Friday Cat Blogging on Saturday: Violet On Laptop Case On Box

And now, a cute picture of our cat.

You know how if there's a thing, the cat has to sit on it? If there's a magazine on the sofa or a file folder on the bed, that's where the cat will sit?

This picture illustrates that principle two-fold. The giant cardboard box in the living room is our new coffee table before it was assembled. Here is Violet, sitting not just on the giant box, but on my laptop case on the giant box.

BTW, I've read that the "if there's a thing, the cat has to sit on it" principle has to do with cats' territorial instincts. Any zoologists out there know if that's true?

Comments

Cats have been domesticated for so long that it's pretty difficult to separate their behaviour from the human environment. They've been living with humans longer than any other companion animals.

Some day, I really want to test the limits of the phenomenon by placing a terracotta tile on my bed to see if the cats will curl up on it instead of the duvet.

[Billy (A Liberal Disabled Vet)]

Ah. Another cat person.

I have four cats. One, a black and white named Oreo (on her back she looks like an Oreo (TM) cookie) will invariably find the less comfortable object to sleep upon. If I leave a dish towel (dry) on the butcher block, she will curl up on the crinkled not my wife left for the kids (thus giving them an excuse for not seeing the note (not that they need one)). My wife and I joke that she is a reincarnation of my Polish Catholic turned New England Presbyterian grandmother: "It's okay, I'll just sit here on my soggy Tricuit and my rust Brillo pad with the lights off. You go ahead and enjoy your life. Don't worry about me."

The other there cats, of course, fight over the cat beds (three cats, four cat beds, they argue (sort of like teenagers)).

Nice site. Just discovered it from Spanish Inquisitor.

[Greta Christina]

I'll echo what Billy said. Note this photo of Lydia, with the entire sofa to sit on, sitting on the Bible.

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2007/10/friday-cat-blog.html

[Joreth]

Actually, cats aren't all that "domesticated". They're still very closely related to their wildcat counterparts and can actually revert back within a very short (evolutionary-wise) span of time:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062802343.html

"All domestic cats are descended from the species Felis sylvestris" - which is different from all other "domestic" animals, which have different and independent ancestors - "Genetic studies have shown that cattle, goats, sheep, pigs and water buffalo were all domesticated at least twice in independent events. With horses, it happened many times."

"The researchers found wild cats, with DNA identical to domestic cats, in Israel, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia" which is where the common ancestor comes from. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/29/AR2007062901677.html?tid=informbox

"cats have not lost any of their highly skilled and quite cold-blooded (or so it seems) predatory skills. And of course they sometimes play with their prey, which suggests evil intent. They may have become more friendly when they came in from the woods, but when they get down to business of hunting and killing they haven't lost a step in 10,000 years." ... "So artificial selection in cats has only been going on in the west for about 200 years- no time at all really" - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/06/29/DI2007062900911.html?tid=informbox

[LeeH]

Our cats prefer to be in the box, rather than on it. If a box arrives, one of our cats will circle it as if waiting to inspect inside. Once it is unpacked, she elegantly jumps over the side and lands inside. When a second cat tries to enter it, things get interesting. I can believe the territory idea. But I'd rather believe she was a UPS box inspector, in a prior life.

[drew]

"Cats have not lost any of their highly skilled and quite cold-blooded (or so it seems) predatory skills. And of course they sometimes play with their prey, which suggests evil intent."

This is a joke right?