There is a clash of cultures between felines and humans and it’s been used to generate an amusing Twitter thread started by a guy whose name is Christopher Ingramham. He claimed that his cat was the world’s worst. Christopher has a baby and his cat barges into his toddler’s room at 6 a.m. in the morning to wake him up which then wakes Christopher up. Christopher said in a tweet:
He literally throws himself against the door until it flies open. The pounding terrifies the two-year-old, who starts screaming. Then once we are up the cat goes tear-assing through the house because he knows if we catch and we’ll toss him outside.
His tweet motivated others to follow and they claim that their cat is the world’s worst. One of them complained that his cat did the same thing that Christopher’s did.
My cat did this for months at 4 a.m. until I finally figured out it was him and started putting up a baby gate he was too lazy to jump over.
Another said his cat whose name is “Horrible Henry” can be very destructive. He said that he spends each night in his bachelor pad which is a car in the garage. He attacked some sunflower seeds and knocked over his cup of coffee.
Another complained that he had not slept a full night in bed for over a year because he had been consistently woken up by his cat.
My horrible boy climbs the door frame in the dead of night and dive bombs my groin like a pro wrestler.
And yet another complained that his cat stares at him in an evil way until he gets up and feeds him.
A woman who depends upon a continuous positive airway pressure machine (CPAP), which I presume is to help with breathing, complains that her cat likes to chew through the hose which has left it with pinholes throughout its length. She complains that she is going to die from lack of air due to her cat.
The thread running through this online conversation is domestic cats waking people up in the early hours of the morning. This is quite typical of domestic cats and reflects what I said in the title namely that felines have a different culture to that of humans. They like to be active at night.
Mine jumps on top of me at 5:30 every morning and starts kneading his paws. He was a rescued feral, so at first I thought it was cute. I created a lovable monster. – another contributor to the Twitter conversation
To return to the title. There are two major cultural differences between felines and humans. First, as mentioned, is that they like to be active at night which is when they hunt (cat crepuscular activity). And hunting is the second cultural difference. This leads them to be destructive by human standards. They are just using their teeth and claws in play. For a cat hunting is play and if they can’t hunt a real animal they’ll use something else which is lying around the house. Boredom is a factor too. They need a challenge. They find something to kill. Destroying stuff is killing prey.
People who want to look after a domestic cat have to accept this cultural shock if it’s the first time that they’ve looked after a cat. I’m convinced that a lot of people who give up cats because of what they perceive as cat behavioural problems are simply unable to accept this difference in culture.
Source: Daily Mail.
