Archive for the ‘Cat History’ Category
Cat Domestication
I researched an article on how to choose a cat. I received this comment on that article, “Perhaps the article title should be, How To Get A Cat To Select You. Sofa” This comment got me to wondering that she is exactly correct. You think you are selecting the cat, but the cat may actually be picking you. Case in point, I was asked to take a kitten from a friend of mine. I did it and named her Dudette, ( she certainly wasn’t a Dude) and she liked my wife and disliked me. Go figure.
How did cats get to be so independent? Here is my hypothesis. I recently saw a program on the nature channel, that cats were the only animal to domesticate itself. It did this after man went from hunter / gatherer, to farming, and started storing their grain on their farms. The wild cats saw this as a constant food supply because the grain stored on the farm attracted mice, rats and birds. Thus cats started staying close to man, not in the house, but around the farm.
Man saw no need to chase the cat away because it was doing man a favour by eating the bird and rodents that ate man’s grain. In addition, man ssw no need to bring the cat into the home because they had the dog to take care of the rodents in the home. Therefore, the cat remained outside until sometime around the period of the Egyptians. When they were brought inside. This was done by the Egyptians to control rodents in the temples. Plus they were revered as goddesses or gods and if you killed a cat it was punishable by death. So the domestication of cats occured about this time, if you want a true date, ask the cat. 
Being outside for thousands of years but being close to man, yet not controlled by man till the Egyptians brought them in, made the cat very independent. The accepted position on why cats are independent is that they are solitary animals and hunt by themselves and not in packs like other animals. This may be true for most types of cats but what about the lion? You see one lion and there are usually more.
This is my story on the domestication of cats and I am sticking with it.
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