As at the date of this post, the top article as found by Google tells us that Siamese cats get along famously with other cats. This is an incorrect answer. In respect of this aspect of feline behaviour, Siamese cats are no different from any other domestic cat either purebred or random-bred. An individual …
Although, sometimes, domestic cats do walk behind their owners for a relatively short distance (a behaviour characteristic that I explain below), in general, it is fundamentally alien to domestic cats to walk with their owner on a lead like a dog on those nice country walks in the park. If you could talk to …
A 2002 book on the wild cats tells me that “like most felids, pumas live alone, and apart from associations for mating purposes the only prolonged contact is between females and their kittens” (Wild Cats of the World page 260). That opening sentence on the social organisation of the puma a.k.a. mountain lion appears, …
Most wild cats lead solitary lives. Except for cheetahs and lions, adult wild cats live and hunt separately. By contrast, we know that the purpose of domestic cats is not to be solitary but to engage with humans and other animals including animals of the same species. We must therefore distinguish between wild and …
The title might seem absurd. But I don’t think it is absurd to consider racism in other species, or the central core of racism: colour prejudice. And that phrase “colour prejudice” is an interesting one because with respect to domestic cats, although it has never been studied directly, there is no evidence for colour …
Part of the following news headline is wrong: “Cats recognise owners’ voices, they just choose to ignore them”. The headline from the Metro newspaper is a reference to a Japanese study that was published a while ago (Domestic cats (Felis catus) discriminate their names from other words – lead scientist: Atsuko Saito). In essence, …
The basic conclusion, fair or otherwise, of a recent study is that unlike dogs cats will not side with their owners against the “enemy”. Dogs shun people who behave negatively towards their owner whereas cats don’t. Perhaps the more scientific conclusion, to use the language of the study, is that domestic cats don’t ‘evualate’ …
People are using Google’s search engine to find out if tigers should be housed together when in captivity. And the answer is no because tigers are solitary animals. A zoo needs to replicate, as best they can, what happens in the wild. Clearly they are unable to do it because in captivity they normally …
