How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven.
– Robert A. Heinlein, one of the world’s great science fiction writers and moggie-lovers.
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This was the ONE PLACE on the whole of the internet I thought I would be safe from catblogging. Damn.
Lupin, no luck!
I give you caturday!
If the saying is correct, cat owners shall spend eternity in heavan scooping up cat shit from other people’s gardens with their bare hands.
BTW am I alone in thinking that the “dancing cats” advert genre is utterly devoid of all but nano-talent and imagination? Ok, it is novel…and?
Compare such “animation” with the wonderful “Lloyds Bank Train” with hints of those wonderful Czech and Hungarian creations.
What lupin said…That link is a riot, though, Adriana:-)
Meow, Lupin
Coming next, Reptileblogging!
http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com
Well I saw my uncle kick a cat across the yard with his cowboy boots, and a former boss of mine, during his youth on the farm he grew up on, used to take kittens to the roof of the barn, tie a string around their necks, and drop them over the side to see their heads pop off. He told me thus in a tone of fond nostalgia of the old days.
I wonder what spot they’ll inhabit.
Of course farmers have quite a different view of cats in general, at least the feral kind.
You like cats too? Want to trade recepies? 🙂
Eh, I kid. I love cats and dogs; it’s the people with mice and rats I don’t understand (well, unless you raise them as snake food).
Friends of mine in Cardiff had a huge un-neutered tom, name of Hannibal.
The name was apt.
He used to attack passers bye that he didn’t like the look of. He had his favorite spot atop an 8ft wall, and would leap on the backs of the unwary. Caused no end of trouble for my friends.
He would play chicken with the traffic too. They lived on Newport Road. A very busy road. We used to watch him, sitting quietly on the curb waiting for a lorry. When one came he was off in a flash, timing his run so as to get under behind the front wheels and out before being clobbered by the back. Then he’d calmly sit on the other side and do it again and again.
He also loved water!
You would find him sometimes, sat under a dripping tap in the kitchen sink, droplets pinging off his head, purring like a jet plane.
I think Mr Heinlein, has it the wrong way round.
It should be the way they treat us rather than vice versa, that should book THEIR place in heaven.
Brad,
That kinda behaviour is only acceptable with the relatives of deposed (indeed deceased) Iraqi dictators.
Funny how many readers should embrace Heinlein’s wisdom on so many issues, yet reject his rather wise comments on cats.
Cat’s are a wonderful metaphor for human relationships: those who know how to respond accurately to a cats cues are especially in touch with their inter-personal skills and empathy (particuarly men who seem to lack these abilities more so than women).
Want a good man? Watch how he responds to your cat. Better still, find one who had a vat of his own.
Dating advice from Heinlein.
Heinlein, (and Graham) may be more right than they realize.
Graham, I have had a VAT of my own, most nights!
That’s why my wife detests me! and goes to bed early and locks the doors.
(I know it was a typo, but I just couldn’t resist it!)
Graham,
A vat of his own? You feeling thirsty?
I dunno. I like cats but I once dated a girl whose cat got incredibly jealous if the two of us (me and the girl) showed physical affection to each other. Then she (the cat) disappeared. I was alone in the flat and the French windows(?) to the patio were open and Spooky (the cat) was nowhere to be seen. I thought, Oh hell, she’s taken a dive off the balcony. Forget about landing on it’s feet, this was the 16th floor. I spent two hours looking for that cat before it emerged from behind some towels in a cupboard looking ever so slightly ashamed. I have rarely been more relieved in my life and if I wasn’t so pleased to see the little critter I would have strangled it! That morning took about 10 years off my life. I’d already had an argument with my girlfriend and the last thing I wanted to tell her when she got back from work was that I’d lost her cat. And I rather liked the creature.
Mid, and the rest of you,
Do read “The Black Cat” by Poe for a highly cautionary tale of the perils of feline abuse. On my advice, my mother once read it to a fractious class of 12 year-olds and they sat transfixed.
Brad,
I was a bit flippant about your post earlier, but your boss’s “activities” is about the most reprehensible thing I have ever heard. I just hope one of them was black and came back to haunt him.
Ðœid: like this fellow.
Yeah, Brad’s comment kind of helped me get over Nick’s link…
Kitten Tikka anyone? 🙂
I think I may have had one of those the other night
Onepagan.
The wife claims she came down in the morning and found me fast asleep and purring on top of the pelmet. 🙂
At various points in the kids’ lives, we’ve had pets of all kinds and shapes, mammal and reptile, fish and fowl, from one end of the house to the other.
I’ve been esp. close to a few of the dogs, my Olde English being my all time favorite.
I was also the fortunate adopter of several cats, the sweetest and most affectionate being a runt rescued from a window well named Mushie.
He was mishapen and screwed up from head to toe, and died fairly young from internal problems, but he was, hands down, the most memorable animal I have ever met. I miss him every day.
I doubt that that’s enough to get me into heaven, though. I’m still counting on my grandmother’s putting in a good word for me. As the divinity’s personal baker, I assume she has some influence.
“Hey, God—No kid, no more apple pie.”
“OK, OK, Marie, whatever you say. Can I have another slice now?”
oh lord, what have I started?
You Tee them up sunshine
And I’ll slice them into a bunker!
(No catshit in there, is there? Or I want a free drop!)
Little girls and kittens – the reasons the universe exists.
(Big girls – the reason I exist)
When I was growing up, we had a wonderful cat called ‘Sarah’, who used to go out hunting in the countryside.
She’d bring us back the sweetmeats from whatever she killed and leave them on the doorstep.
She also warned us when the paraffin stove in the kitchen caught alight and saved the family from a fire.
I loved that cat.
I am surprised at the amount of moon-cattery going on here.
I do wonder if the cat represents the state/politicians. Gives token affection around feeding/election time but if unforthcoming gets demanding and presumptuous and will ignore you if someone else feeds it better. What are cats thinking? “If I were bigger, I could eat you”.
Dogs are loyal party members.
Yes, stroking a cat (or even massaging its neck and ear muscles…they LOVE that) is pleasurable and they can be adorable on occasion, but you should resist being suckered into the deal unknowingly (knowingly is your choice).
Cats = Microsoft (you work for it, not the other way around)
Dogs= Linux (it works for you, hard working but smelly)
Rabbits= Apple Mac (fast, fun, clean, pretty but often misunderstood)
If people think cats are adorable, then they have never encountered rabbits in their element. Many people do not know how thoroughly social, engaging, mischevious, cheeky and fun they are if given regular human interaction. Our housetrained rabbit even had guilt – he knew he had “stolen” from the vegetable rack and when you saw him next he had that “butter would not melt” look…
TimC,
You out Moon-catted us all with that post.
I also think you’re being a very naughty boy by bringing-up again (even vaguely) the MS/Apple/Linux thing. Remember the last time that was discussed on Samizdata? It almost ended with death threats and someone declared their undying love for a Dell!
I read somewhere that cats are the second most loarhed animlas in Britain. Second only to the rat. The thing about cats is, you either love them or you loath them. And most people it would appear, can’t stand’em.
Incidentally, the common perception that cats are smarter than dogs is a total phallacy. Dogs, I.Q. wise, are far more intelligent than cats are. You find me a cat that is more intelligent than a German Shepherd. And dogs are more dependable and loyal too. A dog will endanger its own life and will jump in water to try and save its owner. It will give up its life to save yours. A cat on the other hand will readily f*ck off and leave you if the next door neighbour feeds it better and lets it snooze in front of their warm fireplace. I know, I have seen it happen to a friend of mine.
Cats and “HEAVEN!? Heaven smeaven…
The Chinese have the right idea towards cats. They skin’em, cook’em and eat’em.
Gives token affection around feeding/election time but if unforthcoming gets demanding and presumptuous and will ignore you if someone else feeds it better.
Prudence, my deceased and sadly missed tortoiseshell lady, was a one person cat. Everyone else hated her because she was supercilious and disdainful, regardless of who fed her. But to me? She followed me around, always siting no more than six feet from me when I was home. She didn’t obviously chase me around, she was too much of a lady for that, but if I moved rooms, within a minute or so she would wander in as well and set herself somewhere.
Every evening she would sit on the gate post, looking down the road, waiting for me to come home. When work sent me to the states for three months she kept this up every night for six weeks before she finally gave up.
She would play with me, and no one else, as if I were another cat, chasing one another around the garden, and she would cuddle up to me, always ignoring everyone else in the house regardless of how they tried to bribe her.
When I took her to the vet for her last visit, she was so ill she could hardly move, but she still crawled into my arms when I put them out to her on the examining table.
Pru was a one man cat, and the day she died I was incapable even of crying.
If you can write the above comments, you know nothing of cats.
Cats smarter than dogs? Depends on what you call “smart”. Dogs are simply more trainable than cats. Some people may say that a cat is too smart to do what you say. “Smart” breeds of dogs are often less trainable than “stupid” breeds, because the smart ones can figure out how to get what they want without doing what its master says.
Someone mentioned rats way earlier in this discussion, and I have to say that I’m one of those weirdos. Rats, as opposed to mice, however are very smart, playful, and affectionate. Their temperament is halfway between cats and dogs, plus they can fit in your hand or on your shoulder!
ARRR Jim Lad!!!
Shall we, just for the hell of it (cos that’s where it’s gone now, sorry Johnathan)
Extend this discussion to parrots?
You can talk to parrots
And they can talk to you.
What kind of conversation would you have with them, I wonder, as you lit the stove and greased the frying pan…
You’re not referring to this http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/lovelycats/
are you?
Dogs more intelligent than cats? Really?
Dogs have (human) masters, cats have (human) staff.
Dogs are lost without either being part of a pack, or ordered about by a human, or both. Cats will think for themselves, and walk alone.
Dogs look up at you, cats look down upon you. Only pigs treat you as an equal. [Churchill]
And of course, a house is not a home without a cat.
Samsung,
Had you been hitting the bottle there? Your typing was all over the place. I particularly like “phallacy”. Is that what some of the ladies of my favourite web-sites use for the strap-on pleasuring of each other?
No Nick. I think it refers to delusions of, er… , grandeur.
I do think Samsung is right about the cat/dog intelligence thing. Compare the percentage of cat species (up to and including Siberian tigers) and the number of canine species capable of spontaneously forming a group from strangers, a plan, and acting in concert. Foxes and lions are exceptions to prevailing patterns.
I like cats and we usually have a couple around the farm, but as a general pattern dogs are far more adaptable and less likely to be run over, caught in machines, or injured by livestock. Even though dogs are far more involved in activities at risk for the above fates.
Of course, gangster cats named ‘Vito’ are exempt. 🙂
Anyone remember Bonsai Kitten?
Alan,
Yes I managed to outrage some of my more naive animal loving friends with that one. I also managed to convince at least one person that US keyboards were a mirror image of UK ones because Americans drove on the other side of the road and that London’s Piccadilly Circus was so named because they used to have a big-top there with clowns and elephants and all the rest. My grandest achievement was convincing my wife that they’d taken the word “gullible” out of the OED. It is a very good thing that I’m an honest man.
Mid,
Intelligence. I think the problem is that I don’t think you can regard it as a single thing. I think IQ testing is a farce. People have different skills. As I type this I’ve got a page of HTML I’m hacking my through up on the other screen. Upstairs my wife probably has a page of Danish that she’s translating. Both are intellectual exercises and both are mutually incomprehensible to two people smart enough to have graduate degrees from good universities. The brain is a toolbox and an electrician, a mechanic and a plumber keep different tools.
I think the same applies to critters. I think more so because animals are much more “hard-wired” to be good at specific things. My big animal love is fish (both eating and keeping). And I was delighted to learn recently that fish are a lot smarter than biologists had previously given them credit for. They had previously only looked at the brain/body ratio and had stuck ’em down with the insects. It turns out though that fish behaviour is remarkably complex (I always suspected this from years of having an aquarium). The theory is that the brains of bony fish (while small) have just been honed to be exceptionally efficient by evolution over a much longer time-scale than relative newcomers like birds, mammals or even reptiles. I’m not sure if the study covered cartilaginous fish but then if you’ve got teeth like a shark you really don’t have to be that smart to earn your living.
BTW, Vito goes mental when I have anything fishy. He got stuck head first in the trash-can after I had some smoked trout recently. He was after the wrapper.
It is a very good thing that I’m an honest man. LOL!