I made this from a collection of cat books I was fortunate enough to recieve on my birthday. ~WSL
~ More birds are killed annually by windows than by cats.
~ A dog sleeps on your bed because it likes you, while a cat sleeps on your bed because it likes your bed.
~ Dogs have owners, cats have staff.
~ A dog is taught by its human how to fetch, while a cat teaches its human how to throw.
~ Cats can stand up to
a heat of 120*F (or 52*C).
~ Cats cannot see in complete
darkness - no animal can.
~ A whisker only has to
move 5 nanometers (or 1/2000 of a millimetre) for a cat to know when to
take caution.
~ The Rex breed of cat
has a curly coat (with no guard hairs).
~ If a camera is set correctly,
a running cheetah can be caught on film in mid air.
~ A blind cat said to
be lost without his/her whiskers.
~ Cats have 40-50% better
night vision than humans.
~ Cats have six times
better overall eyesight than us, even though they see less colours.
~ The active chemical
in catnip is called "Nepetalactone" and it stimulates cats' hormones. The
effect it has on cats is harmless and short-lived. Because it reacts to
the cat's hormones, kitten (who are immature) are not affected by catnip's
charm.
~ When a cat plays, it
is practising and pretending to hunt.
~ A cat cannot always
land on its feet. A bad fall can easily be fatal to a cat. For this reason,
always keep windows wired shut in high-rise apartments.
~ It is easier for a cat
to get up a tree than down because of the way their retractable claws work.
One type of wild cat can turn its paw around when climbing down a tree
- it is the only exception to the rule.
~ 75% of all prey caught
by cats are mice and other small mammals.
~ 10% of all prey caught
by cats are birds.
~ 10% of all cat pounces
are successful.
~ 40% of all pounces made
by mother cats are successful. They have to be more efficient to care for
their young kittens.
~ Females with kittens
catch one prey every 1.5 hours.
~ Hungry cats increase
their success rate better than well fed cats.
~ Mother cats teach their
kittens how to kill mice by bringing home a 1/2 dead mouse to her kittens
and killing it in front of them.
~ The hunting basics are
in a cats instinct, killing its prey is acquired.
~ A cat will recognize
you by sight, sound and smell.
~ Cats, except for lions,
who live in prides, are solitary creatures.
~ A loser in a cat fight
will be the one running away.
~ Messages portrayed by
the scent in a cat's spray are those of gender, hormone status, health,
strength, timing and even more things that humans cannot comprehend.
~ Females and neutered
cats do spray, but the smell of an intact male cat is unmistakable and
the scent can still be smelt two weeks later (depending on weather conditions)
and on a still day - the scent can be smelt by another cat over 40 ft (12m)
away.
~ A cat can breathe n
and out while meowing.
~ Cats can make over sixteen
vocal patterns which are placed in three categories. Generally speaking:
Murmurs are purrs and chirps. Strained intensities are growls, hisses,
snarling, a cat's noises when in heat, spittle and cries of pain. Vowels
are mews and meows.
~ Even indoor cats grow
a thicker coat in the wintertime.
~ An unneuterred male
is called a "tom", while an unneuterred female is called a "queen".
~ Not having a female
spayed can cause health problems, even if she never gets pregnant.
~ Tomcats have drastically
reduced life spans due to roaming.
~ Cats have REM (Rapid
Eye Movement) sleep just as humans do (in other words, they dream).
~ It is suspected that
cats dream about catching prey.
~ Older cats wake up faster
than kittens, but need the same amount of sleep.
~ Plenty of cats toys
(or better yet, a cat friend) will deter a cat from beng disruptive.
~ If a cat isn't entertained
with items such as cat toys, it will go into kitty destructive mode.
~ Proper identification
of your kitty is a great way to ensure its safety, talk to your vet about
microchipping and get your kitty a collar with a tag on it with your name,
its name and your phone number.
~ A cat's ears can rotate
180*.
~ Cats have floating shoulder
blades which allow them to walk with one paw directly in front of another
one.
~ Cat have scent glands
concentrated around their tails, heads and paws. In fact, cats sweat through
their paws as well.
~ Scratching leaves both
a visual and a scent mark on cats' territory. A scratching post will give
a cat a better place to scratch than the chesterfield or the wallpaper.
