Of cats and men

A quiet start to the weekend. The rest of the household was away so it was just me and Kitty* in the house. It was all in all rather relaxing.

Kitty has gradually got comfortable with me nowadays. In the beginning she would just hide under the sofa but gradually she’s become accustomed to me and now complains noisily if she doesn’t get five minutes of magic fingers backrubs once a day.

I say she, but actually Kitty’s a bloke cat, albeit missing the requisite nadgers. His owner/slave, for we are all slaves to cats, E thought he was a bitch (in the biological sense of the word) at first and was a little put out to discover he was a tom so had him fixed and raised him as a female cat.

This makes Kitty a tad gender confused, and pisses off her vet a lot when E refers to Kitty with the feminine pronoun. Still and all she’s a lovely cat, with beautiful tiger stripe markings and an intelligent temperament.

I’ve said it before but dogs are dumb and loyal while cats are smart but independent. I’m convinced there’s an evolutionary argument for this. Early on in the domestication cycle mankind started hunting cooperatively with dogs so loyalty became a key survival trait and keeping them fed was a priority.

But cats became (semi) domesticated simply because they were easy to tolerate and kill vermin. You didn’t train them, they hung around because houses were largely warm and dry and vermin flocked to them. It wasn’t until a few hundred years ago that people even considered cat food – that was what mice and rats were for.

In my youth I spend the odd winter week or two on a friend’s farm helping out. P’s farm, or rather smallholding, showed this difference very well. The dogs slept in the house and were devoted to, and dependant on, the family - with the exception of their golden retriever who would pop down to the pub every evening because the landlord took a shine to her and put out some beer in a bowl each night.

The cats by contrast lived in the barn and were semi-feral. We had to collect the hen’s eggs as soon as possible in the morning otherwise they’d crack and eat them. Try and pick one up and you’d be straight down to casualty to get your fingers stitched together.

Kitty retains her feral heritage but is trainable. She’s noted that any claw swipe brings about a 24 hour cessation of stroking privileges. Now all I need to do is train her to get on the sofa rather than skulking around my feet.

But there’s always the feeling that if someone invented the paw operated tin opener mankind would lose the cat completely and supermarkets would suffer catlifting rates that would make today’s losses to humans look like a golden age.

But they are seductive little devils, who get under our skin. XKCD has it right on this.

* Photo caption - "Make sure you get my best side."