THE SECRET LIFE OF CATS / الحياة السرية للقطط

THE SECRET LIFE OF CATS

EVERYTHING YOUR CAT WOULD WANT YOU TO KNOW

DO YOU KNOW what makes your cat tick – what motivates it to behave as it does?

With behaviours developed and honed over millions of years to produce a highly skilled hunter and adaptable survivor, how has the cat managed to slip into the role of man’s top companion without actually compromising any of its instincts?

What goes on beneath that beautiful exterior – would understanding the secret life of the cat enable us to make sure it is happy living alongside us?

Actually, we put a great deal of pressure on our pet cats in our modern lives, trying to keep a largely asocial animal with others of its kind, often without access to outside or with it having any understanding of its motivations.

We live in cities where the density of cats must cause them great stress and we expect them to take on our human frailties of needing to be needed.

We are breeding cats which have inherited problems, are failing to socialize them in early life and expect them to live with however many other cats we decide we want to have around. Our attitudes and demands are a real challenge to the adaptability of the cat and it is a credit to its flexibility that so few problems do occur and most cats and people live very contentedly together.

This book is a combination of two of my favorite books – Cat Whisperer and What Cats Want.

It attempts to explain what a cat really is, how it behaves and why it does what it does.

Our modern lives are a real challenge to the cat and sometimes I fear for how far we can actually push it.

A cat cannot say what it wants.

I have attempted to interpret its behaviors and actions to deduce what it might want in this life which is now ever more closely linked to ours.

Go back to basics, understand what a fantastic creature the cat is, how it might think and give it the respect it deserves.

THE NURTURE FACTOR

The number of people who have the time, space and knowledge to keep a dog are decreasing.

Yet whatever it is that makes us like to keep pets – perhaps we might call it the ‘nurture factor’ – has not disappeared.

We like to care for something; we like to be welcomed home by something that in turn responds to us unconditionally.

It is not pleasant to go home after a long day in the office to an empty house.

Being met by a pet that is delighted to see you and welcome you gives you a lift.

Enter the cat – clean, independent, unlikely to get lonely, good on companionship and low on maintenance – the answer to our prayers.

Moreover, it is unlikely to cause our neighbours and friends much (if any) nuisance or danger.