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Was this cat the difference maker?
- Thread starter Dr. Cheese
- Start date
I knew there was a reason I hate cats...
I suspect housecats are only chill because we are too big to eat.
Seriously, silence and night hunting ability of big cats makes them very
scary. Fortunately, we are not their preferred prey when they have options.
In the days of Australopithecus, when hominids were pretty tiny and had no weapons except probably tossing stones, life must have been very scary.
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Pound for pound, there's no animal on the planet more vicious than the average house cat. They're natural born killers.
We have 4 house cats...... Arthur, Henry, Lou and Liz.
We have 4 house cats...... Arthur, Henry, Lou and Liz.
Yes, but they are extinct, while we are here eating pizza.
Modern humans were still on the menu for some critters as recently as 10-15K years ago. Short Faced Bears must have been terrifying! By then they had developed weapons and pack strategies, but still it must have been a scary existence.I suspect housecats are only chill because we are too big to eat.
Seriously, silence and night hunting ability of big cats makes them very
scary. Fortunately, we are not their preferred prey when they have options.
In the days of Australopithecus, when hominids were pretty tiny and had no weapons except probably tossing stones, life must have been very scary.
We are still on the menu. Alligators, bears, and sharks, still get us on occasion in the USA. In India, big cat predation is still a concern in some areas.
And they still occasionally try!I suspect housecats are only chill because we are too big to eat.
This sweet little angel weights about six pounds...and I have no doubt that if I ever let her out of the house, she would kill every single thing on the block
My cats remind me more of the minions than vicious killers. I have one that is so lazy he will lay down when he eats.
EdwardofHuncote
I Still Dream of Jeannie
- Aug 21, 2013
- 6,644
- 2
- 16,407
- Disclosures
- I privately own and operate a local musical instument repair shop.
I watched this fella' here try to do a 'King Of The Jungle' routine on a small deer in the yard one afternoon...
I was just standing in the shop, watching the scene unfold from the window. Stalking that little fawn on his belly... ears laid back, tail straight as a stick. Backyard NatGeo. I was thinking; surely he's not really that stupid.
Wrong. Ol' Slick real was exactly that stupid. That little deer kicked him about halfway to next Tuesday, and went back to grazing clover. Sounded like somebody punted a football. I checked him out, he wasn't as much hurt as embarrassed. As well he should be.
Slick was rare combination. He was a good companion in that he wasn't the slightest bit destructive. He was a very friendly and trusting creature, even to strangers. Slick assumed everbody liked him as much as he liked them, which wasn't always true. He just didn't understand certain household things... like see-through glass doors. Or ceiling fans. Gravity and inertia confused him. Mirrors totally freaked him out. Occasionally a phantom spot on the wall or floor made him just go bonkers and pounce. This was when gravity and inertia usually just owned his ass. He never learned.
Maybe the most telling, we bought Slick a feeder one time. It was this plastic hopper type deal... you just filled it with dry food, and as he would eat from the tray, some more would tumble out. But Slick assumed that meant "keep eating until it stops". We would find him bloated and miserable lying next to the empty food dish.
In retrospect, yeah... we're lucky he only weighed a few pounds and was a bit slow with problem-solving. I can't think of a much worse way to be hunted than by a giant housecat.
I was just standing in the shop, watching the scene unfold from the window. Stalking that little fawn on his belly... ears laid back, tail straight as a stick. Backyard NatGeo. I was thinking; surely he's not really that stupid.
Wrong. Ol' Slick real was exactly that stupid. That little deer kicked him about halfway to next Tuesday, and went back to grazing clover. Sounded like somebody punted a football. I checked him out, he wasn't as much hurt as embarrassed. As well he should be.
Slick was rare combination. He was a good companion in that he wasn't the slightest bit destructive. He was a very friendly and trusting creature, even to strangers. Slick assumed everbody liked him as much as he liked them, which wasn't always true. He just didn't understand certain household things... like see-through glass doors. Or ceiling fans. Gravity and inertia confused him. Mirrors totally freaked him out. Occasionally a phantom spot on the wall or floor made him just go bonkers and pounce. This was when gravity and inertia usually just owned his ass. He never learned.
Maybe the most telling, we bought Slick a feeder one time. It was this plastic hopper type deal... you just filled it with dry food, and as he would eat from the tray, some more would tumble out. But Slick assumed that meant "keep eating until it stops". We would find him bloated and miserable lying next to the empty food dish.
In retrospect, yeah... we're lucky he only weighed a few pounds and was a bit slow with problem-solving. I can't think of a much worse way to be hunted than by a giant housecat.
this creature is a French Chartreuse, a Very social, affectionate hedonist, but does not meow, it was bred out of them when they lived in silent monasteries in France after they were brought from Lebanon after the Crusades... but when she has caught or is about to catch (and release repeatedly) a mouse she has a low Yeowl that must bring pure terror.
Attachments
Not to mention the most dangerous animal of all, the mosquito.
Sometimes when I'm napping, I'll wake up and see our cat staring at me. I know she's planning how to kill me in my sleep and blame it on my wife.
songwriter21
I have an obsession for wood. The musical kind.
Specifically, polar bears are the most dangerous bears...only ones that will hunt us for a meal.
devnulljp
Supporting Member
How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You - The Oatmeal
Use this guide if you suspect your cat is plotting your demise.
theoatmeal.com
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I once had a big Siamese cat show up at my house. We lived in the sticks and had a long driveway with a gate about a hundred yards off the paved road, then another 60 or so yards to our parking pad. I came out one morning and found an eviscerated bird by my van. It looked like it had been cut open with a scalpel, and all the innards neatly removed. As I drove out the gate, a big Siamese cat was sitting beside the driveway just outside the gate.
Long before the bird gift, I lived alone pretty far out in the sticks in an old house with a big screened in front porch. It was built in a windrow among some really large peanut fields so if someone was coming up my driveway they either knew me or were lost. One morning a little tomcat striped in various shades of gray and white showed up on the steps leading up to my porch. I opened the door and he casually strolled in like he lived there. I shooed him out with no problem, and went on to work. When I got home from work that cat was on the front step. I was living alone at the time so I put out some dry kibble on the back porch and he migrated to that location, so I made an enclosed box with a door made from a rubber mud flap, stuffed it with a couple old T shirts and set it out on the unscreened back porch, added a water bowl to the kibble, and waited. He started eating and drinking there right off, but It took him about a week before he finally moved in. There were a few times I was awakened by him going able sugar over something, and an investigation usually lead to a possum or a couple of the rats that lived in the barn out back cavorting around in the yard between the house and barn.
Last cat story, I promise.
I was renting an attic apartment in town with a big staircase running up to it. One morning I was talking to our next door neighbor and he said a stray juvenile tomcat had taken up living in a little storage shed under his back deck. As we were talking, what looked like a kitten on the verge of adulthood came up and circled our feet before heading off into my neighbor's shed. He asked what I thought about his new kitty. I told him unless it was a tom with stacked buttholes, he had himself a momma cat.
Long before the bird gift, I lived alone pretty far out in the sticks in an old house with a big screened in front porch. It was built in a windrow among some really large peanut fields so if someone was coming up my driveway they either knew me or were lost. One morning a little tomcat striped in various shades of gray and white showed up on the steps leading up to my porch. I opened the door and he casually strolled in like he lived there. I shooed him out with no problem, and went on to work. When I got home from work that cat was on the front step. I was living alone at the time so I put out some dry kibble on the back porch and he migrated to that location, so I made an enclosed box with a door made from a rubber mud flap, stuffed it with a couple old T shirts and set it out on the unscreened back porch, added a water bowl to the kibble, and waited. He started eating and drinking there right off, but It took him about a week before he finally moved in. There were a few times I was awakened by him going able sugar over something, and an investigation usually lead to a possum or a couple of the rats that lived in the barn out back cavorting around in the yard between the house and barn.
Last cat story, I promise.
I was renting an attic apartment in town with a big staircase running up to it. One morning I was talking to our next door neighbor and he said a stray juvenile tomcat had taken up living in a little storage shed under his back deck. As we were talking, what looked like a kitten on the verge of adulthood came up and circled our feet before heading off into my neighbor's shed. He asked what I thought about his new kitty. I told him unless it was a tom with stacked buttholes, he had himself a momma cat.
