THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

If you’re in the area, I hope to see you on Thursday night at the Wisconsin Humane  Society for a fund raiser and talk, “Dogs Have Owners, but Cats Have Staff.” I don’t get asked to talk about feline behavior as much as I’d like to, so this is a special treat for me. I find it interesting that although cat lovers love their cats dearly, in general, as a group, they tend to be less likely to read books about their behavior or go to talks about cat behavior. However, I hear that almost 150 people are signed up, so join me and others to celebrate all things feline.

Willie and I were reminded of the importance of reading feline postures and expressions just a few days ago. We were visiting my yoga teacher Scott Anderson, to get some exercises for Willie (more on that later!), and Scott’s 2 cats were in the room. “No problem,” Scott said, they’ll leave the room when Willie comes in.

The cats apparently hadn’t read that particular script. Buddy, an orange tabby laying a few feet from the entrance, went stiff and still as Willie and I walked into the room. Running up the stairs away from Willie was apparently not in his playbook. We walked past him without incident, and focused on the greeting between Willie and Scott, who acted like long lost friends re-uniting after an extended absence. It was the yowl from a second cat that caused all three of us to turn around. And there, like characters out of a movie, stood two cats in full attack mode, bodies like inverted U’s, fur raised, and pupils dilated. They both stared straight at Willie, yowling like animals in a horror movie, and began advancing toward him with their heads down, and their eyes laser focused.

People don’t seem to believe me that one of the most frightening cases I’ve ever had as a behaviorist involved cats. Not Rottweilers or Dogos or “Pit Bulls”, but two little cats who behaved exactly like the two described above, except in that case they were after me. The hair went up on the back of my neck as they stalked toward me with the  hair-curling yowls that only cats can produce when they are angry. Very very angry. I picked up my large canvas briefcase and held it between me and the cats as I exited the living room.  Rarely have I been so sure that I was in serious danger.

Willie apparently felt the same way. Although Scott got the cats out of the room as quickly as possible and they never got within ten feet of us, the cats literally scared the crap out of Willie. While licking Scott’s face after he returned from removing the cats, Willie’s back began to round in that “Oh-my-god-he’s-about-to-shit” kind of way and I ran him outside and within seconds he spurted diarrhea within a few feet of the door. Poor Willie. We did a series of exercises that helped to relax him and he seemed none the worse for wear that evening.

But what a reminder how important it is to be able to “read” an animal. I have to admit, the aggressive yowl of a cat is hard to mis-interpret. There’s little that can get your attention better than that. But here’s another feline vocalization to get your attention. This video of a cat being brushed is, at the moment, my all time favorite cat video ever. And I’d love to hear your opinion of the emotional state of this cat…

What about you? Ever had a use it’s “yowl” vocalization on you? I’m happy to say that I’ve never heard Sushi come even close. Just like most dogs never go hard in the eye and threaten us with the potential of injury, most cats don’t become as aggressive as the one Willie encountered. Let us know, a few readers asked for more conversations about cats, and I say “Meow” to that. (Sorry.)

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Willie had a set back last week that was tough for all of us. Back on the leash and in the crate all the time, after working his way up to a few hours loose in the house in his hobbles. The good news is that he is better after 3 days of rest. The bad news is that I am still struggling with the opinion of his surgeon and physical therapist that Willie simply will never be a sound dog. The surgery repaired his bicepital tendon, but he has two medial ligaments that were badly damaged, probably years ago in another incident, and he’ll most likely always have trouble with them. I haven’t given up on more treatment, whether it’s Reiki or Laser or, or, or ….. But right now I can’t add anything else to our treatment plan; we spend 2 half days a week going for PT and underwater treadmill work, his PT at home takes a long time each day and if I told you what I was spending on him right now I’d have to kill you.

So we’ll go one day at a time. After all, I have some physical issues that will never be “cured” that I manage, so Willie and I will just do the same thing. Willie got to be off leash in the hobbles last night for 2 hours. Granted I spent all the time on the living room rug cuddling with him to keep him relatively quiet, (it was a sacrifice) but still, one step forward. I was hoping to let him start working sheep by mid November, now it’s by the end of the year. And the first day I can bring out a toy? Oh my, be still my heart. Sushi, on the other hand, has loved Willie being on leash for all these months. Maybe she’s sneaking in when I’m gone and opening his crate door?

I’m working on a post about the comparative behavior of wolves, coyotes, African Wild dogs and domestic dogs, but here’s a short digression for the cat lovers.

An adult lioness in the Maasai Mara marks a bush after rising from a nap. You can clearly see the stream of urine in the photo. Aren’t you glad our house cats don’t weigh 260-450 pounds?

A female cheetah marks a tree.

We found this cheetah right after landing in the “Kenyan Serengeti,” the Maasai Mara. After we landed at a tiny airstrip and loaded up in safari vans on our way to our lodging, we ran into a hunting cheetah who was stalking Impala. After a few minutes she made her move, and dashed at the herd. She was too far away for us to take any photographs, but none of us will ever forget watching one Impala leap over five feet high and fifteen feet horizontally over the tall grasses as the cat charged toward the group. The cheetah was not successful, and strolled away (the rolling gait of a cheetah, with their long, absurdly loose bodies, is a beautiful thing to see).

Here she is, scratching the ground after marking (looking almost dog like at that point, if you’ll forgive the comparison).

The downside of seeing her? Cheetahs hunt during the day, unlike most cats, and appear to be affected by tourism. Our van and several others followed her for awhile as she walked across the savannah, and I was relieved when she cut away and disappeared from view. If she hadn’t I would have asked us to leave, it felt like we would have been harassing her if we had continued.

Not far away we came upon 3 males, probably the grown young of our female friend, snoozing as only cats can in the shade under a solitary tree. Overall, the Kenya trip resulted in seeing more cats up close and personal than any of my other trips (lions especially (more photos to come), cheetah, leopard (briefly), servals and some people (not me) even saw an African Wild Cat, the progenitor of our house cats on a night drive in Botswana.

Here’s a lioness greeting one of the pride’s cubs in the golden light of an African morning:

Here’s an authentic question for you all, and I would love to hear your answers. The question in the title is based on a phenomenon that seems to be consistent across many years and in many contexts. The ‘word’ in the publishing industry is that, compared to dog lovers, cat lovers buy very few cat related books. I remember when Dogwise (Direct Books) started out they sold both cat and dog books, until they dropped the cat-related items because they didn’t sell well and weren’t worth the trouble. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s smash best seller The Hidden Life of Dogs was followed by a book, Tribe of the Tiger, that didn’t sell particularly well.  I get 100 (1,000?) requests to do dog behavior-related seminars for every one cat behavior seminar I’m asked to do (I LOVE doing cat behavior seminars by the way).

But why is that? Cat lovers adore their cats, no question about it. No doubt one explanation is that cat owners have fewer expectations of have a “well-trained” cat, whereas dog owners are always buying training and behavior modification books. That might be the primary explanation, and it fits the fact that the cat books that first pop up on Amazon are usually stories about cats (and look at the recent best selling book, Dewey, about a cat and a small library in Iowa). But on my former radio show, I was swamped with questions about cat behavior. Today on Larry Meiller’s on WPR show we got lots of questions of people who were desperate to get help for the cat’s behavioral problem.

People do need to train their cats, and to solve the behavioral problems they have with them… but they still don’t buy cat behavior books that often. I was thinking about this issue last week when Denise, Andrea and I discussed selling a book we really like,  Starting from Scratch. We did put it up for sale on the site, and we’ll see how it does. But I don’t bring this up as a marketing promotion, it’s a sincere question about why it is almost universal that dog lovers can’t get enough books about dog behavior, while cat lovers may read a lot (and with a cat in their lap!), but not about cats… You’d think cat lovers would buy cat books, because, well, why not? Any thoughts?

Meanwhile, back at the farm, it’s a swamp outside, hot and muggy. My least favorite weather in the world. I’m moving the sheep to a small pasture every day now, and luckily they need to be moved early in the morning and late in the evening. That gives us all a break because we can avoid the hot times of the day, but even then both Willie and I are relieved to get back inside in the air conditioning. The AC hasn’t been on all year until last Friday, but what a luxury it is to have it. I’ve so much gardening to do though… I’m so far behind after being gone and so busy for a few weeks. Oh well, a weed is just a plant in a place you don’t want it, so I get to say, hey?

The bird life continues at at break neck pace… all the songbirds trying to fit in as many nesting attempts as they can before the light changes and the leaves fall. This weekend I was sorry to watch a male Cardinal feeding a round, pushy Brown-Headed Cowbird baby begging successfully from him at the feeder. Cowbirds are nest parasites, who lay their eggs in the nests of song birds. Their young are large and precocious, and are able to trigger a feeding response from a parent of a different species by using “sign stimuli” that elicit feeding from birds like Cardinals and Vireos. A bit like us getting all warm and gooey over a cartoon character that looks infantile with big eyes, a big forehead and disproportionately large hands and feet. Cowbirds are native, so I guess I shouldn’t be too concerned, but I can’t help but feel sorry for the Cardinal, whose own young may well have starved to death given the aggressive nature of the cowbirds begging (and the fact that their large size can result in the ‘real’ nestlings being pushed out of the nest and dying on the ground.)

Life is tough out there, no doubt about it. But not so rough in the house, where Sushi sleeps on the couch as I write. Here are my favorite photos of Sushi, no doubt she’s pondering the heavy issues I’ve raised . . .