Pippa Mattinson - The Happy Cat Handbook

There will never be another cat quite like yours. And getting to know your cat is one of lifes most precious experiences. In some respects the perfect pet, cats are both simple and complex creatures. Their needs are few but their personalities are multilayered and fascinating.

If you are ready to fill that cat-shaped hole in your life, this book will help you find and choose your new companion. And if you are already sharing your life with a cat, well help you get the very most out of your friendship, starting with raising a kitten, right through to enjoying your senior cats autumn years.

To help us understand why our cats do the things they do, it helps to talk a little about where cats come from. Well look at how cats have adapted to domesticity and how our friendship has developed, and discover what the world looks like from a cats point of view.

Settling down

Getting a cat is often a turning point in an adults life a kind of halfway stage between being footloose and fancy-free and the heavy responsibilities of careers or parenthood. When you step into the world of cat ownership you will have plenty of company. The Pet Products Manufacturers Association estimates that 17 per cent of British households are home to a cat. And according to the American Pet Products Association it could be as high as 37% in the USA.

Cats are a relatively convenient pet. They need minimal training and can be left alone for several hours each day, yet they are not entirely trouble free, and do from time to time come into conflict with their human friends and neighbours. Youll find lots of great problem-solving tips in this book, but one of our main aims is to help you avoid getting into difficulties in the first place.

Where do cats come from?

The cats evolution from solitary predator to domestic pet provides us with many clues to the roots of their temperament and behaviour, and understanding how your cat thinks and behaves is one of the keys to getting the most from your feline friend. In many ways, cats are unlike any other domestic pet. Their story is a fascinating one.

Domestic cats are descended from a species of small wildcats: Felis sylvestris which means forest wildcat. Wildcats look very similar to domestic cats and can be found in many parts of the world. While they may look for all the world like a harmless tabby, the difference in temperament between pure wildcats and a domestic cat is profound. Modern wildcats cannot be effectively socialised, even if taken from their wildcat mother at a very young age, and can never be turned into pets. Hybrid cat temperaments may vary, and to complicate matters further there are now also new hybrid cat breeds created by crossing domestic cats with exotic wildcats, such as the African serval (Leptailurus serval), and well be looking at some of these increasingly popular hybrids as we go.

Domestic cats can be found in almost every habitable corner of our planet. But when and where did the first wildcat curl up on a human hearth and make friends? We have always known that cats and people go back a long way. We know, for example, that the ancient Egyptians kept domestic cats because their pets were included in the important ritual of mummification, and many have been found in burial sites. For a long time it was difficult to be sure that these cat mummies were the same species that share our homes today, but advances in DNA analysis have confirmed that the cats inhabiting the tombs of the Pharaohs were indeed domesticated cats genetically just like yours and mine. Recent evidence suggests that the domestication of the cat occurred originally in the Mediterranean, and that cats dispersed from there to Europe, Asia and Africa, arriving finally in North America with the first European settlers.

How did cats make friends with people?

Its thought that wildcats may have become interested in human settlements after we humans gave up our hunter-gatherer ways and took up farming. Rodents were drawn to the large quantities of grain we stored to keep our families fed throughout the winter months. Lots of rats and mice meant a readily available food supply for cats, and brought them into closer contact with our ancestors. While we had the benefit of the cats rodent control skills, as cats became less shy and more tolerant of human activity they would have enjoyed access to warm dry sleeping quarters and we all know how important those are to our cats.

Once tentative friendships were established, the sharing of food would have cemented the bond between us and laid the foundations for a permanent change in cat behaviour, which in time separated our domesticated friends from their wild ancestors.

Becoming social

Most wildcats are not social. They live much of their adult lives as solitary creatures, hunting, sleeping and eating alone. For a long time many people believed that domestic cats were solitary too. However, somewhere in our history, its clear that cats developed a relationship with people that went beyond sharing resources. They acquired a need for social contact that enabled our two-way friendship to blossom. Cat lovers have always known, of course, that their cats love them back, and recent research suggests they are right. New studies demonstrate that despite their solitary origins, modern cats have an ability to form relationships with people, just like dogs do. This social side is not confined to their human friends, stray cats for example have been shown to form social groups, albeit loose ones. Cats can also develop affectionate bonds with dogs they live with, and may suffer from separation anxiety when parted from their loved ones.

Many people would argue that despite these changes cats are still not truly domesticated, at least not in the same way as their canine cousins. Our own relationship with cats is complex and different from the way we relate to dogs. Our friendship with dogs developed partly through a shared interest in hunting, an activity that dogs and humans enjoyed together. Like many dogs, cats also have a powerful and fundamental drive to stalk, pursue, grab and kill small prey animals and birds. But cats dont need or want human assistance or companionship in order to hunt. For a cat, hunting isnt a social activity and therefore a willingness to cooperate in order to survive isnt a part of a cats character. Your cat is your friend from choice and not just from need.

What makes cats special?

In most modern homes in Britain, what our pet gets up to once they pass through the cat flap is a mystery. Cats have not only retained their independence but many cats today are still capable of feeding themselves if they have to. Those feline hunting skills can sometimes get cats into trouble, and a significant proportion of the human population actively dislike cats. Those of us who love them are usually prepared to forgive or overlook their predatory nature and prefer to focus on what we see as a cats virtues. And even those who dislike cats often admit a grudging admiration for their survival skills. The cats athletic prowess and adaptability to different human living conditions has enabled him to survive in all manner of different environments. He is as at home among the rooftops of an urban street as he is sunning himself on the branch of an old apple tree in a country garden.