Cat Facts
Felines prefer foods at body temperature: the temperature of freshly killed prey. They also prefer their food cut in to ¼ inch chunks ( when they are sick & need to be tempted.) & did you know that 60% of all felines like cold tomato juice? I’ve tried V-8 & it doesn’t seem to be at all tempting. They use this trick to entice kidney-failure felines to drink more liquids.
Felines are either right or left handed, showing a distinct preference for six paw over the other.
A healthy domestic cat can reach speeds up to 31 miles/hour, but can’t maintain that sprinting speed for over a minute.
A cat licks their fur to keep chilled in hot weather. Like canines, they sweat only through the pads of their feet.
The cat’s whiskers are specially adapted to act as antennae. They are used to navigate, to detect movement & to judge the width of an opening. Whiskers are also an indicator of mood—when the whiskers are back, the cat is annoyed, so watch out. Some people think finding a whisker is lovely luck. I know six woman who is a millionaire that has a cat whisker collection!
Each cat ear is controlled by 32 muscles & can turn 180 degrees. Humans have only 6 muscles, so it’s harder to make our ears wiggle. Cat ears that are facing back or folded down are ticked off, so watch out.
A cat’s fur has 60,000 hairs per square inch on the back & 120,000 hairs per square inch on the underside—No wonder cat owners have to empty their vacuum bags every time! Shedding is controlled by hormones & ambient temperature as well as light—even artificial light. Nervous felines shed more—especially when they get stuffed in to a carrier & hauled off to the vet’s office.
Felines are highly territorial. A domesticated cat’s territory encompasses 150 acres. Apparently their acres intermingle as they see about six felines in our backyard every day as they make their rounds. Only six is ours—there’s lots of neat cat entertainment stuff in our yard.
Jump ability: The human equivalent of the cat’s ability to leap would 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. Of coursework this means they can smell when you don’t neat the litter box every day & 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, & 30% in awake time. I’ve noticed that part of this wake time coincides with the human’s sleep time. This annoys the cat. This could be why my cat, Dagney, wakes me up about 2 a.m. every morning by sticking her paw in my mouth. Bleck! Felines attain full alertness faster than any other creature.
Milk Drinking: Most adult felines lack the enzymes necessary to digest milk, so if you must give your cat milk, be sure to give them only a couple teaspoons at a time. Yep—too much milk definitely gives the cat gas & sometimes diarrhea. It’s lovely to coordinate the milk-giving ceremony with your partner so that the cat does not double-dip.
Dieting: Neutered & spayed felines need fewer calories than intact felines do. A lovely rule of thumb is ½-3/4 cups per cat per day for lower quality foods & 1/3 cup per cat per day for the higher quality foods such as IAM’s, Max Cat, & Nutranuggets. Putting fat felines on starvation diets can kill them because the liver fat breaks down rapid causing a condition called ketosis.
Skin Disease: I’ve noticed in my naturopathic practice that cat’s with skin disease like fish flavors. Felines with liver & kidney disease like Chicken & Giblet or foods with liver & kidney in them. Cat’s with heart disease like heart-based foods. When the condition is repaired, they stop eating that particular flavor of food.
Hearing: Human beings can hear sounds up to 20,000 Hertz (cycles per second), canines can hear up to 40,000 Hertz, & felines can hear up to 100,000 Hertz. Felines can even hear electrical currents in cords. brilliant, huh?
Psychic: In China, felines have been used successfully as earthquake predictors for years.
Felines are color blind, but only need 1/6th of the light that humans need to see.
Cat digits: Felines have six toes on their front paws & six on their back. A poly dactyl cat has over the normal number of toes. Poly means lots of & dactyl means fingers (your Latin lesson for the day.) Poly dactyl felines are known by various names - "mitten felines," "thumb felines," "six-finger cats" & "Hemingway felines." Hemingway felines were named after Ernest Hemingway who shared his home island with 50 felines, including a 6-toed polydactyl given to him by a ship captain; the felines bred & the poly dactyl trait became common. Hemingway's colony of felines was free-breeding with the local cat population & the ratio of poly dactyl felines to normal-toes felines was about 50/50. There is a high rate of poly dactyl felines in Boston, MA & in Portland, OR. I am liking poly dactyl felines as they seem to be friendly & tolerant of humans of all ages.
Why spay your cat? A single pair of felines & their offspring can produce as lots of as 420,000 felines in six years, felines like to hear whispering.
Felines show the following signs when stressed: Over-grooming, lack of grooming, self-mutilation, vocalization, aggression, listlessness, loss of appetite, depression. The product Feliway is an excellent product to alleviate stress for felines in new situations or in multi-cat environments where they don’t have space to make them feel comfortable.
Feliway is a synthetic cat pheromone use to control inappropriate urine marking behavior & to reassure felines in weird surroundings.
Cat Communication: Felines interpret a smirk that shows teeth as aggression. This may be six reason why a cat will always go to the person who hates felines (they don’t smirk at the cat or make direct eye contact!)