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The First Cat War

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Re: The First Cat War

#11

Post by whateveracct »

tetris11 wrote: post #9
devmor wrote: post #7

If you love cats, keep your cat indoors. They are quite happy when provided for - especially if you've got two. My wife works full time at a nonprofit no-kill shelter, and the amount of sick and miserable cats that come in rescued from the outdoors is mind boggling. Strays do not live happy (or very lengthy) lives. If you have strays around, consider enrolling in your local TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release) program, to hel…

My old roommate has two british shorthairs, they're basically his kids. They live on the top floor of a four floor house, and never leave the 50m² apartment. They spend their days sleeping and doing not much else. Down on the street, a neighbour also has a shorthair, almost an identical clone to my roommates. The cat has free reign of the neighbourhood, and the alertness in its eyes makes me realise that it has a muc…

All cats spend most of their day sleeping.

It is true that cats thrive when engaged. But it's very possible to engage indoor cats.

Re: The First Cat War

#12

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

tetris11 wrote: post #9
devmor wrote: post #7

If you love cats, keep your cat indoors. They are quite happy when provided for - especially if you've got two. My wife works full time at a nonprofit no-kill shelter, and the amount of sick and miserable cats that come in rescued from the outdoors is mind boggling. Strays do not live happy (or very lengthy) lives. If you have strays around, consider enrolling in your local TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release) program, to hel…

My old roommate has two british shorthairs, they're basically his kids. They live on the top floor of a four floor house, and never leave the 50m² apartment. They spend their days sleeping and doing not much else. Down on the street, a neighbour also has a shorthair, almost an identical clone to my roommates. The cat has free reign of the neighbourhood, and the alertness in its eyes makes me realise that it has a muc…

> and the alertness in its eyes makes me realise that it has a much higher standard of living than my roommate's

Or else the alertness in his eyes may indicate the number of times he has come close to dying.

I would guess a lot of kids in war torn parts of the world have more alertness in their eyes than kids in the US or EU, but it wouldn’t indicate a higher standard of living.

Re: The First Cat War

#13

Post by 2024throwaway »

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #2

They are the funniest creatures on earth. Manipulative, hilariously small, arrogant and lazy. Yet apex predators, god must have a sense of humour. They went as far as manipulating prophet in islam so he placed them as ritually pure and a sign of faith for people who like them. Christians killed them so bubonic plague came and ravaged europe. Coincidence, I think not.

[flagged]

Re: The First Cat War

#15

Post by EdwardDiego »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #5
qiine wrote: post #4

Making cat not do something is really difficult

Can't remember where I heard it but it rings true: We train dogs but we negotiate with cats.

I really liked a line in that Nope movie:

"He got caught up trying to tame a predator. You can't do that. You got to enter an agreement with one."

Re: The First Cat War

#17

Post by nullstyle »

My understanding is that the dirty little secret of these types of articles is that many song birds actually die because of the harshness of winter (and from what I gather, growing occurence of extreme weather events.) Unfortunately, that is much harder to study that than killing and cataloging the gut contents of some stray cats and doing some statistics.

---

That said, keep your cat indoors and spread cat-proof nesting boxes for your local bird friends around your community. you don't have to pick sides :)

Re: The First Cat War

#18

Post by Nextgrid »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #14

Reminder that a cat named Tibbles once rendered an entire species of New Zealand wren extinct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyall%27s_wren

The article itself seems to disprove this? It wasn't all caused by a single cat.

Re: The First Cat War

#19

Post by praptak »

"Most cats were considered working animals, and were expected to rid houses and barns of mice and rats"

Cats don't generally hunt rats[0]. Before modern pest control the working animal to kill rats was a dog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Terrier

[0] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2018.00146...

Re: The First Cat War

#20

Post by jprete »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #15
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't remember where I heard it but it rings true: We train dogs but we negotiate with cats.

I really liked a line in that Nope movie: "He got caught up trying to tame a predator. You can't do that. You got to enter an agreement with one."

Dogs are also predators. Quite a lot of large dog breeds should not be kept with cats, because they have enough prey drive that the cat will be in very grave danger. Dogs were historically bred for ratting and gophering.

I'm thinking the reason dogs don't go for birds is that the birds are too small and fast; dogs are predators, but they aren't ambush predators like cats.

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