[Gavisann]

no2pencil, on 19 July 2011 - 07:28 PM, said:

Gavisann, on 19 July 2011 - 12:20 PM, said:

bflosabre91, on 19 July 2011 - 11:14 AM, said:

that video makes me really sad for some reason. i dont even like cats but im not digging the clip on the back thing.

It didn't appeared disabled, it appeared super pissed. I don't have a cat, but I would never to that to my dog.

Grabbing a cats scruff? Sometimes you have to. Unless your cat really likes to be held (& most do not) you can't just ask them to wait a moment. When they get antsy they start flailing & clawing, & doing everything that they can to get away. Once you grab their scruff they know who's in control.

Anytime our cats decide they are going to push the limits & jump onto a counter, or bite feet, we grab them by the scruff & scold them. Just like said, it's what their mothers did, so it puts them in perspective. Plus they know what's gonna happen when they mis-behave & it helps to keep them in check.

In fact I only scruff our Orange cat Melman when he decides to start bullying the other cats. Mostly my elder cat. He'll knock her down & stand over her, & he meows in a specific way, taunting her. When he bites her, he doesn't let go, he'll bite hard & deep, removing furr & causing blood. So when I hear her scream, if I come running & find furr all over, & in his mouth, he gets scruffed & ran under cold water. Best we can figure he's doing to get my attention, & from what we've researched cats don't make a distinction between positive & negative attention. So to not feed into his reason for causing such a situation, I only scold him when he does this repetitively, or when it's vicious enough that I want him to stop.

As for the kittens, like I said, I only scruff them when they are biting feet.

The one thing you never, ever, ever want to do is hit a cat in the head. Like a dog you sort of swat their nose & tell them no. Cats don't have the elongated face. You never ever strike a cat. The scruff is safer, & more meaningful form of situation control, & motherly parenting.

Grabbing is fine, because it isn't very tight.My concern is that some of those clips are tight.

Also, most of the reasons you listed there, explains why I am not a cat person.

This post has been edited by Gavisann: 19 July 2011 - 07:47 PM

[no2pencil]

You are missing out

[Choscura]

Cats are more wild and haven't been domesticated nearly as long as dogs have: in another few thousand years (barring any cataclysmic events), they'll be as tame as dogs are. Remember, there have been about 40,000 years of domestic breeding (intentional or unintentional) for dogs, and only 1/5 of that for cats according to the best estimates (wikipedia cites the oldest known possible domestication as being in Cyprus about 9,500 years ago, better estimates are from African wild cats 8,000 years ago); if anything, I'd say that cats will end up more tame than dogs, overall, because they have come this far already.

So in a very real sense, the argument of "Cat person vs Dog person" will cease to be valid unless one of them starts growing opposable thumbs and asking their owners for cell phones and 'human rights' before the other learns to sit up and beg.

[Linias]

Bob & tom did an old skit about Cats and Dogs.
They said Dogs are just born to do it. You call a dog, it comes right over. Cats have you leave a message and get back to you.
You tell a dog to roll over, it rolls over. You tell a cat to roll over, it's like, "What? On the GROUND? I just licked this coat clean!".

That said, I remember seeing an article that said that if humans ceased to exist, many dogs would go extinct, but house cats would be fine (backing up what someone earlier said about cats being better hunters).

[calebjonasson]

I have fish. I don't feed them. They're still around.

[NeoTifa]

My cats still are using me for a human climbing post when it's time to be fed. =__= This morning the little Speed Racers thought my hallway was a racetrack, and I had the misfortune to be in their way. I swear, I need to have a full-body padded suit to feed these cows. I'm covered head to toe in scratches.

This post has been edited by NeoTifa: 21 July 2011 - 04:52 AM

[gabehabe]

Linias, on 19 July 2011 - 03:56 PM, said:

NeoTifa, on 19 July 2011 - 08:54 AM, said:

But doesn't that hurt them?

I would think so. You ever use those binder clips? They are strong. Shoot, I don't like having one on my finger.

No. It's the kitten mentality that kicks in as if their mum is picking them up to carry them. It works with dogs too.

calebjonasson, on 21 July 2011 - 04:04 AM, said:

I have fish. I don't feed them. They're still around.

Are you sure they're not just mating at an incredible rate to replace each other? Perhaps eating each other after mating?

[baavgai]

Choscura, on 20 July 2011 - 07:18 AM, said:

Cats are more wild and haven't been domesticated nearly as long as dogs have: in another few thousand years (barring any cataclysmic events), they'll be as tame as dogs are.

Interesting take, but I'd have to disagree. Overall, you're talking about the process of selective breeding. Sure, give humans long enough and they'll mess up the feline species enough to get a chihuahua. Hell, they probably already have.

However, domestication is different and surprisingly fast. It only takes a couple of generations to domesticate an animal. They physically breed different in captivity. Their heads get smaller! Well, there's a whole lot of things that can change. Fur trappers usually find that the traits they value in their prey tend to disappear if they try to breed them.

The simple, strange, truth is that domesticated is really the same as infantilized. Our pets aren't allowed to grow up and survive on their own; we unwittingly keep them in an adolescent state with our care for them. Adult animals don't usually "play," even if their young do. Such play is training for future survival. A house pet will play all it's life. For most animals, this is usually a good deal. Pets actually live four to five times longer in captivity.

[Choscura]

baavgai, on 21 July 2011 - 06:10 AM, said:

It only takes a couple of generations to domesticate an animal. They physically breed different in captivity. Their heads get smaller! Well, there's a whole lot of things that can change. Fur trappers usually find that the traits they value in their prey tend to disappear if they try to breed them.

It's worth pointing out that the pets don't simply get dumber, even if their brains do get smaller: their seratonin levels (at least in dogs) increase and are unconsciously selected for by all human breeders because this trait makes substantially more desirable pet or companion animals. This is as true with cats (if not more so, since they are much closer to being wild animals in any case) as it is with dogs, and any statistical gains in the seratonin levels in successive generations is evidence of this.

Does this mean that the pedomorphosis (childish or juvenile traits in adults) of pets and their higher seratonin levels will make them more intelligent? probably not, our seratonin increase helped us solve increasingly difficult problems and ultimately helped us survive, while theirs was gained because they needed to fit in to survive and not actually do the surviving on their own. But our own pedomporphosis is also worth noticing- ape researchers apparently are fond of remarking how much we look like the babies of all of the other ape species, even as adults.

[dorknexus]

Quote

The simple, strange, truth is that domesticated is really the same as infantilized. Our pets aren't allowed to grow up and survive on their own; we unwittingly keep them in an adolescent state with our care for them. Adult animals don't usually "play," even if their young do. Such play is training for future survival. A house pet will play all it's life. For most animals, this is usually a good deal. Pets actually live four to five times longer in captivity.

In order to utilize an animal as a tool, that sort of domestication is a requirement. Dogs were domesticated so they could be used as tools by humans. I'm not entirely sure why we domesticated cats. We thought they were interesting perhaps?

You are right about cats being supreme hunters, but cats aren't going to help you put food on the table. They hunt for themselves and then offer you the scraps. Some dogs are also elite hunters, like Rodesian Ridgebacks which are used to hunt lions. You can use pitbulls to hunt wild boar. You can use sight hounts to chase down rapid small game. Terriers to eliminate rodents. You can use scent hounds to track the faint smells of prey for miles. Wolfhounds can track and subdue wild wolves. Ultimately though, we have really only bread dogs as assistants in hunting and other tasks. We honed and specialized their senses and abilities to our benefit.

It doesn't make them stupid (being that most animals have smaller cognitive capacities) it simply makes them extremely specialized. The pack mentality is highly desirable as is their want to please us. It makes it so we can train dogs to do what we want. Cats just do as they please and that is why they lack real purpose and/or use.

I can take any dog and train it to be a seeing eye dog. I don't see many cats leading the blind around. So what you view as a detriment, is actually quite useful.

This post has been edited by Dark_Nexus: 21 July 2011 - 09:49 AM

[hookiethe1]

Probably rodent control, they're not good for much else.

[baavgai]

Dark_Nexus, on 21 July 2011 - 12:37 PM, said:

They hunt for themselves and then offer you the scraps.

Actually, a house cat will offer you the entire kill. Then they'll look totally put out if they catch you rejecting the "gift." I used to disappear the various conquests out of sight of the feline in question.

I won't argue; when it comes to utility to man, a dog is clearly the winner. The thing is, real work animals aren't always real pets. The idea of keeping an animal as just a pet is a more modern sensibility. Many popular canine breeds are even more useless than cats. That doesn't keep people from wanting them as pets. For most people, keeping a pet has absolutely nothing to do with the pet's potential usefulness.

I've kept cats and dogs all my life. I enjoy dogs, though I do prefer cats. Cats are far more self sufficient. Probably one of the lowest maintenance critters one can care for. When I used to live in the woods we barely fed them; chipmunks are apparently yummy. My house kitties require no walking, no flea collars, and I can even abandon them for a few days with extra food and litter. They're even self cleaning and sometimes catch vermin. Seriously, a cat is lower maintenance than a gold fish.

[dorknexus]

dog haters gonna hate!

[Nykc]

I gotcha!!!

[ishkabible]

i had a cat, it went in insane and starting rubbing all the hair on it's back off. it also pissed on my bed. im ruined with cats forever. i like dogs, they don't piss on my bed and *so far* i haven't had one go insane.

This post has been edited by ishkabible: 21 July 2011 - 01:24 PM