Scientists believe cats 'sort of domesticated themselves' THE WASHINGTON POST June 29, 2007 WASHINGTON – Your hunch is correct. Your cat decided to live with you, not the other way around. The sad truth is, it may not be a final decision. But don't take this feline diffidence personally. It runs in the family. And it goes back a long way – about 12,000 years, actually. Those are among the inescapable conclusions of a genetic study of the origins of the domestic cat, being published today in the journal Science. The findings, drawn from the analysis of nearly a thousand...