However, in the broader view, I can’t improve on this statement by Jean-Michel Cousteau:

Cousteau makes the point that these whales are living in a highly inadequate environment; one that conflicts with their instincts, and neglects their emotional needs. We are, indeed, driving them crazy, and under the circumstances we should be surprised these incidents are so few.

I firmly believe that such animals as whales, dolphins, elephants, and chimpanzees should be left alone in nature. And yet, I live with cats, and in the past, dogs. How do I reconcile this?

It’s simple. There are wild animals and domesticated ones. Then there’s cats; who are actually a blend of the two, but expressed in a way which makes their lives with us more, not less.

Whales, dolphins, elephants, and chimpanzees are not only wild animals; they are wild animals who live in communities with highly developed interactions which supply their emotional needs. These territories are wide-ranging enough that they need a lot of space; in the case of aquatic mammals, a whole ocean. Duplicating their environment properly becomes so problematic that we might as well leave them in their original one.

However, I certainly don’t subscribe to PETA’s extreme view that all pets are slaves, and should be set free. Domestic animals are usually so different from their wild ancestors that they will not do well in their original environment. PETA then kills them.

That’s a strange attitude for people who want ethical treatment of animals, isn’t it? I suppose if there aren’t any animals living with humans, there isn’t any ethical problems. That attitude would solve child abuse by sterilizing everyone. Soon, no problem!

This isn’t making ethical decisions.

This is avoiding making ethical decisions.

Dogs are highly domesticated. Whether they started as wolves or jackals (opinions differ) they are quite different from their ancestors, thanks to living with us for hundreds of thousands of years. No one who encounters a well-loved dog can sustain the belief that they aren’t happy about it.

While cats, perhaps because of their shorter time span with us (about 10,000 years) are not that different from their more wild relatives. Many breeds, such as the Norwegian Forest Cat, have moved from domestic to wild to domestic again in a relatively short period of time. But, like dogs, they are not suited to being released “into the wild.”

They are not adapted to the semi-human environments they find themselves in. Lack of prey, disease and parasites, and human mistreatment make their environment far from a wild paradise. Cats, like dogs, are best suited to live as pets.

So our home is their natural environment. Their lives with us, marked by affection, abundant food, and medical care, is what they are designed to enjoy.

So let’s leave the wild alone. And the wild we have already brought into our homes?

Let’s enjoy that. Both of us.

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We might not have thought about it. If we come home and nothing seems messed up, we’re happy. If we come home and something is messed up, we’re unhappy. But most of the time, we don’t see much evidence of what our cats do when we aren’t home.

Fifty house cats were given collar cameras that took a photo every 15 minutes. The results put a digital dent in some human theories about catnapping.

Based on the photos, about 22 percent of the cats’ time was spent looking out of windows, 12 percent was used to interact with other family pets and 8 percent was spent climbing on chairs or kitty condos. Just 6 percent of their hours were spent sleeping.

Read the whole article.

When I emphasize the importance of windows to our cats, I wasn’t kidding, was I?

Since cats don’t go into suspended animation all day while we are at work, any effort we make to give our cats interesting things to do will both make our cats happy, and keep them out of trouble.

Here’s how to make sure we get maximum credit for our efforts:

Create a leaving ritual. Make a point of saying we will miss them while we are gone. We tend to do the same things as we are leaving, so we can find some way to involve the cats, too.

My ritual request of Mr. Bond, “Take good care of my guy!” led to Mr. Bond becoming Dear Husband’s companion while he had a badly sprained foot. Now they are buddies.

Give them windows. Don’t put a table there… and then put something breakable on it. Instead, raise the blinds, put a sturdy cover on the table, and give it to the cats.

It’s not like we will be there to chase them off of it.

Hide stuff. Whether we get a toy designed to make them puzzle out their treats, like the MultiVet SlimCat Interactive Toy and Food Dispenser, or we cut holes in a discarded tissue box, we can leave these “buried treasures” for our cats to find.

We can stick a toy under a throw rug, or leave a timer ticking… until it goes off. Anything our cat can have fun observing or interacting with can lead to an enjoyable part of their day.

Call them up. If we have an answering machine, try calling and leaving them a message at the same time each day. Hearing our voices is a reminder we’re out there, thinking of them.

Create a homecoming ritual. If we’d like our cats to greet us, call out to them as we come in. This is a good time to break out the treats and celebrate our reunion.

By creating opportunities for fun, and letting our cat know we did it for them, we deepen our relationship, and safeguard our stuff.

This is how we can hope that some of our cat’s day will be spent… missing us!

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Why do cats sleep on our bed? Because it’s so comfy and smells like us.

Add in the fact that cat breakfast and a new play opportunity often happens after we go to bed and get up again, and we have a bunch of reasons for cats to be interested in our bed.

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If we are gone during the day, our cat will often sleep on our bed. Things are quiet in the house, letting them relax and not have to monitor events. It can also mean they miss us and want to feel near us.

At night, we are relaxed and quiet, not likely to dislodge a cat from their comfy resting spot. The cat is in touch with our situation; as soon as we get up, they will know.

Best bedspreads to share with our cat: get something easily laundered, and with a variegated pattern of some kind to help our cat distinguish movements under the covers as well as on top of them. Fuzzy materials will cling to cat hair more.

Many cats adore our bedroom, and want to spend time there. If we cannot let the cat have the run of our bedroom, we should choose another room in the house where we like to spend time, and will spend it with our cat. This will make up for leaving them out of the bedroom.

Sharing our furniture with our cat is a vital move in the relationship.

It makes all the other moves, possible.

Is our favorite room the one we stand around in? Never. It’s always a room with some kind of leisurely, fun activity. It could be eating breakfast. It could be making breakfast.

Any room, where we are relaxed and available for petting, can be our cat’s favorite room. A shared activity can actually be taking a nap together. It’s a relaxing activity for both of us.

Most cats, and most people, enjoy this most close of all times.

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Nothing creates a Cat Alert like a late appointment or a changed system. Cats, like many of us, consider an predictable existence more enjoyable.

They have a point.

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Cat routines appeal to a cat’s sense of anticipation and participation.

When cats think they know what will happen, and then it does, they feel that they are in control. They feel they understand how things work in their world. In the wild, they would create routines that maximize their food potential or let them visit their drinking spots reliably.

In our house, they can’t get as paws-on as they would like. And if they did, it wouldn’t work the way it would in the wild, where they are no cans or sink faucets. They need our help to make all this work for them. They need to know our partnership is reliable.

When we visit our coffee machine, we don’t expect to pour out hot chocolate. We might even like hot chocolate, but that’s not what we wanted when we went to the coffee machine.

This simple expectation has far reaching implications. If we start the day pouring hot chocolate out of our coffee pot, we will probably be cautious and apprehensive all day. When we change the routine without notice, this is what we do to our cats.

However, I’m also a big fan of shaking up the cat’s routine. What is the best way to do that? Well, suppose we went to our coffee machine, and instead of hot chocolate, and instead of whatever coffee we bought on sale, we actually poured out a cup of our favorite premium coffee, fresh-roasted just we way we like it.

This might be equally puzzling. But it’s far more welcome. We wanted coffee, we get a coffee upgrade.

So if we are going to be late, we should tell the cats. If the routines are going to be scrambled for a while, we should alert them to that fact. If we have to make them wonder what will happen next, let’s make it a pleasant surprise, instead of just a surprise.

This makes everyone happier.

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When I lift up the rug to see what’s making that lump, it’s always a toy mouse or fluffy ball which RJ hid there so he can pretend to discover it later. A few years ago, it would have been Mr. Bond hiding them there.

When I have to keep looking for something I thought I’d left right here, it’s usually because there was something about it that appealed to a cat, who came along and played with it until it fell behind the dresser.

This is why I keep my car keys in my purse and don’t use bookmarks with the yarn tassels on them.

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Sometimes cats hide things. Sometimes, the thing hiding was a byproduct of the cat’s activity, but they didn’t do it on purpose.

All of this activity has an impact on our environment, because that is one of the things cats do.

They change their environment to be better suited to catching prey, hiding from their own predators, and getting their drinking and sleeping needs met. In the absence of real prey, they can create their own opportunities.

The bottoms of closets, beneath the couch, or behind the fridge are all places where their toys can hide. So some of their hiding, or searching hiding places, behavior is a natural instinct they will exercise whatever their circumstances.

We will keep our cat’s mind sharp, at any age, by giving them hiding opportunities.

If our cat enjoys toys and treats presented this way, we have a fun and simple way to keep our cat happy and healthy, while playing games with their head.

It just doesn’t get any better than that.

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Yet, our senior cats still need fun and exercise.

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What can we do?

Step back. Don’t be as quick to pick them up as we were when they were younger. Do more Petting in Place.

Tone it down. We should expect our cats to nap more at this age. They will treasure a bit of squishy warmth, like a blanket or Thermal Cat Mat.

Use signals. Our senior cat can have an exaggerated startle reflex; they might not be as good as sensing incoming input as they used to be. So try to alert them to our approach, so they can enjoy it, and know it is us.

Pace them. Come up with quiet ploys, like hiding a toy.

Treat them. As they age, their nutritional needs can change. Let them make some new choices. We can find a special food to get them excited about mealtime if they are jaded by the offerings lately.

Spoil them. Our senior cat needs to hear that they are always Our Special One. Giving them something for the other cats to admire is a wonderful way to share a bonding moment.

We can do a lot to help our senior cat.

Read more my senior cat posts.

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Well, kinda.

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When we see cats playing with wrapping paper or electrical cords or rubber bands or pencil erasers, we can be forgiven for assuming cats don’t care what they play with. But then they ignore what we think is a wonderful toy that we got them, special. What is going on?

Some of what the cat likes is the qualities of the materials. Crumpled paper is easy for a cat to handle, and sheets or boxes of it tend to make wonderful hiding places for potential prey. Likewise, electrical cords can intertwine and look like branches in nature, which can have prey hiding in them.

It might be subtle, like the sparkle of a foil toy. It might be obvious, like a toy mouse made of rabbit fur. But somewhere there is a prey, or a prey habitat, resemblance. Or our cats would not be so interested in it.

We can make something look right.

We can make something act right.

If we combine both ways of catching the cat’s interests, we will be sure to trip the cat’s prey instincts. The foil toy mimics the shine of a beetle’s carapace. The crackly toy sounds like small prey, walking. The round ball bounces unpredictably.

I added body parts to the denim cat toy on the end of a Kitty Tease, and interest increased even more. The flexible fiberglass of this wand toy’s construction makes it easy to mimic the wavering flight of some insect in the house. It also can make the same sound fluttering against a bookcase side or storage cabinet as the genuine article will.

The shredded denim is already an excellent substitute for such prey, as it frays into body extensions. Adding a thorax (with some differently colored twine) or adding eyes (with a scrap of tough rubber) or wings (lace scraps) or legs (some glittery cord that does not detach, only shred) are all easy additions to most toys we can do ourselves.

Here’s some tips to use in casting and directing our cat toy “actors” to help the cat take an interest in the play:

Good casting. This works for looks and acts, because the most lifelike bug in the world is less fun if it just lies there. If we can make it mimic the moves of real prey, we can interest the cat in a scrap of cloth or paper.

Increasing the look of the cat toys to resemble prey will help the cat with “self play,” where they act as both shooter and goalie, and will give them incentive to have fun with their toy.

Steady exposure. We will teach the cat about their toy if we add our interest to theirs. We bond with our cat when we share play.

We can make it more interesting to both of us if we talk about the prey, having them dart around the table legs with taunting directed at our cat. Or perhaps some cats like playing Godzilla, where we have little prey going about their business, when suddenly, Godzilla!

This gets us to talk to our cat. We will add a verbal element to their understanding. We will open communication doors.

A daily play session with such mutually enjoyable elements will create a routine that our cats, and ourselves, will look forward to playing.

Respect for the process. We must “direct our play” for our cats to get the most from it. Let our cat toy actors indulge in scenery chewing death scenes from our favorite movies and games.

We both enjoy some dramatic emoting. This, too, is dramatic realism.

I mean, after the cat has been taunted like that. It was bound to happen.

By having a surprise discovery, a thrilling chase, and a melodramatic ending, we will see our cats gain maximum benefits. It’s also vital exercise, mental stimulation, and learning opportunities.

Go on. When’s the last time we had fun with our cat?

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These are signs our cat might be cheating on us.

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We might be surprised at how often and easily an outdoor cat can create a network of people they visit for food, attention, and love.

A friend of mine did not realize her distinctively marked cat had claimed another family until picking up her pictures at the local drug store. Another women in line caught sight of them, exclaimed over how much that cat looked like hers, and it turned out my friend was only this cat’s evening family. While the house was empty all day, the cat was spending time with his “other” family, who had small children and a stay at home mother.

Over the years, I have heard so many similar stories I can only regard it as yet another way cats, despite their reputation for aloofness, really do have a bottomless well of affection for those who treat them properly.

We might be part of a cat’s network ourselves. Is there a neighborhood cat who is willing to be petted? Has they convinced us they are hungry so we leave some food out for them? Do they seem to appear at the same times every day? Do we decide the cat’s fed and cared for appearance means they do have a home somewhere?

Well, they might. Or, they might not.

Intrepid, friendly cats can find enough welcoming spaces in a neighborhood so that they can stay warm and fed and petted, putting up the successful appearance of “being owned” so well that everyone assumes they are.

Often, this cat situation is only exposed when the cat is involved in an accident, and it is discovered that no one really owns this cat. Hopefully, enough people care to get them back on their feet again, and they are allotted a real home. I know a few people who got their cats this way.

Unexpected events can happen another way, too. When we move, we take our outdoor cat. If our outdoor cat has another family, they can move away, and take “our” cat with them.

Then there’s the famous case of the British cat nicknamed Macavity, who uses public transportation as part of his daily round. His destination? A local fish and chip shop.

These examples illustrate how little control we have over what our cat gets up to when they are outside and unsupervised. Some of these adventures can be benign, even amusing, but some are not.

After all, it’s the friendly cat who is most easily acquired by those who don’t have good intentions, as well as those who do.

Just another aspect of the indoor/outdoor argument.

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I ran across these sobering statistics from the Humane Society of the United States:

Number of cats and dogs reclaimed by owners from shelters each year:
Between 600,000 and 750,000—30 percent of dogs and 2-5 percent of cats entering shelters (HSUS estimate)

That’s right. Almost a third of dogs get back to their owner through the shelter. And, tops, 5% of cats.

What creates this raging retrieval disparity?

I found a clue in an article about the registered pet names in Tacoma, Washington. Remember, these are cats that the owners took the trouble to license:

No name – 202 : Tigger – 75 : Smokey – 72 : Max – 66 : Shadow – 63 : Tiger – 62 : Baby – 60 : Kitty – 58

By far the most popular option is not giving the cat a name at all. And that’s kinda pathetic.

One of the misconceptions that drives me to action is the fact that too many people see cats as interchangeable and disposable. People think cats are not affectionate or responsive.

Don’t they know how loving and interactive cats can be? Sadly, no. Yet the only reason they don’t enjoy optimal cat closeness is because… they don’t know how.

So I see a lot of unrealized potential out there.

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I’m sure most of my readers do name their cats. Their cats might have a name that is more than one word long. Their cats probably have at least a few nicknames, too.

How many of us had a childhood toy or stuffed animal… with a name? What about our first car? Corporations of all sizes spend millions of dollars to figure out the right name, because it can mean a great deal to the success of the final product.

Because when we care about something, we name it with care.

To bloom and become interactive, all cats require the confidence to feel their overtures will be reciprocated, and the atmosphere that will give them the proper feedback to expand those first gestures.

To recognize that there is a unique and interesting personality lurking in our cat; we need a real name. They need a real name.

It seems like a small thing, but it’s really the first step.

Because without it; nothing happens.

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Since a cat’s carnivorous digestion is designed to utilize every bit of their wild meals, a problem can spread through their system quickly. So cats will interpret every quiver of discontent as a signal to dump this meal: now. Even if that signal comes from anxiety, noise, or something not associated with their food.

James Bond had the nickname of “Hurl Boy” because he used to throw up every day. This led me to research his food, and cut way down on the grains in his diet. He’s doing fine now, though mental stress will still lead him to gulp down his food, and then return it in much the same shape.

There’s a few other things we can try.

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Probiotics are now being suggested for cats, as well as people. These are beneficial bacteria, which help digest food and improve vitamin absorption. If we have a cat who has continual digestive troubles, adding probiotics to their diet might help.

It turns out the same organisms which help humans digest their food helps cats and dogs, too. Which is handy for us, since helping our cats this way is not complicated. It’s is as close as our nearest health food or drug store. Look for it in powder form to mix with their food. It is odorless and tasteless, so this is about as easy a dosing situation as we can imagine.

Can’t we just give our cats yogurt? The concentration in yogurt is low, especially compared to the portion of yogurt our cats would eat compared to what they might need. If we are serious about supplementing, we’ll think of yogurt as a treat.

Why would cats need such supplementation? Probably the same reasons we would. A spate of poor diet or diet disruption, and especially a course of antibiotics, can dwindle our natural supply of the beneficial organisms.

Another way to help our cats digestion is to see if reducing or eliminating any grains in their diet helps their symptoms. Cats have a primarily carnivorous digestive system. Grains aren’t doing them any good, because they don’t have the enzymes to do anything with the carbohydrates the grains contain. And sometimes this inability manifests itself with tummy troubles.

Try sprinkling some brewer’s yeast on their food. Most cats like the taste, and enjoy it. This is especially important when we have discovered there was a high grain content in our cat’s previous diet. Grains and other plant sources drain the B vitamins from a cat’s system, and brewer’s yeast helps put it back.

Some cats don’t seem to have trouble, no matter what food is offered, or what is in it. Yet, we might be surprised to see how better nutrition will make our cats even happier and better behaved, or that other aspects of our cat’s appetite or bathroom habits will improve.

A classic example is pica, a craving for non-food objects. Afflicted cats chow down on nylon stockings, hair ties, or even their own litter. Pica is tricky to treat, but most cases in people turn out to be triggered by inadequate nutrition of some kind. A literally “beefed up” diet with lots of protein, and no grains which can block absorption from the intestines, can moderate, or even eliminate, these crazy cravings. Even after we start with the better diet, we should take care to keep the afflicted cat away from their triggers, until they learn new stress-coping skills.

We should remember that unless our cat’s meals consist of fresh small game, we are not providing exactly what the cat would be used to getting. Purchased cat food is a recent development (last hundred years,) compared to how long we’ve had cats (last ten thousand years.)

So one of these helpers could make a big difference to our cats.

We often won’t know until we try.

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