– Don’t pick up a kitten or even more so an adult cat by the scruff of the neck. You can never do it like a mother cat who carries her kittens this way. They go into a state of torpor. With this burden in its teeth, the cat is able to overcome a variety of obstacles and make jumps up and down.
– The average life span of a domestic cat is 15 years, while that of a wild cat is 3 to 5 years.
– People who have pet cats live longer and are much less likely to suffer from stress and heart attacks.
– A cat kills moving prey, but not necessarily for food. Understanding that hunting is for food is an acquired skill.
– A cat falling from a height always acts the same way. First the head aligns, then the back, then the legs, and finally the back arches out to soften the landing.
– “Sociable” cats follow you from room to room to control your actions.
– If the cat is yanking furniture, try giving the place a lemon or orange scent. Cats can’t stand the smell of citrus.
– Cats can discern intonation. When talking to them, be aware of the tone of voice. Cats know when you’re mad at them (though they may not show it).
– Cats can make about 100 different sounds. By comparison, dogs only make about 10.
– Cats purr not only for pleasure, but also to express pain or fear. Cats often purr when giving birth or when petting kittens.
– Cats rub against humans to “override” other people’s smells and appropriate their own. The smell comes from glands that are between the eye and ear and at the base of the tail. Cats lie down on their owners’ clothes for the same reason.
– Don’t put your cat on a vegetarian diet. They need animal protein. After all, they are carnivorous animals!
– Cats are some of the laziest mammals. They are capable of sleeping 18 hours a day. A cat falls asleep faster than almost any other animal.
– Cats, when not sleeping, spend a third of all their time grooming.
– A cat easily jumps to a height five times its height.
– Cats like heights – they can see the nearest space better from there. And enemies will not so quickly overcome the height to which the cat climbed. So do leopards and jaguars, which sleep in the trees.
– If a cat bites when its belly is stroked it does not mean that it is evil, it just does not like it.
– If a cat sleeps with all its paws under itself or curled up and its tail covering its nose, it’s a sign of cold weather.
– Modern cats are descended from myacids, small animals that lived in the trees. They existed more than 40 million years ago. The first members of the modern felines evolved about 12 million years ago.
