The mind of the cat is a mystery many of us long to solve.  Many people infuse their relationship with them with a number of human characteristics, a process known by the mouth-filling word anthropomorphizing.  We love to think our cats adore us, that they rub their faces against our bodies out of sheer worship of us and that they truly know the meaning of friendship, companionship, loyalty and devotion.  Well, all of those are human traits, and it is probably well beyond the capacity of cats (or any other animal at that) to truly feel these things.  But before you raise your arms in outrage and start telling me (I won’t be able to hear you, you know.  I’m on the other side of a one-sided conversation here) that your cat did this or that and this proves, without a doubt, that he or she loves you, let me dig a bit under the emotional surface of our relationship with them.  Perhaps, once I’m done, we may have a different, more informed and still rich, mutually supportive and wonderful relationship with these creatures we call our cats.

I do love our four cats.  I care for them, I worry and fuss over them when they get sick, I’ve splurged a small fortune in vet bills, food and litter and medicines for them, and I spend a not-insignificant amount of time (not as much as Claud, though) caring for them and cleaning after them.  I also spend time petting them, I buy and give them treats, and I don’t fret much when they make a mess or two.  I value the positive impacts they have of our lives and yes, I also complain in curmudgeonly ways about the clutter and the chaos, the expenses we incur on and their quirky habits.  We made a life decision to commit 12 to 15 years (or who knows, perhaps more) in the company of these creatures, and we’ll get through it and certainly end up better persons because of them.

But they are not humans, so I hesitate to establish a human relationship with them.  To me it is more an interspecies relationship, at times looking more or less like those we’ve seen in Star Trek when dealing with a very alien and incomprehensible species, but also at times coming together as a symbiosis of two very different beings that find they are better together than apart.  They are mysterious like an alien race from another planet.  I often joke about Austina reporting to her mother ship (she does look like a little, big-eared alien) about something new and inexplicable we humans are embarking on, like putting a puzzle together.

“Austina calling Orson.  Come in Orson!”

“Yes, Austina. What’s your report from Earth?”

“Today I observed some very strange behavior, your magnificence.  The humans embarked on a project they call ‘A Puzzle’”

“Intriguing.  What is a puzzle?”

“Well, as far as I can see, they take thousands of perfectly good pieces of colorful cardboard and try to make one giant piece out of them.”

“And what would be the purpose of that?”

“I don’t know, your immenseness.  I tried to show them that the small pieces were better to paw around and send skating around the floor, but when I did that they yelled at me, picked them up, and put them back on the larger piece.”

“Very puzzling indeed.”

“And that is not all.  I hid one (by the risky process of eating it during the night) and this caused a great deal of consternation among them.”

“Why was that?”

“Apparently a missing piece makes the whole activity pointless.  They took the entire giant piece and broke it down again, put it in a box, and store it away.”

“Very interesting, Austina.  We’ll ponder on your report.  In the mean time, stay focused and don’t pick up any bad habits from the humans.”

“Not to worry, your felineness.  Until next time, this is Austina, reporting from Earth.  Meawnuu-meawnuu!”

Domestic cats evolved from a long dynasty of felines that include some of the fiercest and most powerful predators on the planet.  Lions and tigers, jaguars and leopards, and a score of smaller but no less fierce species, all share the same characteristics that we often see in our domesticated friends.  There are some behaviors that seem to be hardwired in their brains, behaviors that in the context of our living rooms make no sense at all, but that when looked at their evolutionary history or seen in their wild relatives, make all the sense in the world.  Boots, for example, approaches his water fountain like a cautious jaguar in the forest would approach a puddle in a clearing.  He walks slowly towards it, looks at the water, scratches the floor next to the bowl (as if removing leaves from the surface of a forest pond), and then drinks slowly until he’s satiated.  It is fascinating to watch this behavior over and over, making me wonder how a behavior like that, an innate behavior, still persists in the thousands of generations after domestication.  Lilu, on the other hand, approaches her water dish like a dog would.  She walks up to it and starts slurping noisily, loud enough to make you take notice.  Such a dainty little thing with a loud mouth and sloppy habits.  Oh well.

Another innate behavior is that of post scratching.  In the wild, tigers and other species mark their territories by leaving scent marks deep on the trunks of trees or stumps, which also helps them sharpen their claws for that essential moment of truth when they pounce on prey and need to maintain a grip until their canines penetrate the skull for an instant kill or clamp irreversibly on the throat for the last minutes of life of its intended meal.  At home, their behaviors are identical as in the wild, scratching, smelling, and checking that the scent is there for other felines to notice.  My territory, my space.  Also, they scent-mark objects with their cheeks.  That endearing moment when they come to you, eyes half closed, smell your knee or ankle and then lovingly rub their cheeks against you, is not really equivalent to the kiss on the cheek we give people we love, or our rubbing our faces against the shoulder of a loved one in demonstration of love and trust.  Nope.  Your kitty has just come over, check to see if there was a scent of another cat on your knee, found it was clear, and so marked it with his own scent.  “Mine.”  Simple as that.  You’ve been taken possession of by your cat.  In male tomcats, this “mine!” action takes often a different mode, that of “spraying” or marking territory.  Point the rear end in the right direction, Fsst! Mine!  Point again, Fsst! Mine!  Fsst! Mine.  When a large feline like a tiger does that, you’ll need a shower and a washing machine, pronto!  (I know first hand; another story for another time).  When your kitty does it, it is a bad habit, something few people can put up with.  I can live with the cheek marks.  The Fsst!  I can do without.

There’s much more to say and even more to learn about the special abilities of our feline roomies.  Stories abound about cats with special talents, like those that can smell disease and cancer deep inside people’s tissues; or the cat that can tell who’s going to die next at the retirement home and sits on their bed, just keeping the person company, like a tiny, caring grim-reaper; or the cat that saved the family from the fire.  These and many more stories fill page after page in newspapers, books, magazines, blogs and testimonials.  I love them all (well, not all; some are just way over the top) and marvel at the complex lives they have made around us, those wild kitties, those semi-domesticated little fierce predators of the wild, sharing our spaces and our lives like no other species can.  Dog owners, I know you have your stories.  Cat friends, you know what I’m talking about.

Carlos