Cat lovers are honest and down-to-earth. They have an empathy with cats and, for the majority, it extends to all animals. Surely, that is the way it is meant to be. If people are to create a decent world we have to be concerned about other species. To a cat lover, the domestic cat is a close companion and his or her connection with another animal species.
It is surely a privilege to be a companion of a domestic cat, to have earned the trust of your cat and to become emotionally connected to him or her.
I always have a sense of amazement that I am able to communicate with my cat and for him to lie on legs while I work and look up at me, his expression confirming that we have a relationship. In no way is it a false relationship. I don’t see my cat as a person. I see him as an entirely different species of animal who I have a connection with in the same way a domestic cat might make friends with a deer or a dog or some other animal. These relationships are all highly beneficial to the parties involved.
A relationship with a domestic cat is a perfect way for people to connect with nature and sense the wild. For most of us, it is as near as we can get to the wild.
So cat lovers have an empathy with cats. Why is that? There are probably a million different reasons; each one is personal to the person involved. I believe the primary reason is genetically inherited – a personality trait inherited from our parents.
To that strong starting point is added life experience. It would seem that people who have experienced difficulties in life, one way or the other, are more open to a connection with a domestic cat. I believe this to be true because difficulties chip away at human arrogance, which is a barrier to an empathic relationship with animals. The sort of personality that likes cats is not the same as that which likes dogs. The difference comes from the difference between the personalities of cats and dogs.
Although the majority of cat lovers are women there are many men who have a fantastically empathetic relationship with cats. You can sense it. Men have a different approach to their relationship to the domestic cat but the underlying empathy is the same for men and women.
As men tend to be under represented as cat lovers, I will mention a man who has a true connection with cats, Bob Tucker. He suffers himself with illness but helps his feral cats with real devotion. His writings have an intense simplicity and honesty. He has nursed a diabetic cat. Recently Kevin has contributed and I sense he has a similar character. Marc, lives and breaths cats 😉 There are many others who have visited PoC.
There are number of beautiful women regular visitors whose writings send a clear signal to readers that they have a strong empathy with cats. Reading between the lines of their articles you can sense the raw honesty.
You’ll find that cat lovers are very honest – and intelligent. There is no game playing and pretend stuff. A lot of people have a public persona that is completely different to how they behave in private. I am sure that a true cat lover is the same in private and public. This is an excellent but undervalued quality.
I believe it is honesty that allows cat lovers to cut through human arrogance to find a connection with animals.
Cat lovers are able to stand back and observe homo sapiens. I think that is a universal commonality between people who love cats. You don’t get his kind of honest appraisal from people who dislike cats.
There is still quite a lot of that mentality about. Men have to be unconventional to admit to loving cats. This is crazy, really. It indicates how skewed and stereotyped society is.
All people who love cats are connected in thought and mind. We are all friends.
Yes most true cat lovers are honest and straightforward people and they are the most caring too, the sort of people who do a good deed and not expect any reward.
I was born a cat lover, so probably inherited it from our late mother, not so my late father, he hated cats, or he said he did because it was considered unmanly in those days, to admit it.
I just knew I loved cats from the minute I could walk and get out to stroke one in the garden. I loved working in the cattery best of all when I was at the vets with boarding facilities and I loved volunteering for Cats Protection.
Most of my friends and contacts are cat lovers, we understand each other don’t we!
Lovely article and comments. and that is a great picture of Charlie.
An empathy for animals is in your blood and DNA. It would seem you inherited that. You’ve become quite an expert and international as well.
Since childhood in Mombasa(Kenya) I have always grown up with some pet in my house.As a child in Mombasa i was gifted a Siamese cat which strayed out of the house and was killed or met with an accident.We migrated to Bombay(Mumbai)in 1968 and although our residence was tiny compared to Mombasa i always did have pets, birds and squirrels.. Later we shifted residence to a larger house in Mumbai and i kept dogs, breeding a prize winning dachshund. In Mumbai, a cat accidentally came into our household in 1995 after the demise of my dachshund and since that day i have become a cat owner.My first cat was a adopted cat from a pet shop, a dying kitten that i rescued and she lived with us for 12 years, succumbing to cancer in 2007. After the death of Trixie purchased “Matahari” at a very expensive price, a decision i have never regretted as my cats have enriched my life.As a bachelor matahari and her now four year old kitten Matata provide companionship and are my non-human children.Akin to human children i do have problems with them, most notably with tomcat matata who has the bad habit of “Yowling” art odd hours and disturbing our sleep.My house-keeper Sabina has also enriched her personal life by caring for the cats and our oldest pet resident,21 year old Alexandrine parakeet “Mittoo”. I blog for hours on the computer and as a writer my cats have definitely provided the right stimulus in preventing a “Writers Bloc” syndrome, since i write on a variety of topics, now busy writing my travel blogs.To strangers my house might be a curiosity as pets outnumber humans in my house , a rare household in one of the most populated city’s on planet Earth.
Great article Michael. I love the picture of Charlie and the image you create of your relationship with him.
For me getting to know cats was quite by chance. I was never an animal person to begin with but when I lived with a cat for the first time and we really loved eachother I was completely amazed at how wonderful they are. As time has continued I have gone from being very social with lots of friends to preferring to spend time with cats. I used to go to parties and then get in trouble for spending the whole night in another room hanging out with the kittens. It honestly started to bother people. I can’t help it. If a cat walks in the room I am totally curious to meet the cat and communicate with it. I can’t help it. In the same way as a person watching tv can’t have a normal conversation because they are distracted by the TV I am the same with cats. I forget what we were talking about and start looking at the cat and invariably go over to it. I find they are more comforting than people in general. Of course there are people who are comforting but for example – this evening I am working in my living room on a new bike I just had shipped to me. Gigi is lying on the floor next to me sniffing each nut and bolt I put down. I talk to her about what I’m doing and show her all the pieces and she sniffs them. Just like Gigi in Canada used to do – I am totally at home in this situation and I wouldn’t want a person here to distract me from what I’m doing and the time I am spending with my cats.
I can use another metaphor for the freedom I get from this. I often prefer to listen to music without words, or even just sounds of the rainforest or some such things that don’t have words or human straight line thinking in them. To me it is more liberating. There are no words and I don’t have the specific meaning of sentences to deal with, just natural sounds that give me energy to do what I am doing. Cats are the same for me. They are so intimate and yet so natural and I feel very close to them and very natural within myself. I can really relate to the way they communicate and act and react to things. I feel like I am somehow very similar to them. Same goes in the context of a room full of people and a cat. I feel sometimes more like I am looking at what is going on from the similar angle of the cat. Away from the words and meaning – and in a more simple view of the way people look and the sounds they make and the energy they give off. I feel like I have somebody who understands me if there is a cat in the room.
Maybe I am just projecting and if I am then it’s a need I have and cats are a part of it. But I get tired of all the words and politics and I have so much energy for things that are more simple and without those complexities. I think our culture has led us away from our own selves and our true nature as animals is something we need and which I crave. I think its the way forward. Thats just me and I know most or many people agree but stop a long way before me and I just carry on. My ex girlfriend loves cats but she still doesn’t understand that I am so satisfied to spend time with them and not invite friends over or go out. To her the cats don’t meet her needs. For me they do and I know it’s unusual but I think it’s healthy and I believe in it. I think we have kicked this planet into a toxic pool of waste and personally anything that takes me away from culture and towards what was here before it feels wonderful and right. I am proud of the fact that cats like me and trust me and want to spend time with me. Even the ones I meet randomly at other peoples houses seem to like me and for me this is something I appreciate and value very highly. To earn the trust and friendship of something of this earth and which is not toxic and cultural is a necessity and something I hold onto dearly. It’s my sanity and my peace of mind. If animals of scared of me I’d be very worried about who I am and where I am going on this planet but they seem to like me and that is what guides me.