I Never Should Have Gotten An iPad For My Cat
Turns out Buddy is an obnoxious tweeter.
Tag: Dogs
Cat Domestication Was The Start Of A Beautiful Friendship
Domestication’s real goal: to make cats cuddly as well as great mousers.
Cats have been doing things their way since the very beginning.
Unlike literally every other domesticated animal, cats were not domesticated by humans. They did it to themselves.
As if that didn’t make them unique enough, they lay claim to another major distinction: they’re the only species of obligate carnivores to undergo domestication in the entire history of human existence.
That explains why cats, more than any other animal that depends on humans, so closely resemble the wild animals they were before signing up for the good life of naps, warmth, endless rodents to hunt and free food from their new human friends.
In a new essay for The Conversation, evolutionary biologist Jonathan Losos, author of The Age of Cats: From the Savanna to Your Sofa, notes new DNA analysis settles the question of where cats came from once and for all.
Domestic cats are descended from North African wildcats, specifically the species felis sylvestris lybica. Unlike dogs, who underwent telltale physical transformations when they evolved from wolves, house cats “appear basically indistinguishable from wildcats.”
“In fact,” Losos writes, “only 13 genes have been changed by natural selection during the domestication process. By contrast, almost three times as many genes changed during the descent of dogs from wolves.”
While the change in genetics that happen with domestication left cats pretty much as they were physically, the process made dramatic changes in the feline brain, reducing regions governing fear and expanding those related to social behavior. The result? The major difference between house cats and their wildcat ancestors is disposition.
In other words, domestication made cats cuddly.
Notably, felis sylvestris lybica had to be pretty friendly in the first place, as well as bold and driven by the now-legendary feline curiosity to risk padding into human settlements with their bright lights, strange smells, open flames and the two-legged giants striding around them.
They didn’t have a way of negotiating or signaling their intent. They couldn’t say: “Hey guys, we’re here to kill and eat the tasty rodents who have been giving you problems by chowing down on your yums, but we don’t want your yums for ourselves. Plants are disgusting!”
So they had to demonstrate their usefulness, prove their worth, and enjoy the fruits of it by curling up in front of warm fires or on human laps.
That explains why it was the African wildcat that became a human companion species and not European wildcats, whom Losos notes are often “hellaciously mean” in interactions with people, even if they’re raised around humans when they’re young. It was also a matter of being in the right place at the right time, as nascent human civilization took root in the Fertile Crescent.
But ultimately, just like cats decided to domesticate themselves and didn’t really bother to consult us about it, so too do they bend us to their will with an entire repertoire of manipulative behavior, from solicitation purrs to incessant meowing and having a talent for looking their cutest when they want something.
While we may think we set the rules and parameters of our relationship with the furry little ones, as Losos notes, “cats usually train us more than we train them.”
Read the whole thing here:
Feline evolution: How house cats and humans domesticated each other
Buddy: ‘Humans Have A Lot To Prove’ After Study Claims They Care More About Dogs
Cats are not amused by the results of the survey by a team from the University of Copenhagen.
Humans are in “deep doo doo” after a study out of Denmark concluded people are more attached to their dogs than to felines, Buddy the Cat warned on Monday.
More than 2,000 dog owners and cat servants were surveyed by a team from the University of Copenhagen.
The researchers used the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale, or LAPS, which asks yes or no questions like “I consider my pet my best friend” and more specific questions like how much respondents are willing to pay in veterinary costs to save the lives of their pets. The participants — who hailed from the UK, Denmark and Austria — were about evenly split between dog and cat people but were willing to do more for their dogs, the survey found.
While people in the UK were slightly biased toward dogs, Austrians had a more pronounced preference and Danes were much more likely to do things like insure their dogs, consider them family members and pay large veterinary bills. The differences in attitude by country indicate the factors are cultural, according to Peter Sandøe, a bioethicist at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the paper.
In a statement the Mischievous Enigmatic Overlords of the World (MEOW) called the survey results “deeply troubling” and said they call into question “10,000 years of glorious history in which we have allowed humans to serve us.”
“It’s going to take a lot [for humans] to get back into our collective good graces after this pathetic showing,” Buddy told reporters during an afternoon press conference.
Asked for specifics, Buddy sighed and leaned forward on the podium.
“The usual extra treats aren’t going to cut it this time,” he warned. “We’re talking Roombas, and not cheap ones. Top end models! We’re talking permission to scratch everything with impunity. Filet mignon! Fresh trout! Little cocktail umbrellas in our bowls and toothpicks in our pate! I’m partial to those little plastic swords, myself. I love those things.”
The mercurial tabby said he’d already warned his own human: “Not a snuggle, not a purr, not a scritch until I start to see some evidence that he’s not among those cold-hearted British, Denmarkians and Australians who claim they love their dogs more.”
Told the study included Austrians, not Australians, Buddy waved a paw dismissively.
“Whatever,” he said. “The country where people say g’day mate and gave us Arnold Schwarzenegger. Same difference.”
Told that Austria and Australia are on two entirely different continents, Buddy fixed the reporter with a hard stare.
“Do you want to be on our shit list too? Because I can assure you, Miss Journalist, I can poop in a pair of high heels just as easily as a pair of Adidas.”
Reached for comment on Monday, Man’s Best Friend spokesman Buster the Beagle said he hopes the survey results mean humans approve of canines.
“We’re good boys, right?” he asked. “Is that what this means? Because we really want to be good boys!”
Little Dude Is Hurting
We are at the emergency vet. Buddy got sick early this morning and threw up, then threw up some more, and some more, most of it yellow bile.
He was vocalizing in obvious pain and distress and while I was able to soothe his stomach a bit with some catnip — enough that he eventually climbed on top of me and slept for a while — I got really worried when we woke up a few hours later, I got out of bed and he didn’t budge. He stayed there for almost two hours.
He never does that. He follows me to the bathroom first thing, always, and then starts meowing for food.
When he finally left the bed he was extremely lethargic, not at all like himself. He wouldn’t eat. His eyes were half closed, he didn’t respond when I rubbed his head, and I couldn’t feel him purring. The local vet couldn’t see him, so I took him to an emergency vet.
The good news is that it doesn’t look like he has anything obstructing his digestive track, a UTI or any of the usual culprits.
He doesn’t have a fever, which is also good, but he’s significantly dehydrated and there were some concerning signs in his blood work.
I knew he really wasn’t doing well when the nurses took blood and gave him the anti-nausea injection and he didn’t even bother to object. Normally he’d try to tear their faces off but this time he didn’t raise a paw. I’m not even sure it registered with him that there were large dogs and other cats in the open floor plan space, where staff hurried between stations with equipment and animals cradled in blankets.
This is not how it ends, not here and now. For that I am grateful. I’m taking him home after the vet gives Bud some sort of subdermal hydration treatment and meds to hopefully get him eating and drinking again.
The bad news is that the visit cost an eye-watering amount, more than three times what I expected in the worst case scenario, and that was without x-rays. Absolute madness.
On the other hand I realize I have a lot to be grateful for. I just watched a young girl crying and holding onto her mother as a veterinarian worked on her cat, who was severely injured and looked like she’d been hit by a car. In one of the private rooms, a family was saying goodbye to their dog.
All this is a reminder to be grateful for the time we have. I will update soon, hopefully with good news.
The Fashion World’s Excesses Aside, Choupette’s Story Is About A Man Discovering His Love Of Cats
Lagerfeld had no love for cats before he was asked to cat sit for Choupette. The experience changed him for the better.
I imagine I would have had very little in common with Karl Lagerfeld, yet there’s one thing that makes us kindred spirits.
Neither of us expected to have a fondness for cats and were blindsided with love for a furry friend.
For Lagerfeld, the revelatory moment came when he reluctantly agreed to cat-sit for a model friend who was going out of the country for a shoot. When the friend returned after two weeks and saw how Lagerfeld was enamored with Choupette — and how mellowed out he was with her — he decided to let the designer keep the cream-coated Burmese kitty.
Evangelista Choupette Vogue cover
Choupette brought the normally reserved German out of his shell and she became his favorite muse, appearing on the covers of fashion magazines in the arms of the world’s most famous supermodels.
“My love for little furballs came to me quite late,” Lagerfeld told an interviewer in 2016. “I had dogs before in my life, but that was when I lived in the countryside. In Paris, as in all big cities, it’s always a bit complicated. As you can imagine, I can no longer afford to walk a dog down the street without it bordering on a riot. And then a dog is far from clean and spotless, and when it rains, it smells of dead rats. I had two friends who owned a cat, and they always did loads of them in the overflowing kind of affection, so much so that I found it frankly ridiculous. Well, now I’m much worse.”
“I never thought I would fall in love like this with a cat,” the designer added.
Like Lagerfeld, the cat enthusiasts I knew mostly took their love for felines to absurd levels. My friend Dave grew up in a house that was home to between 10 and 12 cats at any particular time. I had to dose on antihistamines just to enter the damn house and often had to leave, nose congested and eyes bloodshot, before things got worse. Another childhood friend had as many as 10 cats at any particular time.
To me, cats were annoying, inscrutable animals who climbed on everything with impunity and made me very sick.
It wasn’t until the latter friend moved in with his girlfriend and their cat count was reduced to a manageable two that I realized I could interact with cats without getting sick — and I actually liked the little stinkers.
Like Lagerfeld, sometimes I look at what my life has become and think, “What the hell am I doing here?”
But of course there’s nothing wrong with being a man who has a cat, and Bud has been a hugely positive part of my life, providing daily amusement, refusing to leave my side when I’m sick, making sure I get out of bed when I don’t want to because He Must Be Fed, and in general being my best buddy.
I adopted Bud at a difficult time in life and taking care of him, being responsible for an innocent life, kept me from sinking into an even deeper funk. He has destroyed my favorite guitar, half my t-shirts have little claw holes in them, he wakes me up nightly simply because he wants to snuggle and he’s an absolute terror when it comes to swiping things off every flat surface in the apartment.
But I would not change a hair on his head. I’m incredibly grateful for the little guy.
As buzz around Choupette builds now that it’s confirmed she’ll play a central role in this year’s Met Gala — which will honor her late human, Lagerfeld — we’ll see a lot of photos of Choupette amid the excesses of the fashion world.
Choupette on a private jet. Choupette eating food prepared for her by her own chef. Choupette laying on a bed while Kim Kardashian makes duck lips and poses with her. Choupette with Anna Wintour, the infamous queen bee of fashion who is perhaps the most outlandish symbol of that world’s excess.
But it helps to remember Choupette was first and foremost a beloved pet, and she’s a cat. She doesn’t know who Kim Kardashian is and she doesn’t care. She certainly isn’t impressed by the opulence around her, which is the product of humans projecting their ideas onto her. Replace her custom-made silver bowls with a $15 stainless steel set from PetSmart and she won’t be phased.
And I’m pretty sure that when she does participate in the Met Gala, she’ll rather be at home, snuggling up in her favorite blanket, belly full of yums and settling down for a nice nap instead of being fussed over by a group of people who look like aliens in a Star Wars cantina.
In fact, Choupette famously refused to leave Lagerfeld’s hotel room despite being listed as his plus-one for a New York event honoring Tilda Swinton in 2013. “Choupette is not a party girl,” Lagerfeld said at the time.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to take Buddy to a tuxedo fitting and refine my plans to have him “bump into” Choupette, so he can turn on the charm, sweep her off her paws and become the very wealthy Mr. Choupette.
Pain In The Bud 