Thursday, May 13, 2010

Can Cats BE Normal?

When I saw this headline about cats in the New York Times, Is Your Cat Normal? I had to LAUGH. I even laughed out loud. Then I went and read the post. It made some good points. I did not know about wool eating cats.

However, there are so many cats in this neighborhood it is really easy to see there are a lot of individual differences in cat behavior. Some things are common ground.

They all sniff a lot. Some mew and some meow and the part Siamese ones howl. Their purrs are different. And even though there are no worms in them, 2 of them never seem to have enough to eat. Only one has a reason for that. She is still a nursing momma cat.

We have not seen her kittens yet so when they surface they will surely be feral and wild. That is too bad. She hid under the shed out of reach when they were being born and half the cats in the neighborhood sat on the patio watching the shed. A few hours later the brave cats tried to sneak into the space that was way way way too small for them. The next morning the momma cat and kitten or kittens had moved to a different location.

Two of these cats LOVE water. We call it "puddle patrol" after it rains. One will go to each and every puddle in the driveway and on the patio and swat at it, swish a paw in it and then drink from it. No matter how much we put into a fresh water bowl, they all prefer to drink from the rain water collector basin. I must empty that every few days to prevent mosquitoes from breeding in it.

So, it is hard for me to tell what is normal in a cat. They are such independent creatures. Some are lap cats and some don't want to be touched much at all. But they all keep themselves clean unless they are sick. So I guess that is a good sign of normal behavior.

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