Cat Behaviour and Welfare

Don’t ever think you keep a cat!

This section on Cat Behaviour and Welfare explains how your cat allows you the privilege of sharing its territory, in what you may think is your home environment.

Cats were very smart and got themselves domesticated to take over humans around 130,000 years ago, on the promise of working - catching vermin and being good companions. Some believe they conned man before dogs did.

They had more devious plans for a life of luxury spending most of each 24 hours snoozing in comfort. In ancient Egypt they even got themselves worshipped!

For humans to survive with cats, it’s important to appreciate to understand their incredible senses and how these make them ruthless and cynical predators of native fauna as well as vermin.

Knowing how cats communicate with cats is very important, as they have also worked out how to communicate with humans to get what they want. Knowing this is vital in understanding their social and reproductive behaviour which humans may not like, and have to find ways to modify.

So the information on so-called “cat-human” problems and their resolution is important, as long as you realise that cats have no problems, it’s the humans in our modern lifestyle who cause them, especially when humans forget that cats are cats!

This leads on to cat feeding issues, and confusion between what cats need and what humans think cats need. Then there’s what the advertisers of cat foods think the owners think cats needs!

To read all about Cat Behaviour and Welfare, click this link: Clive Dalton Cat Behaviour Knol.
For a simple introduction to the language and terminology of animal behaviour and welfare, readers should review Clive Dalton's Animal Behaviour and Welfare: basic principles.