 The
Cat's Meow
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| Issue 8, vol 5 | The Cat Goes Domestic | September 25, 2006 |
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The Family Cat - Pet or Wild Animal?
Cats and dogs have long been an integral part of many families. Cats are only second to dogs in popularity as family pets. But of course, cats haven't always been the domesticated household animal that we know today. It's difficult to trace the origin of cats, but some scientists believe that the original predecessor of cats was a weasel like animal called Miacis, which inhabited earth about 40 million or 50 million years ago. Actually, Miacis is thought to be the common ancestor of all land-dwelling carnivores, including both cats and dogs. But apparently the cats were on earth before dogs -- millions of years before the first dogs. The first appearance of the prehistoric cats is Smilodon, the saber-toothed cat sometimes called a tiger. Cats were not as easily domesticated as dogs ( and I am a good example for that..smile smile). These animals had strong hunting intuition which didn't easily translate into co-operative instincts. Initially, cats brought their hunting instincts into the home, even attacking small babies. The early domestication of cats occurred primarily in Africa and southeastern Asia. In early days, cats served many purposes in homes, none of which were decorative. Cats were domesticated for their hunting skills, in the hopes that they would control vermin (rats and mice) in the home, barns and especially in the valuable grain storage containers. One of the cultures that first seemed to accept, and even revere cats were the ancient Egyptians (ah - the good old days). Of course, the Egyptians used cats to hunt fish and birds, as well as control vermin populations in granaries. But the cat also took on a new place of importance in Egypt's religion. An off-shoot of the traditional religious movement developed which worshipped cats. The cat goddess Bastet (also identified as Bast of Pasht) was represented with a figurine of a head of a cat. Cats quickly became sacred to the Egyptians; they were well cared for in the family home and once the cat died, its body was mummified and buried in a special cemetery. One cemetery found in the 1800s contained the preserved bodies of more than 300,000 cats. The Egyptian cat is the predecessor of many of our modern day breeds of cat. Although the Egyptians had strict laws prohibiting the export of the sacred cat, other cultures quickly came to appreciate the cat's rat-catching prowess. Cats were soon smuggled or taken out of Egypt and brought to Greece and Rome, among other parts of Europe. At the same time, domestic cats were found in India, China, and Japan where they served as pets as well as rodent catchers. Over time cat's changed and certain breeds were bred for ideal characteristics: eye color, hair length, marking patterns, etc. These many different varieties of cat can all claim ancestors in the wild, even if today they are mostly used in homes as a cuddly (well, I am cuddly, but don't tell my folks. I'll give them about 30 seconds and than I have to run again and do my "chores"), loving pet (oh yes, I sure am loving...or so my mom tells me all the time, even if I don't want to hear it...purrh, purrh). Jaynne Nicols partnered with Ghanji Sourcier to write about cats. Ghanji is a feline that has his own website at A Cat Site. He also just created his new blog. His first article about cat doors is published at eZine Articles. Jaynne Nicols has done a lot of research into illness and why we get ill. One of the things she came across is that almost all illness starts in your colon. Sign up for her free newsletter at Health and Wellness in the 21st Century and learn more in and through her series on health issues.
Reprinted from Arcamax Cats & Dogs |
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Barbwire
Cats |
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Part One: Clayton’s Story (continued from previous issue) In 1941 The Great Attack came to Barbwire, California. This attack was a boundless ocean of rats and Barbwire was going to need every single kitty-cat it could get its hands on! On March 28th the call to arms was sounded. By April 16th, exactly 5,297 cats were at the staging area two miles away from Barbwire. The counter-attack was set for the next day, April 17 ... Installment 4 Lounging contentedly in five hundred roomy and comfy transport cages, the pointy-eared little warriors were cool and nonchalant. They stayed loose by playing Chase & Tumble, Who Can Nap The Longest, and Who Can Lick The Highest Spot On Their Own Back. And since not a single one of the 5,297 cats showed any sign of tension, the people taking care of them naturally assumed that the cats were just plain too dumb to know what they were up against. And as always, the cats could not possibly have cared any less about what the humans thought! But a mere two miles wasn’t far enough to dispel the vile, evil stench of three million rats. The diminutive warriors all knew exactly why they were here. And nothing, absolutely nothing, could possibly have pleased them more. They’d come here to this ancient desert to face their equally ancient enemy. And every individual cat was attended by a time-shrouded feeling, a shadowy sense, of having been here, or someplace very much like this before, perhaps even more than once. The cats were grouped into five divisions of just over a thousand cats per division. The divisions were placed in a circle around our town. When they closed for the attack, they would leave the rats little room for escape. The cats were outnumbered by roughly three hundred and fifty thousand to one! And ya know what? It didn’t matter at all to them. Even if there’d been just one cat, all by her lonesome, she’d have been ecstatic to fight them. For this was exactly what they’d been put here for. At precisely 04:30 the transport doors were opened. The war had begun. The enemy was taken totally by surprise. Their reflexes had been slowed by eating and sleeping all day long for a month and a half, enjoying the good-life. Not that it really made a lot of difference. Even in tip-top shape, the rats would have been no match for the battalions of fanged fury that charged lethally into their midst. Bite, shake, and toss. Bite, shake, and toss. With quick, rhythmic, neck-breaking efficiency, the grim-faced soldier-cats moved forward like a wildfire into the shoulder-deep, undulating sea of rats. Some rats did manage to organize into small pockets of fierce resistance. Sadly, one brave little soul, a two year old Tuxedo Cat from Philadelphia, named Bond, was hopelessly cornered by thirty of the foul creatures. And quickly assessing her impossible situation, she allowed herself a brief instant to remember her beloved human-family back home, then with her teeth and claws fiercely bared, and a proud roar of fury, she cut down twenty-five more rats before being felled. Others of the brave little lions were lost when they too became separated from their fellows and were surrounded. But by all accounts, every one of the fallen kitties had acquitted themselves, and their entire race, with the greatest honor possible. By 17:30 the evening on April 19th, the last of the fighting was finally mercifully over. Three million rats lay slain. Dozens of humans had witnessed the bloodbath with complete awe from a nearby hilltop. And except for the men and women who would later see our American troops fight their way onto enemy held beaches, no one could ever say they’d ever seen anything like it. Two hundred cats had made the ultimate sacrifice, another two hundred were injured, and they were all completely exhausted. Wounded cats were treated and sent home in first-class style. Many went home by their own private Army ambulance, others by train. The dead were respectfully sent home in wooden boxes which were wrapped in small American Flags. And every single one of the surviving little lions was returned ceremoniously to their proud and relieved families. Every single one that is, except for the cats without any dog-tags. You remember them? They were the heroes that no person wanted back; the loners, miscreants, and misanthropes. These were the ones that stayed to live in Barbwire. And, as you may have guessed, they numbered precisely two dozen. But even these “undesirables” were awarded the “Battle of Barbwire” Medal. Before the Rat-War, there had never been any cats in Barbwire. Now, not only were they here, they were genuine, honest-to-goodness celebrities. And ironically, the ornery traits that had earned them a one-way ticket to the middle of nowhere were admired by the desert-folks, who considered them “feisty” and “plucky”. The cats belonged to the entire town and vice-versa. They could eat at anyone’s house, sleep anyplace they chose to, and if the mood struck them, they could yowl all night long. And great woe befell the dogs that were caught chasing, threatening, or otherwise hounding one of “The Twenty-Four”. People even drove slower as they went about town, in consideration of their esteemed veterans. An inscribed bronze plaque was created to honor the cats: “Barbwire City Hall Built 1943
(Continued in the next issue of The Cat's Meow) David Perry lives in the High Desert of southern California with his two cats, Psycho and Lupe. His first novel "WHISPERING CATS" is due out mid-year 2007. |
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