1. Important details about cats
Cats prefer foods at body temperature--the temperature of freshly killed prey. They
also prefer their food cut into ¼ inch chunks (specifically once they are sick and have
to be tempted.) And did you realize that 60% of all cats like cold tomato juice? I've
attempted V-8 and it doesn't seem to be at all tempting. We use this trick to entice
kidney-failure cats to drink much more liquids.
Cats are either proper or left handed, showing a distinct preference for 1 paw more
than the other.
A healthy domestic cat can reach speeds as much as 31 miles/hour, but can't
maintain that sprinting speed for additional than a minute.
A cat licks their fur to maintain cool in hot climate. Like dogs, they sweat only by
means of the pads of their feet.
The cat's whiskers are specially adapted to act as antennae. They're used to
navigate, to detect movement and to judge the width of an opening. Whiskers are
also an indicator of mood--when the whiskers are back, the cat is angry, so watch
out. Some folks think obtaining a whisker is good luck. I know one woman who's a
millionaire that has a cat whisker collection!
Each and every cat ear is controlled by 32 muscles and can turn 180 degrees.
Humans have only 6 muscles, so it is tougher to create our ears wiggle. Cat ears that
are facing back or folded down are really ticked off, so watch out.
2. A cat's fur has 60,000 hairs per square inch on the back and 120,000 hairs per
square inch on the underside--No wonder cat owner's need to empty their vacuum
bags every time! Shedding is controlled by hormones and ambient temperature as
well as light--even artificial light. Nervous cats shed more--especially when they get
stuffed into a carrier and hauled off to the vet's workplace.
Cats are highly territorial. A domesticated cat's territory encompasses 150 acres.
Apparently their acres intermingle as we see about eight cats in our backyard each
day as they make their rounds. Only one is ours--there's lots of neat cat
entertainment stuff in our yard.
Jumpability: The human equivalent of the cat's capacity to leap will be jumping the
width of a swimming pool.
Sense of smell: Humans have 5 million odor-sensitive cells in their noses--cats have
200 million. Naturally this implies they are able to smell whenever you do not clean
the litter box every single day and will "inappropriately urinate" because of this.
Sleep habits: A healthy mature cat spends about 15% of its life in deep sleep, 50%
in light sleep, and 30% in awake time. I've noticed that portion of this wake time
coincides using the human's sleep time. This annoys the cat. This could possibly be
why my cat, Dagney, wakes me up about 2 a.m. just about every morning by
sticking her paw in my mouth. Bleck! Cats attain full alertness faster than any other
creature.
Milk Drinking: Most adult cats lack the enzymes essential to digest milk, so in the
event you ought to give your cat milk, be sure to give them only a couple teaspoons
at a time. Yep--too significantly milk surely provides the cat gas and occasionally
diarrhea. It's very good to coordinate the milk-giving ceremony together with your
partner to ensure that the cat does not double-dip.
Dieting: Neutered and spayed cats call for fewer calories than intact cats do. A
superb rule of thumb is ½-3/4 cups per cat per day for lower high quality foods and
1/3 cup per cat per day for the higher quality foods such as IAM's, Max Cat, and
Nutranuggets. Putting fat cats on starvation diets can kill them mainly because the
liver fat breaks down too quickly causing a condition called ketosis.
Skin Illness: I've observed in my naturopathic practice that cat's with skin disease
like fish flavors. Cats with liver and kidney condition like Chicken and Giblet or foods
with liver and kidney in them. Cat's with heart disease like heart-based foods. When
the situation is repaired, they cease consuming that certain flavor of food.
Hearing: Human beings can hear sounds as much as 20,000 Hertz (cycles per
second), dogs can hear as much as 40,000 Hertz, and cats can hear as much as
100,000 Hertz. Cats can even hear electrical currents in cords. Pretty wonderful,
huh?
Psychic: In China, cats have been applied successfully as earthquake predictors for
years.
Cats are color blind, but only need to have 1/6th of the light that humans demand to
see.
3. Cat digits: Cats have five toes on their front paws and four on their back. A
polydactyl cat has far more than the usual number of toes. Poly suggests several and
dactyl implies fingers (your Latin lesson for the day.) Polydactyl cats are recognized
by different names - "mitten cats," "thumb cats," "six-finger cats" and "Hemingway
cats." Hemingway cats were named following Ernest Hemingway who shared his
house island with nearly 50 cats, including a 6-toed polydactyl given to him by a ship
captain; the cats bred and the polydactyl trait became typical. Hemingway's colony
of cats was free-breeding with the local cat population as well as the ratio of
polydactyl cats to normal-toes cats was about 50/50. There's a high rate of
polydactyl cats in Boston, MA and in Portland, OR. I enjoy polydactyl cats as they
seem to be incredibly friendly and tolerant of humans of all ages.
Why spay your cat? A single pair of cats and their offspring can produce as numerous
as 420,000 cats in just seven years.
Cats like to hear whispering.
The cat has 26 facial expressions. Exactly the same parts of the human and feline
brain correspond to emotion.
Cats show the following signs when stressed: Over-grooming, lack of grooming, self-
mutilation, vocalization, aggression, listlessness, loss of appetite, depression. The
item Feliway is an excellent item to alleviate tension for cats in new circumstances or
in multi-cat environments where they do not have enough space to produce them
really feel comfy.
Feliway is often a synthetic feline pheromone use to control inappropriate urine
marking behavior and to reassure cats in strange surroundings.
Cat Communication: Cats interpret a smile that shows teeth as aggression. This may
well be 1 reason why a cat will always go to the individual who hates cats (they do
not smile in the cat or make direct eye contact!)