Posted on 07/07/2015 7:14:45 AM PDT by C19fan
The other night, before my wife and I put our 2½-year-old twins to bed, she began reading them one of their favorite books, Where the Wild Things Are. Juliet, in Dalmatian pajamas, asked, “Mommy, where are the wild things?” My wife glanced over at our gray-and-white tabby curled up on a chair nearby. “Well,” she said, “Jasper’s a wild thing.” Juliet looked incredulous. “Jasper’s not a wild thing,” she said. “He’s a cat!”
The dispute is understandable. Though cats have lived with us for nearly 10,000 years and are the world’s most popular pet, experts disagree about whether they’re actually domestic animals. Our feline companions don’t really need us, after all: They can hunt for themselves, and they go feral without human contact. A scientific paper published last year uncovered some of the first genes responsible for domestication—all in the cat genome—yet still referred to cats as “semi-domesticated.” Other scientists vehemently disagree with that designation. “There’s no difference between a domesticated cat and a domesticated anything else,” says Greger Larson, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford who has studied the domestication of pigs, dogs, and a variety of other animals. “Good luck trying to get a goat or a sheep to spend the night in your house.”
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Cats are lithe carnivorous quadrupeds that condescend to live among humans while maintaining a standoffish air.
And some of them are just.. well..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeJX7fxz-f4
I would love to see a lion do that.
“Dis my bowl. You no touch!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J11uu8L8FTY
Big cats like boxes too.
Gang of Feral Cats Attacks Woman, Dog in France
Jul 27, 2013
http://news.discovery.com/animals/pets/feral-cats-attack-130727.htm
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Run-Ins With Aggressive Black Cat Have Pearl River Residents On The Lookout
July 6, 2015
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/07/06/pearl-river-cat-attacks/
Domesticated? Really?
Cats and dogs are different. Dogs have a non-domestic/wild component that is rarely seen by most people who have dogs, even though it is indisputably there.
Cats, on the other hand, have a rather large, non-domestic/wild component that almost every cat owner has seen occasionally, if not frequently.
I see very little difference between a domestic cat and nearly any large cat such as a tiger except physical size, the domestic component, and the distance to the non-domestic/wild component.
Dogs are like people in many ways.
Cats are like cats who like people.
Oh, I dunno. My Snow-shoe kitty is rather docile when her belly is full. But she goes into full Tasmanian Devil blur when another feline enters our block! 50/50!
Cats don’t need us? Disagree. If you feed a stray cat, even once, it will attach itself to you like super glue.
I’ve had both cats and dogs. Used to be a dog-lover exclusively, but cats have their good points. They are a lot lower maintenance than dogs.
Ping!
In Korea they like cats - with garlic and soy sauce.
:)
ping
Some wild animal clumped across my bed last night…thought it was a dino, but it was AndyCat. I’m NOT kidding, I had the impression that he was some very ancient species.
I accused him. He didn’t deny it.
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