Cats Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Our Feline Friends

by Lesley O'Mara

Overview

Cats Miscellany provides readers with a fun collection of feline facts, anecdotes, and tales. In this truly fanciful work, author Lesley O’Mara has crafts a kaleidoscope of information which is sure to delight every cat lover. What happened when Charles Dickens discovered that his cat William was really a Williamina? How do you tell if your cat is truly fat? How long did it take one Florida housecat to track down his owners after they had moved to California?

Filled with heartwarming tales, historical anecdotes, unique quotes, and so much more, Cats Miscellany is sure to satisfy human curiosity the whole year round. Delightfully illustrated and beautifully designed, this quirky and entertaining book is the perfect gift for pet lovers and “ailurophiles” of any age.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781628732887
Publisher:	Skyhorse
Publication date:	11/23/2011
Series:	Books of Miscellany
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Lesley O’Mara lives in London, England, with her two rescued cats. In addition to leading a successful career in publishing, O’Mara has collected and compiled numerous anthologies of short stories about cats and dogs. Her most beloved collections include Best Loved Cat Stories, Great Cat Tales, and Classic Animal Stories.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

TEN REASONS WHY YOU HAVE TO OWN A CAT

1) Cats are always interested in whatever you are interested in.

2) Cats never criticize.

3) Cats don't mind what you watch on TV.

4) Cats never need a babysitter.

5) You never have to get up at 2 am to feed a cat.

6) Cats don't talk back.

7) It's easy to make dinner for a cat.

8) Cats don't need to be walked.

9) Cats don't run up huge telephone bills.

10) Cats don't mind if you call them silly names.

Some Exotic Female Cat Names

• Aida

• Blanche

• Calypso

• Desdemona

• Emerald

• Esmeralda

• Jasmin

• Jezebel

• Minette

• Mitzy

• Mitsouko

• Nikita

• Nuala

• Paloma

• Pandora

• Salambo

• Samsara

• Saskia

• Sapphire

• Suki

• Topaz

• Yaki

• Yoko

CAT LOVERS

The smallest feline is a masterpiece.

— Leonardo da Vinci

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

— Albert Schweitzer

Time spent with cats is never wasted.

— Colette

The cat has too much spirit to have no heart.

— Ernest Menaul

No Heaven will not ever Heaven be unless my cats are there to welcome me.

— Anonymous

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.

— Jean Cocteau

There are no ordinary cats.

— Colette Never underestimate the power of a purr.

— Anonymous

CAT ANCESTORS

No one knows exactly when or how the cat first appeared on earth. Most agree, however, that the cat's most ancient ancestor was almost certainly a weasel-like animal called Miacis, which lived between forty and fifty million years ago. Miacis is believed by many to be the common ancestor of all land-dwelling carnivores, dogs as well as cats. But evidence suggests that the first cat appeared millions of years before the first dog.

Perhaps best known of the prehistoric cats is Smilodon, the saber-toothed cat sometimes called a saber-toothed tiger. This formidable animal hunted throughout much of the world but became extinct long ago.

Some Exotic Male Cat Names

• Boris

• Bruno

• Chilli

• Claude

• Dante

• Farouk

• Fernando

• Milo

• Micetto

• Minou

• Mufasa

• Orlando

• Siam

• Simba

IT'S A CATS WORLD (1)

Way down deep, we're all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them.

— Jim Davis

Cats are a mysterious kind of folk. There is more passing in their minds than we are aware of.

— Sir Walter Scott

Kittens are born with their eyes shut. They open them in about days, take a look around, then close them again for the better part of their lives.

— Stephen Baker

A cat has nine lives. For three he plays, for three he strays, and for the last three he stays.

— An American and English proverb

The cat is, above all things, a dramatist.

— Margaret Benson

Children and cats in Venice learn to swim almost as soon as they learn to walk.

— Joan Aiken

Every waking moment was precious to her; in it she would find something useful to do — and if she ran out of material and couldn't find anything else to do she would have kittens.

— Mark Twain, on his cat, Sour Mash

No matter how much cats fight, there always seems to be plenty of kittens.

— Abraham Lincoln

Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.

– Garrison Keillor

Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance.

— Saki

SOME CAT BREED FACTS

• Non-pedigree cats are often more robust than cats that have been selectively bred.

• The ancestor of all domestic cats is the African wild cat, which still exists today.

• Today there are approximately one hundred distinct breeds of the domestic cat.

• The biggest breeds of cat are the Ragdoll and the Maine Coon breeds, and both can weigh twenty pounds (nine kilograms) or more. The smallest breed, the Singapura, can be five times smaller than the Ragdoll and Maine Coon.

• In the United States, the Persian is the most popular breed of cat among homeowners, followed by the Siamese and the Maine Coon.

• The Havana Brown breed is so called because of its resemblance to the color of Havana tobacco.

CAT BODIES

The cat species can vary widely in size, but domestic cat breeds are among the smallest in the cat family. The average domestic cat measures between eight to ten inches (twenty to twenty-five centimeters) high, and from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail is approximately twenty inches (fifty-one centimeters) long. The tail itself is usually no longer than fifteen inches (thirty-eight centimeters).

Males are predictably heavier than females — around fifteen pounds (6.8 kilograms) compared to ten pounds (4.5 kilograms), though this can depend on skeletal size, and the amount of feeding by doting owners!

A cat's brain is closer in composition to a human's brain than that of a dog. The region of the brain responsible for emotion is located in the same place in both the human and the cat brain.

Lacking a true collarbone, a cat can squeeze its body through any space or gap into which it can fit its head. Feline whiskers act as feelers and allow the cat to judge whether they are likely to fit.

The flexibility of a cat's spine is the key to its remarkable physical versatility. The spine can be compressed to afford them comfort and sleep in snug places, or elongated to enable them to leap further.

While this will come as no surprise to cat owners who have been licked by their loving pets, cats lose as much fluid during self-grooming (through saliva) as they do through urinating.

The tongue of a domestic cat feels not too dissimilar to sandpaper, while the tongue of a big wild cat, such as the lion or the tiger, is much rougher. This roughness serves several purposes — not only does it makes cleaning and grooming more effective, but also, in the wild, it serves as an effective tool to strip flesh from the bones of prey.

All cats — both domestic and wild — can purr. The volume of the purr can vary significantly, and can be so soft as to be inaudible to the human ear. Purring may begin as soon as a couple of days after birth. The purring sound is made by the cat vibrating its vocal cords in the voice box, but no one knows exactly how the cat uses these to produce purring, or why no other animal purrs.

A cat's litheness and grace are never-ending sources of pleasure and amazement to their owners. Its range of movements seem unlimited, whether rolling up into a ball, doubling-up sideways, stretching its back into practically a straight line, or arching its spine until front and back legs are only a few inches apart. It is no problem for a cat to turn its head backwards to allow its tongue to reach the fur on the center of its back while grooming.

CATS ON POSTAGE STAMPS

Across the world the postage stamp is often used to commemorate special occasions, honor the achievements of individuals, and mark the anniversaries of inventions, discoveries, and wars, among many other things. From Singapore to the Faeroe Islands, and from Gambia to Norway, there are thousands of stamps featuring cats — the first to appear was in Germany in 1887, and featured a cat with a fish in its mouth.

Other miscellaneous cat stamps include a Taiwanese stamp featuring the ginger cat Crookshanks from the Harry Potter novels, a U.S. stamp celebrating the anniversary of the birth of Dr. Seuss with a portrait of him along with his Cat in the Hat characters, and a British set illustrating the Rudyard Kipling Just So Story, "The Cat That Walked By Himself."

There is a Spanish stamp that commemorates aviator Charles Lindbergh's record-breaking flight from New York to Paris in May 1927, which portrays his cat, Patsy, watching Lindbergh's airplane take off. Patsy often accompanied Lindbergh on his flights, but did not go on the 1927 flight that made him famous.

THE WHITE CAT

American superstition says that it is bad luck to see a white cat at night, but that dreaming of a white cat brings good luck. If a white cat comes to your house it will bring with it good luck, provided that it stays.

CATS' WHISKERS

The average cat has a total of twenty-four whiskers, arranged in four rows of three whiskers on either side of the face. The upper rows can move independently of the bottom rows.

Whiskers are more than twice as thick as ordinary hairs, and their roots are set three times as deep — they are closely connected to the nervous system. They are full of nerve endings which provide the cat with detailed information about air movement and pressure, as well as feedback on its surroundings. Damage to a cat's whiskers may provoke discomfort, confusion or disorientation.

Further, small groupings of whiskers are also situated on other parts of a cat's body, including above each eye and on the backs of the front paws.

The technical word for whiskers is vibrissae, which suggests their sensitivity to vibrations in air currents. Whiskers are also a tool for hunting, providing cats with vital information about the shape and movement of their prey.

Food bowls that are too small to accommodate a cat's head without its whiskers touching the sides can be an irritant, as the whiskers provide distracting and unwanted sensations to the cat. A cat's whiskers are another indicator of mood. Whiskers pointing forward signify curiosity; when pointing backwards the cat may feel nervous or threatened.

CAT TROUBLE

Apparently, through scientific research, it has been determined that a cat's affection gland is stimulated by snoring, thus explaining my cat's uncontrollable urge to rub against my face at 2 am.

— Terri L. Haney

Cats can be very funny, and have the oddest ways of showing they're glad to see you. Rudimace always peed in our shoes.

— W. H. Auden

A cat will wait until you've read your morning paper before tearing it to shreds.

— Anonymous

You must set down all the rules to your cat at the beginning of your relationship. You cannot add rules as you go along. Once these rules are set, you must never, under any circumstances, break any of them. Dare to break a rule, and you will never live it down. Trust me.

— Kathy Young

Garfield's Law: cats instinctively know the precise moment their owners will awaken ... then they awaken them ten minutes sooner.

— Jim Davis

The problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their face whether they see a moth or an axe-murderer.

— Paula Poundstone

How do cats decide when to jump suddenly up from where they were sitting comfortably, curled up, and dash madly around the room, knocking over everything they encounter?

— Andrew Koenig

Cats have an infallible understanding of total concentration — and Get between you and it.

— Arthur Bridges

There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast.

— Anonymous

When I played in the sandbox, the cat kept covering me up.

— Rodney Dangerfield

Cats may sense early on that you don't like paw prints on your butter, but they will jump on to any surface in the home as long as no one sees it happen.

— Kathy Young

Psychic cats?

On occasion cats have been observed becoming unusually agitated in the hours before an earthquake, scratching at doors or hurrying outside. The ancient Chinese used to rely on cats to predict natural disasters. It is not known exactly where these powers of prediction come from, but it is thought that cats may have a sensitivity to static electricity, magnetic fields, or faint tremors which humans do not, and it is these that cause the cat's unusual behavior.

CATS INCREDIBLE JOURNEYS (1)

Like birds, and indeed many animals, cats often show a remarkable capacity to find their way home from many, many miles away. Scientific explanation of this uncanny ability varies; however, it is thought that it involves some combination of their innate biological clock, the angle of the sun, and sensing the earth's magnetic field. Some notable cat travelers include:

Sugar

This feline traveled 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) in fourteen months to be reunited with his owners who had moved to their new home in Oklahoma.

Cookie

In six months, Cookie traveled 550 miles (885 kilometers) back to her home in Chicago, in 1949, after she was shipped to Wilber, Nebraska.

Howie

This plucky Persian traversed 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) of desert, rivers, and wilderness in the Australian outback to find his owner when she moved home.

Ling-Ling

This cat pursued his owner all the way from Sandusky, Ohio, to the unknown territory of Orlando in Florida when he was left in the care of the owner's sister.

Buttons

In 1983, a black female cat called Buttons crawled under the hood of a neighbor's car and was not discovered until the driver stopped at a service station in Newcastle, Britain, six hours later. They were 280 miles (450 kilometers) from their home in Great Yarmouth. Luckily (and remarkably) the cat was unharmed and the driver continued his journey to Aberdeen with Buttons as a passenger. Upon their arrival, an airline that had heard their tale flew Buttons back to her owner free of charge.

Tom

Tenacious Tom traversed the United States, traveling approximately 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) from St. Petersburg in Florida to find his owners in their new home in San Gabriel, California. It took him just over two years and his journey is thought to be the longest by a cat on record.

CATS' FOOD

If you put down food and the cat eats, it's hungry.

— Larry Madrid

• Because of the chlorine in tap water, it should be left to stand for twenty-four hours before being given to a cat — the chemical irritates parts of a cat's sensitive nose.

• Even though they can't taste them, cats love sweets.

• Cats are creatures of habit — they prefer to dine in the same place, at the same time, and in a quiet spot. A clean bowl is a must.

• Chocolate is toxic to a cat. As little as sixteen ounces (450 grams) can kill a cat, and darker chocolate is more dangerous.

• Be wary of tinned cat food that is particularly red in color. It may contain sodium nitrate, which is a carcinogen, and pet-food manufacturers are not required to list this chemical on their labels.

• Raw or undercooked meat and eggs are all as dangerous to cats as they are to humans.

• The average cat would, given the opportunity, consume about ten mice per day. This equates to approximately one cup of dry food or ten ounces (280 grams) of canned food.

• Because cats require more protein than dogs, dog food should never be given to a cat.

• Cats cannot form Vitamin A from beta-carotene but, because a cat's diet must contain vitamins, a homemade diet must contain these essential elements, as a quality cat food from a reputable manufacturer will do. However, too many vitamins and minerals are just as dangerous as too few, so consult an animal nutritionist if unsure of the safe levels to administer.

• Water is a nutritional necessity — just a fifteen percent loss of water is enough to kill a cat.

• Smell is important in stimulating appetite. If a cat is ill, it may appear to go off food. This may occur because the inability to breathe or smell through a blocked nose may make the cat less inclined to eat. Similarly, canned food that has begun drying out and losing its smell may not be as appealing to a cat.

• Cats prefer sour, bitter, or salty tasting substances.

• Although a cat and a fish seems to be a traditional and customary pairing, in the desert, the wild cat's natural habitat, the cat would not have encountered fish; indeed, aside from a particular cat breed in India, wild cats will not hunt for fish even if they are available.

• Unlike dogs or even humans, cats must eat meat to sustain their health, a consequence of its evolutionary development as a predator. Similarly, a steady supply of prey in the wild accounts for how a cat would traditionally dine on ten or more small meals a day. This reliance on a constant stream of food to provide all its dietary requirements has meant that there are certain substances cats can't produce in their own bodies, and which have to be supplied directly by its prey, including fat.

(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Cats Miscellany"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Lesley O'Mara.
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Introduction vi

Ten Reasons Why You Have to Own a Cat 2

Cat Lovers 4

Cat Ancestors 6

It's a Cat's World (1) 8

Some Cat Breed Facts 10

Cats' Bodies 12

Cats on Postage Stamps 15

The White Cat 17

Cats' Whiskers 18

Cat Trouble 20

Cats' Incredible Journeys (1) 23

Cats' Food 26

Famous Cat Owners (1) 29

Purring 34

Cats' Ears 35

Cat Naps 36

Top Cats 37

More Cats 40

Cats' Chat 41

Cats Versus Dogs 43

Cats and Milk 46

Having Kittens 47

Some Cat Behaviors 49

Cats' Curiosity 51

Some Cat Care 53

How to Litter Train Your Cat 54

Cats' Eyes 55

Gat and Mouse 57

Cat Fun 58

Hazardous Plants 60

Some Plants Poisonous to Cats (1) 61

Famous Cat Owners (2) 62

Catty! 66

Getting Rid of Fleas 67

Catnip 69

Photographing Your Cat 71

Catty Problems Solved 73

Cats Versus Humans 75

Not for the Squeamish 78

Some Famous Cats 79

Cats' Legs and Paws 83

Cats in High Office 85

Some Plants Poisonous to Cats (2) 90

Celebrity Cats 92

Cat Legends 95

It's a Cat's World (2) 98

Cats Skin and Fur 100

Cat Myths 102

Some Cat Luck and Lore 105

Some More Cat History 107

Nine Lives 110

Each Nation to its Own:Cat Superstitions 111

The Black Cat 112

Cats' Blood 114

More Lore: Cats and the Weather 115

Record-Breaking Cats 116

Cats' Noses 119

Some Plants Poisonous o Cats (3) 120

Miscellaneous Cat Facts 122

Everlasting Cats 124

Cats and Computers 125

How to Befriend a Cat 126

Famous Cat Owners (3) 128

Famous Aiiurophobes 132

Fat Cat: How to Tell if Your Cat is Overweight 133

Cats in Art 134

Cats in Ancient Egypt 138

A Few Cat Dangers 140

Cats in Advertising 142

Cats and Music 144

Cats' Mouths 146

Believe It or Not 148

Inventions for Cats 150

Cats' Tails 152

A Great Mouser 153

Cats and Birds 154

Cats' Incredible Journeys (2) 155

Cats at War 157

A Cat Hotel 160

Cat Tricks 161

American Cat Laws 163

How to Toilet Train Your Cat 165

Great Heights 167

The World According to Cats 169

Famous Cat Owners (4) 171

Cat Names 174

Other Cat Colors 175

It's a Cat's World (3) 177

Louis Wain 179

Some Plants Poisonous to Cats (4) 181

Chit C(h)at 182

Contrary Cats 183

How to Draw a Cat 184

Cats in Trees 185

Mincha 186