Candida Baker - The Amazing Life of Cats

Candida Baker is an author and the Director of the Byron Bay Writers Festival. She has been a writer, a journalist and an animal lover for many years. She owns horses, dogs, and one long-suffering cat, somewhat inappropriately named Tiny.

The amazing life of

CATS

CANDIDA BAKER

First published in 2011

Copyright Candida Baker 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Inspired Living, an imprint of
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Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available
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ISBN 978 1 74237 661 5

Internal design by Nada Backovic
Set in 13.5/18 pt Centaur by Bookhouse, Sydney
Printed in Australia by Ligare Pty Ltd, Sydney

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Boots, who taught me that walls dont matter

Contents

H istorians have told us often over the years that domestic cats sprang from Ancient Egypt, where temple cats were worshipped, and indeed, paintings of house cats go back as far as 3600 years. Bast, the Egyptian goddess, was often shown in cat form, and was occasionally depicted as a lioness. But in 2004 a Neolithic grave containing two skeletons was excavated in Cyprus; one skeleton was human, the other a large cat. They were buried beside each other. The grave is almost 10,000 years old, and the cat closely resembled the African wildcat. For a writer the detail is tantalisingwhy were they buried together? Who died first? Were cats already companion animals by then?

We may never know the social or emotional history behind the gravesite, but science can give us some facts. Genetic studies show that cats were probably first domesticated in Mesopotamia and were later brought to Cyprus and Egypt. Theres also evidence to suggest that they were already present in Britain in the late Iron Age. But whenever and wherever the relationship began, like our relationships with horses and dogsthe other four-legged species that have chosen to link their destinies with humansits certainly been going on for thousands and thousands of years.

It was during the so-called Age of Discovery, when man set off in sailing ships to explore the world, that cats really came into their own. They were carried on board to control rodents and as good luck charms, and thus made their way to all corners of the globe. I like the idea of a cat comforting a cabin boy a long way from home, or cuddling up with a grumpy sailor in his hammock.

So despite cats obvious independence and occasional apparent disdain for their humans, it would seem that in the same way that dogs made a decision to join us beside our fires, cats too thought their lives might be improved by a connection with people. However, while dogs have generally modified their wild behaviour in order to coexist with us, cats have not altered much since the first wildcatmost likely a jungle cat from southeast Asia, an African wildcat, a Chinese mountain or an Arabian sand catthrew their natural caution to the winds, no doubt for the same reason a stray can be tamed now: easily accessible food.

What was it that early man saw in cats that meant cats were elevated to a more exalted status than dogs? Many ancient religions believed that cats are higher souls, designed as companions or spiritual guides for humans. The prophet Muhammad himself had a favourite cat, Muezza, and apparently loved cats so much that he would do without his cloak rather than disturb one that was sleeping on it.

If a theme has emerged from the compiling of this anthology it is the healing power of cats. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that cats are psychicIve owned a psychic cat myself, as you can see from my story about my black and white cat Boots. Perhaps it was their healing and psychic powers that caused them to be associated with witches during medieval timesor perhaps witches, themselves healers and psychics, recognised these powers in the small felines and adopted them as friends. Unfortunately, the relationship got both sides of the equation into trouble. Searching for reasons as to why the Black Death or Bubonic Plague occurred in the fourteenth century, which was spread by fleas from infected rats, historians have found that when witch hysteria was at its height, hundreds of thousands of cats were killed as well, causing an explosion in rat numbers.

Before the mass hysteria of the middle ages, cats enjoyed a more peaceful symbolic connection with Freyja, the Norse goddess of love, beauty and fertility, who is shown riding a chariot drawn by cats. Indeed, despite what I am sure would be growls of disapproval from tomcats around the world, cats are traditionally associated with the feminine, as dogs are with the masculine. Cats extraordinary sensory perceptiontheir eyesight, hearing, smell and touchplaces them symbolically as guides, who can know the way when we dont, when we have to follow our blind instinct.

Is all of this raising the household moggie to dizzy heights?

No introduction to a book on cats should shirk a responsible cat owners duty, which is to acknowledge how environmentally destructive cats can be. If every cat owner in the world had always had their cats desexed, attached a bell to the animals collars and kept them in at night then the history of bird species around the world would be very different. Sadly, many people have been wantonly careless, creating an apparently insoluble problem worldwidethere are reputedly around 40 million feral cats in the US alone. Conversely, though, there are responsible and caring humans who are trying to help address this problem, as in the moving story of Lisa, the