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 ...
Adam and Eve said, “Lord, when we were in the garden, you walked with us every day. Now we do not see you anymore. We are lonesome here and it is difficult for us to remember how much you love us.”
And God said, “No problem! I will create a companion for you that will be with you forever and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will love me even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how selfish or childish or unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourselves.”
And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam and Eve. And it was a good animal. And God was pleased.
And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and Eve and he wagged his tail.
And Adam said, “Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and I cannot think of a name for this new animal.”
And God said, “No problem. Because I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG.”
And Dog lived with Adam and Eve and was a companion to them and loved them. And they were comforted.
And God was pleased. And Dog was content and wagged his tail.
After a while, it came to pass that an angel came to the Lord and said, “Lord, Adam and Eve have become filled with pride. They strut and preen like peacocks and they believe they are worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught them that they are loved, but perhaps too well.”
And God said, “No problem! I will create for them a companion who will be with them forever and who will see them as they are. The companion will remind them of their limitations, so they will know that they are not always worthy of adoration.”
And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam and Eve.
And Cat would not obey them. And when Adam and Eve gazed into Cat’s eyes, they were reminded that they were not the supreme beings. And Adam and Eve learned humility.
And they were greatly improved.
And God was pleased. And Dog was happy.
And Cat didn’t give a sh*t one way or the other.
However, after 9 days... I am not 100% sure our goal can be met.
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We’ve fostered a number of kittens (all sizes), and our last bunch was four nine-week-old kittens that were WILD when we got them (bit down hard through heavy gloves, etc.). It did take quite some time to tame them (months, for the two hardest ones) but we finally got them all verifiedly tame and out the door to very happy families! LOL!
I just wanted to say that “weeks” is not a realistic time frame for kittens that have already become feral, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done at all. For instance, my beloved DLH tuxedo cat William Wallace (The Most Beautiful Cat in the World™) was about five weeks old when we got him, but a fighter already! He hissed and spit for a week, and I got no purrs from that baby until we hit the three week mark. Anyway . . . patience. (Oh, also if you can get hold of buspirone, it helps a lot to tame them down. Just sayin’.)
I had 2 Siamese-mix breeds that did that a lot, I took to calling them furry little supermodels. =^) Seriously , though with ours it was a lack of fiber in their diet (fiber other than their own hair I mean) You can try growing cat grass, or maybe an indoor formula that has a little roughage in it. All my cats stopped puking, not just those 2.
CC
I think that is true. It is also true they are more independent...
He is not lonely as my husband is home with him and gives him plenty of attention. He is just a sociable, loving little furball.
I never had a cat as a child just dogs so I treated my kitties the same way I did the puppies. Maybe that was the trick.
Try adding some pumpkin to his diet and giving him some coconut oil.
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