Kitties ^._.^

A lot of people know that cats are awesome. Yet there's also a big portion of the population that seems to view them as evil devils that want nothing but to claw your eyes out like that one scene in Caroline. I've always had a bad feeling about people like that. Even from a very young age. Now that I'm older though I have gained a deeper understanding of cats and would like to now explain to the void that is the internet why people who hate cats just spell out trouble.

I would like to preface this by saying that I am obviously talking about the people who hate cats for no VALID reason. I am not talking about the people that are allergic or the people that have trauma regarding cats.

It's no surprise that cats and dogs are very different but I feel it's important to understand where they differ. Dogs have been domesticated by humans about 30 000 years ago. Cats on the other hand have only been living among side humans four about 10 000. Well technically domesticated is not quite the right word to describe the very beginnings of cat-human relationships. Dogs were domesticated in the sense that humans started giving them food and once the early “dogs”(AKA wolves) started trusting them humans started training them to aid in hunting and guarding. Cats on the other hand were never directly fed by humans. Their relationship began when humans started to keep large storage of grain. This in turn attracted mice, which is what attracted cats to live alongside humans. At first cats were purely outdoor and pretty much only a companion for farmers. Overtime cats were allowed in  to common peoples homes to aid in warding off mice and that is around the time that they started getting directly fed by humans. I say this because it's important to realize that cats were never trained to leave their natural instinct behind as that was the very thing that aided people at that time. Cats also don't have the same risk associated with their attacks due to their size. Unlike dogs there was never a need to breed out aggression because that was the very thing that aided humans and because people were far to big to trigger their hunting instincts.

I love dogs. Which is why I often feel a bit uncomfortable with what domestication has done to them. Dogs have been bread to be extremely loyal and have been taught to tolerate a lot of what makes them uncomfortable. Cats give me ease of mind that they show much more obvious signs of being uncomfortable. They wont let you pet them if they don't want it and they will claw at you if you pick them up without their approval. They know their limits and know how to stand up for themselves. Their signs of not getting their needs met are hard to ignore because if you don't provide your cat with enrichment or daily play they wont be very friendly. 

When I was a kid there was a youtube sires I was obsessed with. It's called “Cats From Hell”. The main premise of the show is that people with extremely problematic cats come onto the show and Jack Galaxy, also known as the “cat whisperer”, helps them work with their cat to improve their behavior and more then half the time the problem is that the owners just weren't playing with their cat. Playing stimulates their hunter brain and helps them get that aggressive energy and results in a much friendlier cat. Another problem that came up during the show is that cats that were declawed were more likely to be aggressive and are more prone to bite. Declawing, contrary to its name, is actually when they take of a part of their tows up to the first knuckle in order to get rid of their claws. Jack Galaxy refers to it as de-knuckling.

An area where dogs and cats and honestly almost every other animal are similar is in their way of communicating feelings. Most animals communicate emotions through body language. Humans do this too. For us its subconscious so I think it's safe to assume the same for animals considering I've never seen someone train any animal to not communicate through body language. Cats body language is complex but can be simplifies to jerky movements is bad. Unlike dogs when cats “wag” their tale its very jerky and means that they're becoming agitated. When they jerk their ears back it means their scared and when they jerk their body to face you while your petting them it probably means they're getting ready to attack. Where cat's body language differs from dogs is that when they communicate something bad it usually means they prepare to follow up by enforcing their boundaries using the universal language of violence.

My point is that cat's are much better at enforcing their boundaries and there are consequences to them not having their needs met. When someone tells me they hate cats it tells me that they are either blindly repeating what other people say without having the critical thinking skills of forming their own opinion. Or, that they don't like boundaries, don't like consequences, will play the victim in those situations and doesn't do proper research before taking on a big responsibility such as a pet.

Thank you for reading :>