As a lifelong, incorrigible aelurophile, I could not resist linking to this story. It is about a particular cat – the author’s ferocious cat Frederika. But there are enough interesting historical and scientific facts and factoids here about the frisky felines to warm the hearts of all cat lovers.
It is interesting to note that among famous people who loved the company of these haughty, mostly untamable, independent and pefectly formed creatures were Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, T.S Eliot, Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, Hemingway and many more of the creative types. And notorious cat haters? Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Ghenghis Khan, Napoleon, Benito Mussolini and no surprise, Adolf Hitler. See the pattern of the link between free enquiring spirits and aelurophilia and extreme controlling trends with its opposite – a phobia for cats. I am not surprised at all.
My own cats have all been big, fat, laid back and extremely affectionate tom cats who came to me as very small kittens. I have not had the adventure of coping with a killer feral cat like Frederika (who has nevertheless exercised hypnotic charm on her human companion) who sounds a bit like my daughter’s cat, Noori. I can’t say how I would react to such a creature lurking around my home. But from her photos, Freddy looks gorgeous and very lovable. Don’t miss the last picture which shows her as a blur, jumping through the air – probably at an unsuspecting victim!
Accidental Blogger 
10 responses to “A Cat Tale”
I remember one of the stories that I had to study in Hindi class, about the bahu of the household nursing a hatred of the cat which made her life miserable by spilling milk,etc. She bops it on the head in anger and it drops dead.This is followed by much outcry by the MIL, cook, neighbors and all, culminating in lengthy sermons by the local priest on how to do penance, of course involving a solid gold cat to be given away to the lucky priest. Unfortunately for him, the cat gets up and runs away. A highly amusing look at superstition and exploitation in the name of religion.
Slightly off topic, I know, but couldn’t resist mentioning this, especially with the description of how ancient Egyptians treated the death of their cats and killing cats.!
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Another cat tale- real one this time. My friend’s cat Timmy loves to play hide-and-seek with my daughter. If she hides,and we ask Timmy to find her, he will try to sniff her trail and finds her. Is this a normal cat behavior or is Timmy a cat-genius of sorts from eating the human baby food ( Gerber,etc) that he loves?
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Timmy might indeed be a genius but not necessarily because he plays hide and seek.
Almost all cats develop their own little idiosyncracies and/or game that they specialize in. My cat in India used to go with my father every day to the fish monger (in his own basket) to buy fish and then closely inspected the process of cleaning and preparing the fish at home without once lunging for a piece of the luscious fare. Of course, he ate his fair share of fish every day. I already told you about one of my cats enjoying (he is ecstasic!) piano music. He also drinks water with his paws.
The game that Timmy plays with your daughter appears more like dog behavior – obeying a command which cats are notorious for ignoring. While it is possible to train cats in some of their daily routine of eating, use of litter, answering your call, responding to toys etc., it is different from training a dog. A trained dog will do many things even when it is in pain. A cat is trainable mostly in responding to a stimulus which results in a pleasurable outcome. (You cannot MAKE a cat do something against its wishes without resorting to extremely cruel training methods).
The reason Timmy goes looking for your daughter is that he “loves” your daughter and playing that game with her for a peculiar personal reason. He is pursuing a favorite hobby NOT following orders.
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Thanks, Ruchira, for answering my question. It did seem rather surprising that Timmy understood and willingly played hide-and-seek, but it may be that he will do so only with my daughter, since he likes to play with her, sniffs her hair, licks her, rolls over to have his tummy scratched,etc. Also, he will not do it if he’s sleepy or out of sorts, just during alert play.
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Also, many animal behaviorists believe that cats possess a more powerful sense of smell than dogs and are actually better “sniffers.” Having retained more of their wild instincts, they are superb natural hunters and require little or no training.
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Thanks for linking to my post. Lest you think Frederica is anything less than a pleasure to be around, let me hasten to add that she has never seriously injured anyone, and bites only playfully, never hard. She is just a very active cat, and lovely! I think I made her sound too murderous in my piece!
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Abbas:
Thanks for visiting. Sorry, I too made Frederica sound too murderous. I was going with the tone of your own exaggerations – for humorous purposes, I am sure.
I know exactly what Freddy is like. My daughter rescued a feral cat Noori, who is very much like her. Playful, energetic, pretty wild and very cute. The bites and scratches result from the unpredictability of her sudden display of affection and playfulness, not from malice at all. Whenever I am on the phone with my daughter, our conversation is punctuated by screams and screeches that my daughter lets out periodically because Noori wants her attention and lets it be known with some expertly aimed nips and swipes.
Female cats are always more fastidious and energetic than the males. All the cats who have lived with me, have been males – by accident, not design. They have all been amazingly laid back – one of them used to purr at the vet!
No insult meant for Freddy – I love cats, no matter what their temperament. I thoroughly enjoyed your article and recognized a dedicated fellow cat lover. (What use is an article about cats without hyperbole?)
I have not posted the photos of my own cats on the blog. But please see my painting of Raja and Ali – my latest cat companions (Raja, alas is no more).
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Sujatha, I remember that story as well.
And Mrs. Paul, yours must have been the rarest of families, to own a pet cat in India.
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M.W:
It is funny you say that. Pet ownership was on the whole rare in India when I was growing up and cats were even rarer. When a household did have a pet, 99 out of 100 times it was a dog. So I guess my family was indeed unusual. But we also owned dogs and a whole aviary of birds at different times. I have always been a helpless sucker for ALL animals but cats exercise a special power over my psyche.
I had for a short period contemplated bringing a monkey into our home. But my mother, a very gentle woman who did not much care for animals herself but put up with them for our sake, put her foot down very, very firmly!
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Mrs. P, you were lucky that your mother aquiesced to alteast some pets. We had no such luck. My mom’s quite a cleanliness freak (aren’t all mothers?) and having an four legged creature in the house was unthinkable. The closest I came to having pets were a pair of goldfish, but they didn’t last long. Someone forgot to switch off their water heater (for the cold Delhi winters)at night and the poor things had boiled to their deaths by morning. That was the end of the end of my adventures with animals. Someday I’d love to have a dog but being my mother’s son, I have a problem with the hair they shed all over the place. That just gets to me.
P.S. Considering the amount of monkeys we having roaming freely, even in urban areas, in India, it would be quite a profitable venture to import a few to the U.S. Our lab is involved in some animal research and I was shocked to learn that a common rhesus monkey can cost around $15,000 or more! We makedo with rats.
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