A feeling for felines
Over the last 10 years or so, cats have overtaken dogs as America’s No. 1 pet, there now being 66 million sequestered in homes across the United States. Why the popularity and why the sudden increase in numbers? Part of their appeal may be that they are relatively low-maintenance pets that do not demand a lot of attention and are relatively easy to keep. Changing demographics, including an increase in working couples, delayed parenthood and an increase in empty nesters and senior citizens, tend to favor a low-maintenance pet.
But then, why own a pet at all, you might ask? The answer seems to lie in the human desire to nurture and support, to depend and to be depended upon. The good thing about pets is that while we come to regard them as children, unlike children, they never grow up to achieve full independence. Because we feed and groom cats, as their mothers would have done, it is thought that cats see us in a maternal role. This might account for the overwhelming female ownership of cats or the fact that mainly women are the cats’ caregivers.
But the attraction may involve more than just nurturing. Albert Schweitzer said, “Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.” I believe he was right. There is a mystical appeal in forming a close bond with a member of a totally different species. Such relationships are mind-broadening. To look into the trusting eyes of a cat (or dog), knowing that it appreciates you and is anticipating some kind of interaction with you, is like peering back through the looking glass of time to view our own deepest roots.
The relationships we form with domestic animals, though nonverbal, certainly involve communication. And such relationships can be intense. They help us appreciate who we really are and our true place in the order of things: We are not supreme mortal beings but are actually part of the whole gestalt of life. It is hardly surprising, then, that people with close bonds to cats (or other pets) seem to want to know as much as they can about their small charges. Are they intelligent? Do they experience emotions, such as anger or jealousy? Are they capable of love or empathy? Are they self-aware?
Most cat owners think that the answer to all these questions is affirmative, but they would like to have their beliefs confirmed by some reliable, preferably scientific, source. Fortunately, science has concurred with cat owners on a number of these points. Intelligence? Yes. Feelings? Why sure. But secondary emotions, implying a concept of self, are tougher for the scientific community to swallow (not to mention prove). There is no shortage of information in the pet sections of libraries and bookstores about what cats might and might not be capable of. Some of the more scientific texts, such as Dennis Turner and Patrick Bateson’s “The Domestic Cat,” are accurate, scientific and highly credible, but tough to digest, and limited in their ability to draw connections. Other texts, such as Jeffrey Masson’s “The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats,” may be an easier read and more entertaining, but not accurate. Nor are they intended to be. Such books extemporize on pet love and affection, ascribing greater degrees of complexity to feline thought than is actually possible.
Books like this should be read for entertainment, but not taken seriously, for they are one person’s view and, in many cases, are uninformed in their assumptions and conclusions. If you want to know more about your cat, be prepared to do some hard work and read scientific publications, perhaps even ones that involve a great deal of extrapolation. If it’s musings and entertainment you want, by all means check out the more heartwarming storybook versions, such as Masson’s.