cat domestication – Michael Broad

Cats would be better pets if they weren’t great predators

September 21, 2023 by Michael Broad

The domestic cat is a top predator. Should we live with them?

Many cat owners might say that their domestic cat companion is an excellent pet. I’m going to say something which is almost heretical and something which sounds anti-cat as if said by a cat hater. But I’m not; I am a cat lover and a realist. And with that character trait, I have to …

Living with companion animals has not worked out and it needs to be re-evaluated

September 16, 2023September 16, 2023 by Michael Broad

Cat and dog domestication has not worked out as planned

Some people think that it is time to give up our cats and dogs as it is unethical and their domestication not worked out well. It’s time to end it. This would apply to other animals as well. It’s a whopping suggestion. It’s probably entirely impractical seeing as there are probably up to 500 …

The discovery that disproved that the Ancient Egyptians were the first to domesticate the wild cat

September 5, 2023 by Michael Broad

Credits:

The picture is deemed to be in the public domain
The words at the base of the image are from The Taming of the Cat published on the PMC Pub Med Central website.
Citation: Driscoll CA, Clutton-Brock J, Kitchener AC, O’Brien SJ. The Taming of the cat. Genetic and archaeological findings hint that wildcats became housecats earlier–and in a different place–than previously thought. Sci Am. 2009 Jun;300(6):68-75. PMID: 19485091; PMCID: PMC5790555.
Link to study.

P.S. I have one comment. It is possible that the cat in the image was tame and not truly domesticated whereas the Ancient Egyptians domesticated the cat.

The reason why humans and their pets might never have existed

September 1, 2023September 1, 2023 by Michael Broad

Early humans might have been wiped out by catastrophic climate change as their population had dwindled to less than 1300 adults of reproductive age because of droughts according to research.

There is an interesting article in The Times today, Friday, September 1, 2023 which I would like to discuss briefly. The title is “Early humans were on brink of extinction”. Remarkably the research that Kaya Burgess reports on found that the population of Homo sapiens’ ancestors dwindled to less than 1300 adults about 900,000 …

What is the difference between a pet cat and a wild cat?

August 28, 2023 by Michael Broad

African wildcat versus tabby domestic cat

The question seems innocuous and the answer obvious but the explanation is not quite as simple as people might expect. The comparison will be to the pet cat’s wild cat ancestor. Here is my answer for what it is worth. Please add yours in a comment. The difference between a pet cat and a …

Are dogs better than cats at killing rats?

July 19, 2023July 15, 2023 by Michael Broad

Terriers and farmers go ratting and the dogs love it and are aggressively fearless in contrast to most domestic cats today.

My conclusion is that dogs are better than cats at killing rats; specifically, the Jack Russell terrier is better than any cat breed and even the moggie. One commentor (see base of page) said that dogs need to be trained to be efficient ratters but don’t find that very convincing as dogs are predators …

All of today’s 600 million domestic cats descend from at least 5 female wildcats

July 4, 2023 by Michael Broad

African wildcat compared with domestic cat

It is an astonishing thought. About ten thousand years ago at least five different individual female cats of the Near Eastern wildcat (aka North African wildcat) population living in the savannah had the courage to overcome their fear of humans to live in an agricultural settlement in the river-rich lands that form an arc …

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