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This book took a very scientific approach to describing cat behavior. This might indicate how geeky I am, but I loved learning about cats' behavior this way. The author starts by talking a little about how cats evolved and how interesting it is that (unlike dogs, horses, and many other domesticated animals) cats can still breed with their wild counterpart. It is also true that wild cats can survive without us, much better than wolves or the nearly extinct ancestors of today's horses. You can really feel the author's admiration and love of cats he discusses the implication of these facts: first, that cats choose to live with us even though they could survive without us and second that they have done so without changing to please us. He also presents a lot of really cool behavioral studies, showing that cats learn by observing other cats; that cats are intelligent, but are most intelligent at tests which make sense with their natural behavior; and showing that cats build mental maps with themselves at the center (not landmark based) - among other interesting tidbits. Together with The Cat Whisperer's description of a cat's sensory input, this description of the way cats think gave me a much better appreciation of my cat. I would highly recommend these books together to anyone who wants a really thorough understanding of how how their cat senses and thinks about the world around them. ( )
As a cat lover, I take for a given that any book about "kitties" is going to be a fluffy read. As a scientist, I hope occasionally for a little actual content. This was not a nauseatingly cute book, and I did learn a few things. I was pleasantly surprised that there weren't forty pages on what each of the tail positions and meows mean. Humorously enough, I wanted a bit more of that than was provided here! :) It was a lovely afternoon read on the history of that not-quite-domesticated creature.
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
The Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him. -- Rudyard Kipling
Dedicatoria
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Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
There are no search-and-rescue cats, guard cats, Seeing Eye cats, bomb-detecting cats, drug-sniffing cats, escaped-convict-tracking cats, sheep cats, sled cats, gun cats, obedience-trained cats, Frisbee-catching cats, or slipper-fetching cats.
Citas
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
The domestic cat's wild counterpart, the European, African, and Asiatic wildcat Felis sylvestris, is among the least studied of wild felines. It is a small, elusive, mostly forest-dwelling animal, and scientists were not able to find out much about the behavior, ecology, and genetics of small, elusive felines until the tools of molecular genetics and radiotelemetry lately began to change things. There has been a degree of snobbery at work, too. Real wildlife biologist don't study pussycats. The don their safari jackets, clamber aboard their Land Rovers, and plunge down some round and forbidding dirt track in dangerous pursuit of lions and tigers and bears (oh my). pp. 2-3.
A [dog] pack is like a conventional army unit, with hierarchical ranks ... each member of the group finds his place, knows his place, and usually sticks to his place. ... But cats who find themselves living in a group are more like commandos who have been trained to carry out daring solo missions on their own, and now find themselves with a bunch of other commandos all on exactly the same mission. Although each one pretty much keeps doing what he's trained to do, it's only natural that along the way some friendships will spring up. pp.88-89
To human beings, communication is a means of expressing ideas. To cats, it is, too. The major difference is that for cats, the principal idea that is usually in need of expression is, "Get out of my face." p. 93.
The social tool kit of the cat, including its vocal repertoire, is generally geared for confrontation, not affection. Yet when confronted with man and his comparatively easygoing and noncompetitive ways ... the pet cat is free to trot out his small, but potent and endearing, repertoire of cooperative and friendly behaviors--behaviors that are all the more potent and endearing for their origin in the bonds between mother and young. p. 114
The trouble that people have with cats is more a matter of normal cat behavior than abnormal cat behavior. Cats don't go bonkers when kept in an unnatural situation. On the other hand, they don't particularly change their natural ways, either. And inevitably, some natural habits are incompatible with the ideas that cat owners have about the way they would like to run their lives, which often include such things as owning a sofa without claw marks or a microwave oven that does not smell of cat urine. p. 174.
Even more striking is the statistic that only about a quarter of cat owners say they deliberately made an effort to acquire a cat: Their cats acquired them. p. 200
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Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
And that is a story of science and understanding as much as it is one of spirit and empathy.
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