PK: Serena, what are your thoughts about humans staying home with their Tortie (three-colored, mostly black) or Calico (three-colored, mostly white) or other cats all day?
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| Serena last posed for a picture as a four-month-old Junior Queen. She is now a full-grown Queen Cat who disapproves of electronics and digital pictures. This is probably the only picture that will ever show her face. |
Serena: It's fun if you come out and play.Why do you ask?
PK: Since you refuse to look at the computer, you don't know our e-friends at Petfinder.com, the charitable outreach of the people at Purina who bake most of the kibble you cats eat. Anyway, they sent out an e-mail about people staying home with their cats or, in some cases, dogs.
Serena: Who cares about them?
PK: I do. You're a very unusual cat, Serena. Although (or because) life gave you the chance to start out having your mother and your human all to yourself, all the time, you've positively insisted on surrounding yourself with other cats. I knew you'd never part with Traveller from the day you laid eyes on him. I knew you mourned when he died, although he was always a sickly kitten--the only one of his litter who survived. I knew you were very much displeased with me when I let someone adopt two of your four kittens. I know you not only want to keep old Summersburr as a permanent resident, but are lobbying to get me to allow him to cozy up with you and your remaining kittens on the porch. Do you have any idea how different that is from the way normal cats behave?
Serena: Was there a normal cat in my family for the past seven generations?
PK: No. So far as I know your ancestors were social cats, listening cats, or at least remarkably clever cats, all the way down the line.
Serena: Well then. Social cats are rare, and people who've only ever known normal cats have no idea what it's like living with us. We live in tribes, as dogs do, only more cooperative and less hierarchical. We hunt in teams. We raise kittens in extended families--sometimes even including the males, although most male cats aren't fit to be around kittens. We even take naps in groups, often in ying-yang formation with our heads pillowed on our best pals' flanks, though we'll open the formation to include more than two cats.
PK: You seem to maintain a bit of a hierarchy, Queen Serena.
Serena: Humans have been calling all female cats "queens" for a long time and, although some of us, like my poor little mother Samantha, aren't tough enough to earn the title, if you watch social cats you'll see that we really do negotiate ways for each of us to rule something or other. We claim different spaces, different humans, different positions when we do things as a team. I happened to be born a Queen Cat whose claims nobody cared to dispute, even when I was a kitten--but I'm not mean or bossy. I simply rule whatever space I happen to be occupying at the moment. You've noticed that when I kiss you, I sniff the air around the bridge of your nose, your forehead, even your hair? That's a message every cat recognizes. You're welcome to have your space in the office and do what you like in it, but in my space, on the porch, I'm the Queen and etiquette obliges you to defer to me. My daughters, and my consort, are welcome to share my space because they're willing to defer to me in it. When they want to go off on their own, they can do that. They just prefer to follow me!
PK: Why would they do that?
Serena: Possibly because I'm beautiful, I'm intelligent, I'm a strong hunter, and I'm kind and generous to my loyal followers.
PK: Yes, that makes sense. Anyway, any thoughts for the other cats whose humans are staying home with them?
Serena: They should enjoy it while they can!
PK: Our e-friends at Purina mentioned that while some cats (and dogs) want more play time and lap-napping time, others have their own routines and prefer not to be disturbed, especially when their routines involve sleeping in the window for most of the day. Thoughts?
Serena: Of course! Cats' preferences vary, just as humans' do. Early in the spring I wanted to romp and play with the kittens. Now I don't.
PK: For those readers who think all cats should be spayed--
Serena: Bad humans! Hiss! Spit! I'd like to tear strips off their faces! Humans should not be allowed to interfere with the superior species!
PK: Well, that's your opinion, but since you are a social cat who's successfully reared healthy kittens I've cancelled the plans I originally had to interfere with you. You don't know what your grandmother Irene went through...watching her and Heather's kittens constantly to keep Gulegi from eating them, then having all of her own kittens except Burr and Violet die, anyway, slowly and painfully, from "Manx Syndrome." I wanted to spare you from that, but you jumped the gun and had kittens anyway. And all of them were perfectly healthy and remarkably clever and well behaved.
Serena: Of course they were! They're mine aren't they? They should be more help baby-sitting their younger siblings than Samantha Scaredycat was.
PK: At what point should humans stop marvelling at social cat families and start neutering a few of them? Our e-friend @reinosoj has dozens of cats living in one enormous tribe. Frankly I worry about them, because when a Cat Sanctuary not far from here got up to thirty cats, most of them got distemper. There's a vaccine for that, but vaccine for thirty or forty cats, or more, costs a lot of money. People who want to see how far a social cat family can grow have been sending Javier Reinoso money but you wouldn't want to be just one of forty cats here, would you?
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| To see more pictures of the fur tribe, follow @reinosoj on Twitter. To help feed them, go to paypal.me/FReinosoPerez . |
Serena: We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. As long as humans spray poison on the land, kittens will die young, like my poor soulmate Traveller who didn't even live long enough to give me any babies. And my poor little brother and sisters who were born too prematurely to live. Cat overpopulation will not be a problem and neither, if your species are stupid enough to keep spraying poisons, will human overpopulation, which is certainly more of a problem now.
PK: Cat overpopulation has certainly not become a problem here in recent years. Maintaining the population has been the challenge. So there's no need to quarrel about anybody being spayed now. Anyway, for cats (and dogs) who want their humans to play with them, do we have any tips?
Serena: Toe tips? Tail tips? Of course we have! Well, the main thing humans should know about cat toys is that what makes them really special is having someone to play with. Objects that only move as we move them, ourselves, get old fast. They become interesting when other people join the game.
PK: Are some objects more interesting than others?
Serena: Well, Traveller brought that tinkly ball that he and I used to play with, and later my kittens did. That was more fun than the tether-toy you hung up in the hedge, because it rolls onto the ground and is harder to predict. Hedge trimmings are fun to chase if humans use a little imagination. Anything that rolls easily is fun to chase if someone else rolls it in an interesting way. Frankly, cats like Summersburr, who is social but so old and dozy he might as well be normal, are easier to amuse than young, active, clever cats like me!
PK: Your day will come! Between about age five and ten all cats start taking more and deeper naps. After age ten they spend much more time sleeping than they do awake, and should probably be left to sleep in nice cozy baskets indoors all day.
Serena: Between about three months and five years, we just want to have fun!
PK: People who like a calm, mellow pet who won't interfere with their working from home should try to adopt a senior animal. Usually that's easy, since so many senior animals are put up for adoption when their humans feel unable to keep them, and so many people think they want a kitten or puppy. Senior animals who are available for adoption have probably lost an old friend. Like our Summersburr, they can seem grumpy because they miss someone, and you're not that one.
Serena: That doesn't mean they're not glad to have a home. They are. Sometimes they think "You're not my friend and you never will be. Go away," and sometimes they think "You're nice, whoever you are." Over time they get to like you more and miss their other friend less. You wouldn't uproot Summersburr again, would you? He's not learned to love you yet, but he loves my kittens, Silver and Swimmer.
PK: I'm afraid Summersburr is stuck with us now, but there are a lot of senior animals who need good homes. If you can get them to come in and settle down in your home--even if that's only at the back of the closet, under a piece of furniture, even in a carrying cage like Samantha's Special Samantha Box that she allowed Serena to pose on in that picture--that's the main thing. They don't want a lot of attention. They spend a lot of time sleeping, and will gradually get to know you.
(If Petfinder worked better with this computer I would have put in a gallery of adoptable, photogenic senior cats and dogs! In the United States you can go to Petfinder.com, search for senior dogs or cats by zipcode, and see dozens. Run your cookie cleaner program after visiting Petfinder. Sorry about that.)
Serena: Are there humans who do want to play with frisky, bouncy-pouncy young animals like me?
PK: Of course there are...and unfortunately the shelters get a lot of abandoned kittens and puppies, too.
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