Posted on 11/01/2015 7:05:15 AM PST by SeekAndFind
As I sit in my office writing this, my 2-year-old tabby Spooky is sitting on the edge of my desk eyeing me intently.
He is looking right at me with a stare that probably froze the blood of our ancestors 25,000 years ago. Of course, Spooky’s ancestors were quite a bit larger. Still, I have often wondered what is going through a cat’s mind when it stares at you like that. Fifty million years of mammalian evolution, all packed into that tiny, predator brain. Just what is it Spooky is mulling over in his head?
According to a new study, cats are probably thinking one thing.
Mmmmmmm…lunch.
A study carried out between the University of Edinburgh and Bronx Zoo compared our beloved domestic cat with its wilder relatives.
Compared with the snow leopard, the Scottish wildcat and the African lion, researchers found these larger predators shared similar characteristics of aggression and neurotic behaviour to domestic cats.
Dominance, impulsiveness and neurotic behaviour are the most common trait shared between the domestic cat and the wild cat.
The researchers used a testing method known as the ‘Big Five’ personality test: Openness to Experience, Extraversion/Introversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism.
A total of 100 cats, from two different shelters in Scotland were used in the experiment, whilst the other animals were examined from zoos and animal sanctuaries in the UK and USA.
‘They’re cute and furry and cuddly, but we need to remember when we have cats as pets, we are inviting little predators into our house,’ psychologist Dr. Max Wachtel told 9NEWS.
‘For a lot of people, it is worth it. Cats can be fantastic, sweet companions. Until they turn on you.’
Only their size prevents the cat from being able to unleash its full predatory qualities.
‘It is good to understand the personality characteristics of our pets. Different cats have different personalities. But as a species, there are a lot of commonalities,’ Dr Wachtel said.
Dogs are predators too. But we domesticated our canine friends up to 100,000 years ago while cats are relative newcomers, becoming house broken less than 7,000 years ago. Dogs stay with us and serve us out of a sense of loyalty and a desire to please. This has been bred into them for thousands of generations.
Not so the cat. When cats discovered humans would feed them, and stroke them, and give them a warm place to sleep in return for performing the ridiculously easy task of catching a few mice, they immediately realized they were getting the better end of that deal and set up shop in our hearts. But their wild side is never far beneath the surface. Neurotic or not, we are endlessly fascinated by cat behavior because we literally don’t know what they are going to do next.
As long as its not sizing us up for the cat cooking pot.
any cat owner knows this
its part of the mystique of having cats
you have a natural tiger in your house
sort of like a mobile M-16 with claws
I will wake up in the middle of the night and this one here will be sitting there purring and staring at me.Its creepy.
In the morning it will jump up come around find my head and check to see if Iam breathing.I try to hold my breath to see what will happens but it knows I am not dead.I figure if I was it would chow down.
One of my cats does the exact same thing. Occasionally she wakes me up tapping my face with her paw.
So, we are now supposed to run in fear of pussycats? What is the point of this dumb article?
“A total of 100 cats, from two different shelters in Scotland were used in the experiment, whilst the other animals were examined from zoos and animal sanctuaries in the UK and USA.”
That sentence invalidates the whole study! These were not normal house cats, but cats from traumatic situations. This study is complete bull by people that know nothing about cats!
ISIS, poverty, corruption, graft, and socialism, and this person is worried about his CAT Secretly wanting to kill him? gawd, what an childish and skid dish world we live in now.
The cat was staring at home because of an old saying -”curiosity killed the cat” - or, it was time to be fed.
How many dogs attack people? how many cats? end of discussion.
Exactly. Folks that hate cats were rats in their last life...
And squirrels in this life.
Last night I was trying to ease my big guy's foot out from under my rib cage and he clawed me in the face.
This morning he was hugging me so hard and purring so loudly I had a hell of a time easing my ownself out of bed.
Codependency is what it's called.
How big is your guy? I have a beautiful Maine coone that weighs 24 lbs. It’s hard to move him when he is in my space and he gets irritated when I do. If I put my robe on the bed, I tell him it’s my robe so he runs over and lays on it and dares me to remove him.
He’s a big black cat with white underfur who was born feral but, after I had him neutered and kept him inside the prescribed one night, he more or less informed me that he was through sleeping outside.
I opened the post-surgery recovery cage and the side screendoor-—all my other feral cats rocketed out of there like Obama drug felon pre-releasees.
But this guy strolled into the house and sat down for a good lick.
He weighs around 18 or nineteen pounds but should weigh less. The vets are on me constantly to cut back on the food but it’s tough.
But his daddy was a real big cat too. He came ‘round a few years after Hop had moved into the house. I knew it was his pop because we had several Manx feral cats around the place (Hop’s tail is about five inches long) and this Alpha Poppa was a huge tailless black Manx.
He was square as a cinderblock and his black hair was long and dreadlocked. He seemed peaceful enough and for a few days I let him hang around.
Then he started driving the other feral cats away from the food dish-—he was getting ready to kill something so I had to put him down, which I hated.
Hop’s the first cat I’ve owned (or worked for, you might say) and my first pet since childhood. You know as much as I how devoted a person can get.
LOL
Thanks for sharing. Yes, sometimes a human and a particular animal form a special bond.
Funny... I was going to suggest we substitute the words pit bull for cat.
Pit bulls are neurotic... and yes, they want to kill you. (Or at least rip your face off)
Just a bit of paranoia, methinks. But, if paranoia feels good to you, go for it.
Mine bring in half a dozen live and dead presents daily - squirrels, snakes, birds, lizards, salamanders, mice and every imaginable bug.
There must be some dumb cats out there. Mine understand I’m their Queen and Overlord. I have opposable thumbs which can open the food can and pour the milk. They don’t.
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