Would you like to come back as a cat?

By Ruth

How often do we hear someone say: ‘If I have to be reborn on this earth I hope I come back as a cat’ (domestic cat). Well, to me that’s the daftest wish of all to make, because cats are the most vulnerable, misunderstood and mistreated animals of all.

cats in the kitchen
Poster by Ruth aka Kattaddorra
Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

Too many people expect cats to behave like humans, they call them ‘bad cats’ for simply doing what comes naturally to a cat. Then the poor creatures are punished! Shouted at, squirted at with various liquids, scruffed, tapped on the nose, hit, kicked, shut in a cage, shocked by scat mats, relinquished to a Shelter, abandoned, the list of the dreadful things that can happen to a cat because of cruel or ignorant people, is endless.

Take jumping up onto the kitchen worktop, the cat doesn’t know it’s wrong, he likes to be up a height, if he doesn’t have a high perch of his own to sit on, who can blame him for sitting on the worktop? It’s cruel to punish a cat for wanting to sit up high.

Take scratching, this is essential to a cat for his health and contentment, he needs to scratch to exercise his muscles, so it’s natural that if he isn’t provided with his own scratching post he uses the furniture or the carpet. He doesn’t deserve to be yelled at, or declawed!

Take wanting to to be let out early in the morning, well of course he does, cats are crepuscular. Humans have taken most of his wildness from him but his deep instinct tells him dawn is a good time for hunting.

Take wanting doors open, it’s natural too that he wants freedom to move around, to go out and to come in when he wants to. He can’t open the doors himself can he!

Take walking away from perfectly good food, well we can’t blame him for that either, we have a choice of what we eat, he has to rely on us and if it’s something he doesn’t fancy then why should he have to eat it or go hungry?

A cat has to adjust to our lifestyle and for his own safety and welfare we have to have a few rules. Even if it’s a safe area where he lives and he can have some freedom, a good caretaker will keep him in at night and when no one is home. This rule followed from kittenhood becomes routine and he accepts it.

He also accepts when he is put in his cat basket and taken to the vet, he has no choice. But he should be treated gently, not just picked up and shoved in. We need to put ourselves in a cat’s place now and again and imagine how we would feel in the same position. We need to get down on the floor sometimes and look at the world from his viewpoint.

Some people think cats should be grateful for a home, some even think the sacrifice of their claws is a small price to pay to be ‘allowed’ to live with them. But why should cats be grateful, they didn’t ask us to take over their lives, take their reproductive organs from them, take their freedom, rule their lives!

Yes we do these things for their own good and because we can, but it doesn’t make it right and I for one would never wish to come back to this earth as a cat, that’s for sure.

Ruth aka Kattaddorra

Comment from Michael

If I could ensure that I came back as a cat into a nice home with loving cat guardians, I’d chose to come back as a cat. I think a cat’s life under those circumstances is better than many human lives.

P.S. This post has been re-dated and brought forward as I think it is worth it. The other day I told myself I’d rather be my cat! Well that’s why I re-dated it.

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34 thoughts on “Would you like to come back as a cat?”

  1. aww loved what you said syliva made me cry too, how much compassion and empthy and love you have for all cats kindest wishes xx

    Reply
  2. Written in your always beautiful language, Ruth. If only what you describe weren’t true.

    Do you remember the little girl I told you about, the waif who came to the house two mornings after the end of my boy? I was down at the end of the garden when I noticed her from a hundred-foot distance, ambling towards the gate in the driveway. The pitiful little wisp of life turned around several times as if to leave, but – having nowhere to go – shortly came back and stood there at a loss, gazing into the emptiness across the road and beyond the fields, down to the river, beyond the bay and out to the ocean. She didn’t sit. She just stood there in her profound isolation, confronted by the immensity of Nature and its immense indifference, the back of her head no bigger than an apricot, and her shoulder-blades protruding through her skin like parallel disks.

    I went out to fetch her – she couldn’t have weighed more than two pounds, though she was nearly full-grown – made up a warm bed in the tool shed, put her in there and gave her some canned cat food. God have mercy – only he hasn’t. Her eyes streamed green mucus and her legs, smaller around than my fingers, could barely support her. During the night she hid herself under some loose planks in the floor, although the next morning she’d climbed into her bed.I minced some raw steak, which she ate. But she was so weak and coughed so badly, I feared for Ethel (I’d wrapped my boots in plastic bags), and took the little souls away, gently lifting her into a cage – she tried to resist but was too frail – and had her put to sleep. Horrendous? Yes. But I’d shot my bolt, Ruthie.

    Was she unique? No. They’re all over the place down here. The only cure to what would turn into misanthropy is to visit a vet clinic and see the parents who care about their kids.

    I agree with you and your sister, though. In the animal world, there are more scenes of helpless misery than there are sunbeams. Your article and poster said it all.
    xx

    ps To Babz: Card on way, but it’ll be LATE. To top it off, you’ll think I scavenged it from the dump. It got drenched in a cloudburst as I dashed for the car, and one side of the envelope split wide open — we’re talking a gaping barn-door effect. I tried to Scotch-tape it, but doubt it’ll hold. xx

    Reply
    • Thank you Sylvia, my article might have sounded too pessimistic but that’s the way it is, there are numerous cats suffering on this earth and too many people thinking it’s not important.
      Yes I remember you writing about that poor little cat, you have a heart of gold for all you do there for the ones you can help and I know, like the rest of us who love cats, that it breaks your heart that you can’t help them all x

      Reply
    • Sylvia Ann, that was the most heartfelt, beautifully poetic eulogy I’d ever read. Thank you so much.

      And after finding this comment to Ruth(Kattaddorra) from above, I would just like to quote it:
      “In the animal world, there are more scenes of helpless misery than there are sunbeams.”
      -Sylvia Ann.

      Reply
    • Hi Sylvia, your post brought tears to my eyes, sadly this is the reality of life for so many unwanted, unknown & unloved cats and kittens, life isn’t a bed of roses for cats in any country is it? I’m sure that poor little soul was grateful for the sad duty you performed for her, sometimes oblivion must be better than constant hunger and suffering. Thanks very much for remembering my birthday and going to such trouble to get a card in the post, it might never get here but the thought and deed was so kind that even if I don’t see it I can feel the love behind the gesture. You’re a good, if slightly nutty, woman, the world would be a better place for more Sylvia Ann’s xx

      Reply
  3. And what about when he wants to climb up your pant leg on a workday before you have changed into jeans. That’s not his fault, is it. Either consider it endearing or make sure you change into jeans after he greets you and you pick him up. 😉 Another option, distract him with a playtoy while you engage with him, any time he tries to climb up you if you don’t like that behavior. It says more about you as his playmate; he wants to engage with you because he missed you (probably hungry or wants to rest on your shoulder or in your arms).

    Reply
    • I don’t care what I’m wearing, I can’t wait to interact with our boyz the minute I get home, the neighbours probably think I’m crazy shouting ‘Won’t be long’ when I go out and ‘Hellooo I’m back’ when I come in lol

      Reply

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