For 14 years, my sweet Sassy kept me company. After losing our home and pets to a fire, we responded to an ad and adopted Sassy. This Siamese cat had lived terrorized for some time in a house with big dogs and seemed to literally jump into my arms. It was love at first sight. However, she was scared to trust and spent 3 weeks in our house either on the top shelf of my closet or under my bed.
I became ill suddenly and had to have an emergency surgery. When I came home, and took over the easy chair, she jumped in my lap and we were instant pals. At that moment, she nursed me back to health, purred me to sleep and we had long conversations about life. For the next 14 years, Sassy and I read each other’s mind, as the radar I have always had regarding my pet cats was especially in tune with her. She was funny and loved people, assuming everyone felt the same about her. Oops. She jumped in the lap of all visitors and would touch their nose with hers, whether they liked it or not. We giggled together, me a grown woman, and her a grown cat. People often said she was “addicted” to me. It was mutual.
She died of thyroid cancer this last December, and it pains me still. I will talk of her here, but not now.
I see her face, and clear blue eyes as she looked at me everyday with a look of pure love filling her face. She would blink and paw me, even placing her paw in my hand when she would lie down beside me. If I read a book, she would often look at the pages as if to say “I just don’t understand the fascination mom, but if you like it, I like it. Are you sure you don’t want to talk to me instead?”
She was the sweetest cat, and I miss her.
I will definitely ”meow about my cat” so come back soon!
I know my cat makes me feel good, but medical reasearch supports it, so now it’s official. Cats and other pets have warm and positive effects on the elderly, the handicapped, and instutionalized people.
Way back in 1977, Drs Aaron Katcher (“Kat…?”) and Brica Friedmann of the University of Pennsylvania studied the recoveries of heart-attack victims and found that those with pets were more apt to recover and stablize their health in the form of lower heart rate, lower blood pressure, and “better attitude” such as an all over sense of well-being. Medical tests prove that simply petting a cat tends to lower one’s blood pressure. Heart patients without pets showed a tendency for having additional heart attacks, some resulting in death.
Got your cat, yet?
Another study maintained that pets act as a catalyst for feelings which are eventually transferred to other people. Those who study pets and people say that animals can bridge the gap between those people who tended to reject others, aiding them in the gradual acceptance of personal relationships. So, evidently, if you know someone who is a bit unsociable, if they gradually can accept an animal, they’ll be kinder and gentler with people! Be careful, though, as too much pet company could cause one who is not used to it, to mistreat the animal!
It’s safe to assume, that care-giving, begets care-giving.
-Marisue, the Cat’s Meow!…so…Meow About Your Cat!
All cat’s are not alike! I’ll be including many little tidbits of info as we write about our meow-er’s…so come back often.
The better to hear you with:
- The color of cats can indicate possible future hearing problems they may have, including the color of their eyes. Not true in all cases, but indicators are, that white cats are more prone to deafness than other cats. The white cats who have those beautiful baby blue eyes have even even more susceptibility for loss of hearing. White cats with orange eyes have less hearing loss than their blue eyed friends.
Who knew?
- Cats ears contain many more muscles than the ears of humans, which is why they can rotate their ears as much as 180 degrees to locate the source of a sound. Information sources vary, but indicate that cats have at least ten ear muscle, and maybe as many as thirty!!
- Cats have one of the best senses of hearing in the animal kingdom. From a few hundred feet, they can recognize the footsteps of their owners. Most animals are tone deaf, but cats can distinguish between half tones. Keep them away from bats, because when cats hear bats fluttering their wings, it sounds like a drum roll. That’s got to be uncomfortable!
- Cats are very sensitve to high-pitched sounds, hearing up to two octaves higher than the highest note that human beings hear. Inside their cute little heads are two pretty large echo chambers, known as bullae, which are helpful in detecting the high-pitched sounds that their small prey make. No wonder they catch those mice!
- A cat can hear sounds as high as 50,000 cycles per second versus 40,000 cycles per second for a dog and 20,000 c.p.s for a human being. Better keep your voice down if you don’t want them to hear you!
- When a cat purrs, the sound does not emanate from it’s voice box where its meows come from. Scientists are not sure how purrs are made, but one theory is that they are produced by a vibration of blood flowing from a vein in the chest cavity and amplified in the windpipe.
- Some cats will respond to the sight and sound of TV. Several companies have produce videotapes for cats to which they will react. (Such as Video Catnip, Pet Avision, Inc. PO Box 102, Morgantown, WV 26507)
Cat Talk:
- Cats have a language but little is known about it. Studies indicate that cats have a 100 “word” vocabulary and thirteen distinct vowel sounds and seven or eight consonant sounds. It is known that mother cats make a sound that calls kittens back to the “nest.” Another sound communicates the size of the prey a cat is chasing. Cats have a larger “vocabulary” than dogs, according to Alphonse Leon Grimaldi, a Parisian professor.
However, I know some animal lovers who might disagree, and certainly many dogs for the handicap have larger vocabularies, such as the Laboradors. Guide Dogs can learn as many as 3000+ words, commands, and phrases in their lifetime.
Come back soon, for more about your cat!
April 19, 2009 10:36 pm | 
