Be Excellent To Each Other

You have a house cat (for the purposes of this, you do, so shush)

You have two toys of the same size and same materials - one is a mouse and one is a hippo. How does the cat know to always pounce on the mouse? I've noticed this with friends' cats - they seem pre-programmed to recognise mice as prey, even if they have never seen a real mouse.

I remember when I was young, visiting my mother and playing Mouse Trap - even the small, bright green/blue/yellow/red stylised counter pieces were immediately recognised by Mel, the cat, as 'mouse' and were swiped from the board. Would she have done them if they were plastic pieces shaped like giraffes?

OK, I didn't sleep last night. I'm going to go for a nap. Hopefully science will now do its work in answering this very important question.

My cat will attack anything moving near it.

Just as long as it doesn't 'chill out' on top of the toilet cistern, you'll be alright!

Yes. This appears to be the method employed by the panther that the missus has seen fit to populate our flat with. On Monday night I decided to have a relaxing game on the Xbox before bed, having already changed into the baggy t-shirt I wear to bed. The cat decided the fabric of this t-shirt was worthy prey, so stabbed it - and thus, my side - with it's claws.

Cat was swiftly ejected from sofa and another mark was added to the chart I'm keeping to monitor the cat's progress from household pet to wheelie bin occupant.

I do have a house cat. I am somewhat allergic to cats. Particulary the long haired varieties. Of which this is certainly one.

And yes, cats are reknowned for being curious about everything.

And also for often attacking things they are curious about, mouse shaped or not.

I'm sure I've read about an experiment where someone freaked out 3 day old chicks that had had no contact with adult birds by flying a model hawk about above them, so there may be some inbuilt knowledge of what's good and bad.

Our cats appear to prefer hunting and eating butterflies, and attempt to hunt frogs.

The missus claims that early on in our ownership of Storm, she (the cat) decided to attack, then eat, a wasp. I gather she swiftly learned the error of her ways.

You should experiment by preparing four toys: a mouse, a hippo, a mouse dressed as a hippo and a hippo dressed as a mouse.

Will it attack Mousse or even Moose? See if it's keyword searches allow for slight spelling changes.

Depends how fuzzy it is, I guess.

o/

Most cats are quite fuzzy.

So, the scientific answer to Mimi's question - the longer-haired the cat, the less likely it is to be specific about what varieties of creature it will attack.

Citation needed, but my sister (not one of science's shining lights, admittedly) told me that babies have inbuilt reactions to seeing things of a certain shape, such as being able to tell the difference between birds and fish surprisingly well.

That's because, at the dawn of the human race, the primary cause of infant death among the primitive humans ranging the Great Rift Valley was fish attack.

FTFM

That's a fairly simple cuddling reaction. If your baby is cuddling a bird, all well and good. If your baby is cuddling a fish, pull it out of the fishtank, for goodness sake.

You can do some things with newborn human babies. Hold them up so the balls of their feet are just grazing the floor and they'll start to make walking motions. Lower them quickly and they'll stick their arms together like they're trying to wrap them around something.
There's another one as well, but
That's it - blow in their face and they'll hold their breath for a bit.

Never heard the shapes one, though.

Aye, if you fly a cardboard silhouette of a goose over a babies cot it'll be cool with that, but if you fly it backwards it'll shit it's self thinking a hawk's going to eat it

That shit is built into the BIOS.

So there you go Meems.

Just flash the cat's BIOS.

Hell, I'm scared of geese and I'm 31, let alone as a new born kid. Those things are mean.

Clearly you all have stupid cats.

Did you overclock it?

Wullie's been watching QI!

How can I fit more cooling fans to my cats? I think they might be overheating. Also, I'd like to fit them with some LEDs.

Either stupid.....or very very smart, they could just be tricking everyone. The only thing about cats that is definite is they are evil.

Have I fuck. I read it in a book when I was wee.

Why? Geese are all bluff and bluster. They have no beak to peck at you. The best they can manage is a soft floppy gobbing. I got attacked by Canadian goose in Lichfield once. I just stood there until it got fed up and buggered off.

When I adopted my cats from local shelters, they were both already de-clawed (something I wouldn't do to a cat). I certainly hope it modified their behavior, however, given that one of my cats likes to pounce on me and then essentially bitch slap my face repeatedly. I think he knows it doesn't hurt? Or maybe he keeps hoping that if he does it to me enough times, even without the claws, my face will fall off?

My cat has conserved behaviours synonymous with its wild ancesters.
Id guess its pre-programmed genetically.

My cat has claws, but often sheaths them and punches me instead. I will walk up the stairs, and she'll be sitting on the landing, and she'll reach through the bannister and punch me in the face.

My cat is really good about that. If he's playing with the (mouse shaped) toy on a string, it gets shredded to shit. If you then bravely tickle him with a bare hand, he will immediately revert to no-claws (usually) so as not to give scratches.

Yeah both of ours are really good like that, even with each other. My old cat though, whilst he'd never ever attack would often 'accidentally' give you a good clawing during play, the wee shit.

Sorry mate just been pointed to this thread. Been away a bit lately

After reading your other posts and wiping the tears from my eyes.....

Yes, she will learn fast lol. My F1 bengal ate an entire bird once.. Once.. he then found out the beak doesn't digest and had a bloody bum for a couple of days. That must have smarted, so after that he would just beahead them and leave us the heads on the garage floor.

Bengals and Savannahs are both obessed with eating insects. Mine have learnt not to try eating spiders as they just grab onto the cat's nose and won't let go. This causes the cat to go loopy trying to get it off lol. They have now both settled on a diet of moths (larger the better, Punzel likes nothing more than gobbling down large moths) and flies. Sometimes they will take a sniff and not eat though, so I guess they are making sure it wasn't on a pile of dog shit prior to being an appetizer.

Also, reading your post about the rancid shits? Well, I did instruct Rach to give her Royal Canin indoor 27. Not only does it have L-Lysene for good immune system but also has an ingredient that removes the sulphur reducing the smell. It does work well, that's why I feed it to mine.

I can second how good the Royal Caninn stuff is, it's made a real difference to Topher.