around it. It can also occur if you are correcting the cat for some transgression on their part. Your cat may well understand what it is being corrected for, agreeing is another matter. Kitty may not always agree, and can often get ‘ticked off’ that a human servant would have the gall to correct it’s behavior.
Ears can also denote annoyance.
Flat ears denote fear or submission to another larger cat or animal. A cat hunting will have his ears slightly back giving the cat a watchful appearance which is exactly what is occurring.
A contented cat will have his ears upright and eyes almost closed, it is not hard to note contentment in your cat.
Never fear, you will soon learn to understand cat language without a word of English being transmitted from your pet. Within days or even hours you will understand fully what needs to be done. These amazing of God’s creatures will, with ease, by voice, movement or body, ears, eyes, tail or it’s whole body express clearly what should be done.
Cat language is not hard to understand, years of experience is not needed. One minor example – when your kitty determines that it is hungry and time for dinner you may find your cat standing in front of its empty food dish or the spot where it is fed dinner and look you in the eye.
Does this tell you something? Unless you are one dumb bunny, I have to assume it will.
Topics: THIS & THAT from Uncle Fred | 1 Comment »
November 14th, 2008 at 12:50 am
F