On Cats

[Gopher]

Grace was our cream British Shorthair cat.  She sadly died a few years ago at the age of 10 from cancer.  She was a bit highly strung and certainly not a lap cat. More likely to swipe you if she was in the mood.

 

I am not sure if there is a feline equivalent to OCD, but if so Grace had it.  She had some very  regular routines and quite strange behaviours (even by cat standards).

 

One of her routines was the ceremony of the toy mice.  There were about a dozen toy mice who lived quite happily in a small plastic container in the hall.  They were different sizes and colours, and our other cats played with them occasionally.   

 

The photo below shows how Grace played with them.  She would take them out of the container, chase them around the hall (often accompanied by lots of meowing noises).  Once she had finished beating them up she would arrange them on the stairs.  There was clearly some kind of pecking order.  In the numerous times she did this, the larger orange mice were always near the top or the highest mice in her arrangement.  I think cats suffer a degree of colour blindness so I am not sure it was the colour which influenced her decision making.  The mice were normally arranged with their tails pointing down the stairs.  On a couple of occasions she added an empty egg box, and a British Legion poppy to the arrangement.  (You daren’t leave anything small in the hall – or it would eventually end up on the stairs).  My favourite moment was when we discovered a small green mouse under the sideboard in the hall.  Had probably been there for a while.  So we added it back to the others.  Grace took a special interest in this mouse. Gave it a severe talking to.  Then when she arranged her mice on the stairs, this mouse was by itself on one of the bottom steps.  A few steps below the other mice.  I am convinced she was punishing it for daring to go AWOL (even though she was probably the one who pushed it under the sideboard).

 

She would never perform the ceremony if a human or other cat was present.  In fact if she was disturbed she would stop, and head off to bed.

 

Other photo shows her as a kitten, about to embark on her chosen career.  

 

I do miss her.  Definitely one of the strangest cats I have ever known.

Edited September 13, 2020 by Gopher

[SRman]

45 minutes ago, Gopher said:

...

 

  In the numerous times she did this, the larger orange mice were always near the top or the highest mice in her arrangement.  I think cats suffer a degree of colour blindness so I am not sure it was the colour which influenced her decision making.  The mice were normally arranged with their tails pointing down the stairs. 

 

...

 

Cats and dogs are supposed to only see in monochrome, but our past cat Lucy could certainly see some colours. She would steal balls from our Christmas tree, but only blue or yellow ones, never red or green. As an aside, we had to remove all glass balls because she would drop them on the carpet then 'splat' them with a paw. All remaining balls were silk-wrapped plastic ones.

When we had friends with young chldren stay with us, Lucy stole several of their toys, things like alphabet blocks, interlocking pegs, and even a woollen doll ... every single one of them blue or yellow, or both.

There is some significance to this, seeing as the blue/yellow combination is a complementary pair, as are red and green.

[great central]

35 minutes ago, SRman said:

 

Cats and dogs are supposed to only see in monochrome, but our past cat Lucy could certainly see some colours. She would steal balls from our Christmas tree, but only blue or yellow ones, never red or green. As an aside, we had to remove all glass balls because she would drop them on the carpet then 'splat' them with a paw. All remaining balls were silk-wrapped plastic ones.

When we had friends with young chldren stay with us, Lucy stole several of their toys, things like alphabet blocks, interlocking pegs, and even a woollen doll ... every single one of them blue or yellow, or both.

There is some significance to this, seeing as the blue/yellow combination is a complementary pair, as are red and green.

 

I fail to see how anyone can say how a cat or dog, or any other animal for that matter, sees the world.

How do they know it sees in monochrome? Have they been able to interpret how the animal's brain decodes the information the eyes send to it?

I saw something a while ago that suggested a cat saw the world in a similar way to how we see a 3D film without using the red and green glasses. That being the case, how can they pick out and chase small insects much less pluck birds out of the air mid flight?

[Reorte]

7 minutes ago, great central said:

 

I fail to see how anyone can say how a cat or dog, or any other animal for that matter, sees the world.

How do they know it sees in monochrome? Have they been able to interpret how the animal's brain decodes the information the eyes send to it?

I saw something a while ago that suggested a cat saw the world in a similar way to how we see a 3D film without using the red and green glasses. That being the case, how can they pick out and chase small insects much less pluck birds out of the air mid flight?

 

They know the number and types of cells in the retina, so whilst we can never know exactly how a brain interprets the information we can get some idea of what information goes in to it in the first place.

 

The red and green example sounds a bit confused though, AFAIK there's nothing to suggest that cats don't have good stero vision. It could be referring to the colour that gets through, although I'd have thought cyan tinted spectacles would be more accurate (they'd filter out the red, which is what cats seem poor at).

 

Other cat-related things, they've got much better night vision than humans but aren't as good close up. I found that out when my cat started dragging her water bowl, something I'd not seen another cat do, and found out some do possibly because it makes the surface ripple and easier for them to locate, because they can't see it all that well. They're not so good with distant vision either.

[big jim]

Hank has a couple of favourite toys that he carry’s round then batters hell out of, what makes us laugh though is after he’s finished he will pick them up and carry them both to the food bowl and plonk them alongside for them to have a feed, of course with us having other cats the food get eaten, we can’t help thinking that He comes back and thinks the toys have had a good dinner!

 

Edited September 13, 2020 by big jim
Added photo

[Andy Hayter]

Red and green seen in monochrome against a green Christmas tree probably do not show up well.  I am not saying the cat won't see them but they may not be attractive.  Yellow will certainly show up and depending on the shade blue might well also show up well.

 

Edit to add; Monochrome and colour receptors in the eye are different and cats have no colour receptors.

Edited September 13, 2020 by Andy Hayter

[SHMD]

1 hour ago, great central said:

 

I fail to see how anyone can say how a cat or dog, or any other animal for that matter, sees the world.

How do they know it sees in monochrome? Have they been able to interpret how the animal's brain decodes the information the eyes send to it?

 

Easy enough with a dog, as they can be trained to respond in certain ways to what they "see".

 

 

Printout a card with a dotted Stag on a dotted background. Make the Stag standout with higher contrast dots. Have another card with just random dots on it.0

 

Train the dog to bark when they see the Stag on the card and be quiet if they don't see a Stag. Make a game of it and reward it with a hug and a treat every time it "sees" a Stag and, more importantly, every time it does not "see" the absent stag on the card.

 

When the animal is consistently "getting it right", printout loads of cards with different coloured dotted Stags on different coloured dotted backgrounds. Make sure the dots are always different with different colour themes. Don't forget to add none-Stag cards too.

 

Now tally up which ones it consistently gets right and which ones it "never sees" the Stag even though it is there. That will tell you which colours he dog can differentiate

 

 

Good luck with a cat though!

 

 

Kev.

 

 

[SRman]

46 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

Red and green seen in monochrome against a green Christmas tree probably do not show up well.  I am not saying the cat won't see them but they may not be attractive.  Yellow will certainly show up and depending on the shade blue might well also show up well.

 

Edit to add; Monochrome and colour receptors in the eye are different and cats have no colour receptors.

 

That might explain the Christmas ornaments, but it doesn't explain the stolen toys. She did this colour perception thing throughout her 17 year life. After she died, we found a little hoard of items she had squirreled away, all blue and/or yellow. We have never seen this in any other cats, though.

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, Andy Hayter said:

Edit to add; Monochrome and colour receptors in the eye are different and cats have no colour receptors.

 

Cats are at least bichromatic (can see two colours, yellow and blue from what I can find from a bit of quick Googling) and possibly trichromatic. They have a much lower density of colour receptors compared to us though so even the colours they can distinguish they won't be able to do as good job of it as humans.

Edited September 13, 2020 by Reorte

[big jim]

2 hours ago, SHMD said:

 

 

 

Good luck with a cat though!

 

 

Kev.

 

 

cue eddies izzards ‘pavlov’s cat’ sketch

 

 

[eastglosmog]

58 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

Cats are at least bichromatic (can see two colours, yellow and blue from what I can find from a bit of quick Googling) and possibly trichromatic. They have a much lower density of colour receptors compared to us though so even the colours they can distinguish they won't be able to do as good job of it as humans.

Yes indeed.  Just been looking it up in one of my cat books.  It says they have 25 rods per cone, compared to the 4 rods per cone in human eyes, so their perception of colour is likely to be less acute than ours. It also says that for many years Scientists believed that cats could see only in monochrome, because they found it impossible to teach them to distinguish between different colours.  However cats that have been trained for long enough are able to distinguish some colours.  Green and blue sensitive cones have been found, but not red sensitive ones.  Red probably appears as dark grey to a cat. (The book dates form 1980, so further discoveries may now have been made.)

[Classsix T]

4 hours ago, great central said:

 

I fail to see how anyone can say how a cat or dog, or any other animal for that matter, sees the world.

How do they know it sees in monochrome? Have they been able to interpret how the animal's brain decodes the information the eyes send to it?

I saw something a while ago that suggested a cat saw the world in a similar way to how we see a 3D film without using the red and green glasses. That being the case, how can they pick out and chase small insects much less pluck birds out of the air mid flight?

AIUI cats vision when hunting is primarily about detecting movement. Sound, touch and smell are vastly more attuned to nocturnal hunting.

This is demonstrated by kittens going barmy if you place a mirror for them. When they get older, because the reflected cat does not smell like a cat, it's generally ignored.

 

C6T. 

[sir douglas]

about 15 years ago we took in a stray that kept begging for food at a friend's house, we called her Garfield after how much she ate, then one day about 5 years ago she came home with a broken leg, she was old so would not likely heal or get used to living on 3 legs so she was put down, i still miss her sometimes

 

[steve1]

1 hour ago, eastglosmog said:

Yes indeed.  Just been looking it up in one of my cat books.  It says they have 25 rods per cone, compared to the 4 rods per cone in human eyes, so their perception of colour is likely to be less acute than ours. It also says that for many years Scientists believed that cats could see only in monochrome, because they found it impossible to teach them to distinguish between different colours.  However cats that have been trained for long enough are able to distinguish some colours.  Green and blue sensitive cones have been found, but not red sensitive ones.  Red probably appears as dark grey to a cat. (The book dates form 1980, so further discoveries may now have been made.)

 

Just a bit amazed at seeing the words train and teach in the same sentence as the word cats...

 

steve

[big jim]

1 hour ago, steve1 said:

 

Just a bit amazed at seeing the words train and teach in the same sentence as the word cats...

 

steve

cue hale and pace this time 

 

 

[Classsix T]

3 hours ago, steve1 said:

 

Just a bit amazed at seeing the words train and teach in the same sentence as the word cats...

 

steve

Dunno about train, but this little beauty is Roxanne, and she was one of the smartest cats I've ever known. 

She learnt what "look, up, off and out" meant, knew the ice-cream van tinkle meant a treat and could open doors with the handle and turn on the light switch. Clever girl!

 

C6T. 

[PenrithBeacon]

5 hours ago, eastglosmog said:

 

 

22 minutes ago, Classsix T said:

Dunno about train, but this little beauty is Roxanne, and she was one of the smartest cats I've ever known. 

She learnt what "look, up, off and out" meant, knew the ice-cream van tinkle meant a treat and could open doors with the handle and turn on the light switch. Clever girl!

 

C6T. 

We used to have an enormous ginger tom we called Horace who wasn't the brightest cat on the block but he would use the loo when it was wet outside.

[New Haven Neil]

Our ginger tom Lucky could turn on pull cord lights - usually in the middle of the night so we thought we were being burgled! He also tried, and occasionally could pull the fridge door open.  Issue.....    he was always overweight.

 

Little Billet the tortie had a green fetish, all her favourite toys were green.

[johnarcher]

Many years ago we got from the Cat Rescue place three siblings, Ginger (female, guess what colour), Lucky (male, black of course and Freddie (female but named after Fred Astaire, as she was black and white and danced around a lot).

Ginger was a sweetie but distinctly dim, never got the hang of a cat flap. Lucky was a nice, normal, affectionate cat, well not so affectionate to the local wildlife, he got an adult rabbit in through the cat flap once, I came down feeling a little fragile in the morning and found him eating it behind the sofa.

Freddie on the other hand was a very clever cat, she could open the fridge, stole a wedge of Edam, unwrapped it too. When one of the others knocked the ping-pong ball so that it rolled under some newspaper on the floor, two of them looked baffled, Freddie walked over, picked up the paper with one paw and hoicked the ball out with the other. When the field over the lane became part of a golf course she worked out that if she hid in the bushes and waited she could dash out and intercept the little white ball just before it went down the hole and play football with it. She also worked out that there often seemed to be angry people around for some reason, so as golfers approached she vanished rapidly.

Edited September 13, 2020 by johnarcher

[didcot]

One soggy moggy drying in front of the fire!

 

 

And the brothers look like Tiger prawns.

 

[SHMD]

George, a rescue kitten, has very kindly offered to adopt us from the local RSPCA today.

 

Here is George playing with my son.

 

 

Kev.

 

[Metr0Land]

Last Weds week I took the plunge and adopted a pair, both female, speyed and chipped.  They'd been rescued some time in July from a place that had 30 cats (don't know exact details) 15 to 1 rescue centre and 15 to another.  By the time I was looking at Many Tears Animal Rescue (mostly dogs but cats also) there were 4 left in this group who they were try to house as 4 (difficult) or 2 pairs.

 

Spangle (the smaller of the 2) is an exotic cross.  She's like a silver tabby kitten but is 6 years old and has wonderfully soft fur like a kitten - only weighs 2 kg.  She has a heart murmur and has to have a daily tablet for life.    She'd bonded strongly with Nephthys (Nephy) who's 5, and a selkirk Rex cross so I've taken a chance with the pair.

 

I've been warned Nephy may never be  lap cat, forunately Spangle comes to me for a few mins at a time.    Am guessing she'd never had any attention in her original home, and the kennel maids at the rescue centre could only give a few mins at at time.  So far 10 mins is the max cuddle I've had, more generally it's 5-6 mins but at least she's coming of her own volition.

 

Nephy is quite a heavyweight, and so far just won't allow me to touch her at all, though does now follow me around like a dog when she thinks food's in the offing.  Not sure what will happen if I need to get Nephy to a vet.  Spangle will need to go from time to time when her repeat prescription runs out, but she should be easier when the time comes.

 

In the space of just over a week they've made my territory their territory.  I don't think they'd ever seen tv before as it spooked them originally but they're getting used to it.  I don't think they'd had gold top milk before but that didn't take any getting used to!

[J. S. Bach]

Wingnut chilling out and then doing what she likes best:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 25 by J. S. Bach
To edit the post

[kevinlms]

51 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Wingnut chilling out and then doing what she likes best:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo 3. Yes, what do you want?

[37114]

These are our 2 cats, we have had them 6 months and they are now 18months old. They are sisters and came from a rescue centre in Bristol and had been found abandoned in a flat.

 

The black cat is Ruby and is a character,  she basically adores me and ignores the rest of the family.  She is a lap cat (only mine though) and has quite a menacing miaow, often reserved for my daughter when she hasn't made her bed and Ruby wants to sleep on it. She is the laziest cat I have ever known especially at such a young age.

 

The black and white cat is Lily and we were warned she wasn't a lap cat but as we knew Ruby was then we were happy to have her. She has become more friendly since we have had her and loves having her head scratched to the point she will stand on her rear legs to try and head butt your hand. I persevere trying to get her happy on laps and managed to get her to stay on my lap happily for 5 minutes yesterday so will keep trying as she is a friendly little cat. She is a useless hunter thank goodness, her school report would be "10 out of 10 for effort, 0 out of 10 for results" as she has launched her attacks from miles away