i-xii Secret Life Cats Prelims 12pp 21/6/06 10:14 am Page i THE SECRET LIFE OF CATS i-xii Secret Life Cats Prelims 12pp 21/6/06 10:14 am Page ii i-xii Secret Life Cats Prelims 12pp 21/6/06 10:14 am Page iii THE SECRET LIFE OF CATS EVERYTHING YOUR CAT WOULD WANT YOU TO KNOW CLAIRE BESSANT ••HB Master Imprint page.qxd 9/5/11 12:07 Page 1 Published by John Blake Publishing Ltd, 3 Bramber Court, 2 Bramber Road, London W14 9PB, England www.johnblakepublishing.co.uk www.facebook.com/johnblakepub twitter.com/johnblakepub This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those may be liable in law accordingly. ePub ISBN 978 1 84358 620 3 Mobi ISBN 978 1 84358 621 0 PDF ISBN 978 1 84358 622 7 First published in hardback in 2006 ISBN: 978-1-84454-304-5 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 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We would be grateful if the appropriate people could contact us. i-xii Secret Life Cats Prelims 12pp 21/6/06 10:14 am Page v For Mum and Dad with love and thanks for all your support i-xii Secret Life Cats Prelims 12pp 21/6/06 10:14 am Page vi Contents Introduction xi 2 How it all Began 15 ‘Domesticated’? 17 1 The Perfect Pet 1 The Time Factor 3 The Responsibility Factor 4 3 The Natural The Nurture Factor 5 21 The Companionship Factor 5 Cat The Female Factor 6 Living Together 23 The One-to-one Factor 7 Group Living 25 The Guilt Factor 8 Communicating 26 The House-proud Factor 8 Long-distance Communication 29 The Feline Factor 9 Communicating at Close Quarters 32 The Cat-flap Factor 10 The Cost Factor 11 The Age Factor 11 The Acceptance Factor 12 The Cat – A Perfect Pet 12 i-xii Secret Life Cats Prelims 12pp 21/6/06 10:14 am Page vii 4 What Makes a 7 Living Cat? 37 With Us 79 The Perfect Design 38 What is it About Cats? 79 Making Comparisons 81 Meeting, Greeting and Talking 84 Sleep and Catnaps 87 The Joy of Touch 89 Grooming 91 Feeding 94 A Clean Job 100 5 The Hunter 49 How Cats Hunt 51 8 Intelligence 6 Cat Talk 55 and Training 105 Smell Talk 55 Measuring Intelligence 106 Body Talk 56 Releasing the Potential 110 Talk Talk 69 Training Techniques 110 Rewards 115 Punishment? 116 Acts of God 117 Who Trains Whom? 118 Fetch! 119 i-xii Secret Life Cats Prelims 12pp 21/6/06 10:14 am Page viii 9 What Cats 11 How to Make Want 123 a Cat Happy 177 Company 178 Safety 180 Health 184 Fitness 187 10 The Intensity of the Cat-Human Relationship 149 12 Stress and What Makes us Close to our Cats? 149 189 How People Approach Cats 154 Health Bribery 155 Improving Security with scents 193 Competition 155 Overattached Cats 193 Do we want Independent Cats? 158 Rescued Cats 194 Cleanliness 159 Nervous Cats 195 Non-destructive 160 Aggression 196 Companionship 162 Eating and Stress 198 To Be Loved 163 Night Calling 200 Playful 165 Health and Stress 201 Friendly 166 High Blood Pressure 202 To Fit in with our Lives 166 Lower Urinary Tract Disease 203 To Hunt or not to Hunt 169 No Sexual Behaviour 170 Fitting in with our Beliefs 170 Individuality 172 Beauty 174 What We Don’t Want 174 i-xii Secret Life Cats Prelims 12pp 21/6/06 10:14 am Page ix Glucose Levels 205 Making Introductions 220 Skin Problems 205 Too Many Cats? 223 Immune Changes 206 Indoor Only Cats 224 Bringing Outdoor Behaviour Inside 229 Changes in Behaviour in Cats 231 Pheremones – A Useful Tool 232 Help in the Veterinary Surgery 234 Conclusion 235 13 Getting the Balance Right 209 Understanding and Respect 209 14 A to Z – Tips Choosing the Right Cat 211 Buying a Pedigree Cat 212 for Common Taking on a Moggie 215 Feline Problems 239 Providing Some Consistency to The Changeover 217 How Can All of this Help? 217 Getting Another Cat 218 i-xii Secret Life Cats Prelims 12pp 21/6/06 10:14 am Page x i-xii Secret Life Cats Prelims 12pp 21/6/06 10:14 am Page xi Introduction DO YOU KNOW what makes your cat tick – what motivates it to behave as it does? With behaviours developed and honed over millions of years to produce a highly skilled hunter and adaptable survivor, how has the cat managed to slip into the role of man’s top companion without actually compromising any of its instincts? What goes on beneath that beautiful exterior – would understanding the secret life of the cat enable us to make sure it is happy living alongside us? Actually, we put a great deal of pressure on our pet cats in our modern lives, trying to keep a largely asocial animal with others of its kind, often without access to outside or with it having any understanding of its motivations. We live in cities where the density of cats must cause them great stress and we expect them to take on our human frailties of needing to be needed. We are breeding cats which have inherited problems, are failing to socialize them in early life and expect them to live with however many other cats we decide we want to have around. Our attitudes and demands are a real challenge to the adaptability of the cat and it is a credit xi i-xii Secret Life Cats Prelims 12pp 21/6/06 10:14 am Page xii T HE S ECRET L IFE OF C ATS to its flexibility that so few problems do occur and most cats and people live very contentedly together. This book is a combination of two of my favourite books – Cat Whisperer and What Cats Want. It attempts to explain what a cat really is, how it behaves and why it does what it does. Our modern lives are a real challenge to the cat and sometimes I fear for how far we can actually push it. A cat cannot say what it wants. I have attempted to interpret its behaviours and actions to deduce what it might want in this life which is now ever more closely linked to ours. Go back to basics, understand what a fantastic creature the cat is, how it might think and give it the respect it deserves. xii 001-78 Secret Life Cats 1-6 21/6/06 10:15 am Page 1 1 The Perfect Pet SOCIAL, VOCALLY CENTRED biped meets top-of-the-chain solitary scent-communicating predator. It’s love at first sight for the biped and the two form a non-jealous, mature, mutually rewarding and respectful relationship in which the predator maintains its independence (and may even be allowed to have other relationships) and the biped takes the supporting role. Sounds too good to be true – can such a mismatched relationship last? Well, not only has it lasted, it seems to be getting stronger! Man (or perhaps more often, woman) meets cat and the fascination continues. The mystery in the relationship has kept the flames alight. In days gone past, it was not wholly socially acceptable to be so smitten by an animal in such a way. The working dog was held in high regard because it had a role and thus humanity had a reason to lavish it with attention and affection and was not just being ‘soft’. The cat had no real role (save that of ad hoc vermin control) and was seen as something of little value that lived alongside us rather than with us. For men especially, 1 001-78 Secret Life Cats 1-6 21/6/06 10:15 am Page 2 T HE S ECRET L IFE OF C ATS acknowledging affection for a cat was seen as rather odd. In the Middle Ages, women who liked cats were seen as witches and, until recently, a cat that was loved was explained away, rather condescendingly, as a ‘child substitute’. How times and attitudes have changed. The cat, long considered a second-class citizen to the dog in terms of a place by the fire, has quietly moved from living outside, pushed the dog out of the way and even had the cheek to take over the master’s best chair with the softest cushions! There are more pet cats in the UK than pet dogs – 7.5 million cats compared to 6.1 million dogs.