4 ms·

What's amazing about them, then?

jhbadger 9y ago
The attraction of cats is that you have a very slightly domesticated wild animal. There is really something magical about interacting with an animal that has a bit more agency than dogs who have been bred for millenia to be servants to humanity.
- ianai 9y ago
  Exactly, and despite not being the most mentally capable cats exhibit very intelligent tendencies. They can have endless curiosity and playfulness, but also somehow still very lazy.
  - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    We had to cat sit a few times over the last six months, and Cat World isn't an easy place to understand. Cats don't appear to have a good serial memory, so they can remember places and times up to a point, but not quite well enough to integrate them into a conceptual whole. One cat was cute and sweet tempered, but also timid and really rather slow. We eventually worked out that she couldn't make the connection between the corridor that led to the kitchen in daylight, and the same corridor after dark. She acted as if they were two completely different and unrelated spaces. So she had to timidly re-explore both every day, which caused non-trivial confusion because some of the things in the corridor already had her scent on them.
    - ianai 9y ago
      Every cat is different. Some can be downright neurotic, just like us. They also get senile in old age. I had the pleasure of growing into adulthood alongside a cat. He died 2 months shy of 20. He taught me a lot.
- hackeraccount 9y ago
  I've always thought that with dogs being domesticated is like a job. Sometimes it's a good job and you get to hang out with good people doing fun stuff. Other times it's a crap job and the boss will either forgot to pay you or beat you with a stick. With cats on the other hand domestication is like a room you rent out at a house when you're college. The people there might be cool - the rent is so low it might as well be free and most of the time they don't care if you steal their food. In the back of the cat's head (and I think this is true for the most pampered domesticated cat in the world) is the knowledge that it's a place to crash and if things get too weird they can always bail out. From that point of view I tend to give cats a lot more leeway. I mean a cat doesn't really have to pop over onto my lap and let me scratch it's head. It's the one putting itself out there in a reasonably genuine way. Dogs though I'm always a bit suspicious of because popping over to have their had scratched? That's their job. Maybe they like me but it's like when you go to McDonald's and the person behind the counter smiles and asks you if you want fries with that as if you're the best person in the world.
lucozade 9y ago
Not sure about amazing (though the landing trick is pretty cool) but instructive. For example, I had been told as a child that humans were the only animals that killed for sport. Yeah right. You don't have to spend decades with chimps to know that's a load of hogwash. And why kill straightaway when you can do a little light torturing first? Evil little buggers. It occurred to me once that James Bond may have got it horribly wrong. Blofeld was being stroked by his pet not the other way around.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  I'm not sure what it says about humans that we keep these vicious and sadistic predatory killers around for petting and general entertainment. And I say that as someone who likes cats.
  - Bromskloss 9y ago
    They are sometimes cuddly. I think that's what it is.
  - lucozade 9y ago
    The whole fluffy, purr machine gig is a ploy to lead you into a false sense of security. Evil and cunning.
  - gkya 9y ago
    Well we keep humans around too and they are at least as wicked :)
fellellor 9y ago
I don't know. I just love cats. With a little patience and familiarity, they return that affection in their own way.
gkya 9y ago
I like how smart, cool and autonomous a cat is. It's an adventure to teach a dog where to poop, but put the kitten in the sandbox, maybe dip your hand in it for a second, and they just learn it straight away. I had three kittens about a year and a half ago, their mom was killed by a car while they were less than a month old. We fed them, changed the sand, played with them a couple times a day and cuddled them, and in a bunch of months they were ready to go their way. I love dogs too, but they are way more harder to take care of, and they'll just poop anywhere. They are way more playful than cats, though some cats can be very playful too. I'd rather pet somebody elses dog and have a cat for myself.

The attraction of cats is that you have a very slightly domesticated wild animal. There is really something magical about interacting with an animal that has a bit more agency than dogs who have been bred for millenia to be servants to humanity.

ianai 9y ago
Exactly, and despite not being the most mentally capable cats exhibit very intelligent tendencies. They can have endless curiosity and playfulness, but also somehow still very lazy.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  We had to cat sit a few times over the last six months, and Cat World isn't an easy place to understand. Cats don't appear to have a good serial memory, so they can remember places and times up to a point, but not quite well enough to integrate them into a conceptual whole. One cat was cute and sweet tempered, but also timid and really rather slow. We eventually worked out that she couldn't make the connection between the corridor that led to the kitchen in daylight, and the same corridor after dark. She acted as if they were two completely different and unrelated spaces. So she had to timidly re-explore both every day, which caused non-trivial confusion because some of the things in the corridor already had her scent on them.
  - ianai 9y ago
    Every cat is different. Some can be downright neurotic, just like us. They also get senile in old age. I had the pleasure of growing into adulthood alongside a cat. He died 2 months shy of 20. He taught me a lot.
hackeraccount 9y ago
I've always thought that with dogs being domesticated is like a job. Sometimes it's a good job and you get to hang out with good people doing fun stuff. Other times it's a crap job and the boss will either forgot to pay you or beat you with a stick. With cats on the other hand domestication is like a room you rent out at a house when you're college. The people there might be cool - the rent is so low it might as well be free and most of the time they don't care if you steal their food. In the back of the cat's head (and I think this is true for the most pampered domesticated cat in the world) is the knowledge that it's a place to crash and if things get too weird they can always bail out. From that point of view I tend to give cats a lot more leeway. I mean a cat doesn't really have to pop over onto my lap and let me scratch it's head. It's the one putting itself out there in a reasonably genuine way. Dogs though I'm always a bit suspicious of because popping over to have their had scratched? That's their job. Maybe they like me but it's like when you go to McDonald's and the person behind the counter smiles and asks you if you want fries with that as if you're the best person in the world.

lucozade 9y ago

Not sure about amazing (though the landing trick is pretty cool) but instructive. For example, I had been told as a child that humans were the only animals that killed for sport. Yeah right. You don't have to spend decades with chimps to know that's a load of hogwash. And why kill straightaway when you can do a little light torturing first? Evil little buggers. It occurred to me once that James Bond may have got it horribly wrong. Blofeld was being stroked by his pet not the other way around.

TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
I'm not sure what it says about humans that we keep these vicious and sadistic predatory killers around for petting and general entertainment. And I say that as someone who likes cats.
- Bromskloss 9y ago
  They are sometimes cuddly. I think that's what it is.
- lucozade 9y ago
  The whole fluffy, purr machine gig is a ploy to lead you into a false sense of security. Evil and cunning.
- gkya 9y ago
  Well we keep humans around too and they are at least as wicked :)

fellellor 9y ago

I don't know. I just love cats. With a little patience and familiarity, they return that affection in their own way.

gkya 9y ago

I like how smart, cool and autonomous a cat is. It's an adventure to teach a dog where to poop, but put the kitten in the sandbox, maybe dip your hand in it for a second, and they just learn it straight away. I had three kittens about a year and a half ago, their mom was killed by a car while they were less than a month old. We fed them, changed the sand, played with them a couple times a day and cuddled them, and in a bunch of months they were ready to go their way. I love dogs too, but they are way more harder to take care of, and they'll just poop anywhere. They are way more playful than cats, though some cats can be very playful too. I'd rather pet somebody elses dog and have a cat for myself.