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Cat Thoughts And DNACat Thoughts And DNA
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By Garnet
An essay in progress, thinking about animals thinking and personalities and instincts and why we think the things we think....
My cat babies come when I call them by name also.... But each has their own preferences about when they want loving....
I have an easy reclining chair in my living room. When sit in this chair, Baby Bear sees this as her signal to come and jump in my lap for lovings.... This is the only place she will sit in my lap, otherwise she doesn't like to be held, she gets very uncomfortable when someone is holding her. Monkey will also often jump in my lap when I am in this chair, but she will sit farther down my legs, towards my knees. This gives Baby Bear enough room, most of the time, but sometimes they have argument about the space on my lap when I am in that chair... But when I am in bed at night, she always wants to sleep on the bookcase shelve in front of the back window. She likes to keep a watch on what is happening at night.... Sometimes in the morning when I wake up, she will jump down on the side of the bed, and walk back and forth for her loving, rubbing her head against various things as she is enjoying her lovings.... Sometimes Baby Bear will follow me around the house. She and monkey like to run around late at night, around 11pm they have their playtime. When I see Bear, and I call her name, she raises her tail very high, like a flag, saying "Hello? You called me?" She is very good with traditional cat language, since she came from a cattery breeder with many cats.
Monkey will usually sleep between my legs, on top of the blanket. On the really cold nights or morning, she will go undercover.... Monkey always likes to accompany me to my office. She is here sleeping now, on the top of the highest bookcase, right next to the ceiling. If I stay in bed all day, working from my bedroom, then she will want to be sitting my lap between me and the computer. Whenever I walk by my office door, Monkey will be there scratching at the door, wanting me to let her go in. She knows that I have some special cat treats in my filing cabinet that only she likes. So every day I give her one of the cat treats. She is so cute, when I offer her the cat treat, she does not take it right away, but instead starts walking around on my desk, rubbing against my hand, rubbing against the treat, rubbing against other things on the desk, first she wants a good petting, then when she is very happy from the rubbing, she will take the cat treat, very very gently, from my fingers.... Sometimes i have put the cat treat at the top of the door, and she climbs the door frame to get to it to grab it.
And Candy Cat, she always wants attention in the evening when I go to bed, and she has learned this season to sleep under the covers on my right side. This is the first year that she has done this, she has never slept under the covers before. At night she'll sleep on the bed, and during the day, she is usually sleeping somewhere under the bed, or even by herself under the blankets even on very hot days. She used to be a climbing cat, like Monkey, but for several years now, because she has become a fat cat, she does not climb so much. For her to get on the bed, she jumps, but then has to climb her way to the top, with her claws, like she is climbing Mount Everest. I have my bed twice normal height, to make room for storage under the bed..... Sometimes Candy Cat gets in a mood to chaise the other cats off the bed, sometimes she wants it for herself. Sometimes, when she is going under covers, which she now likes to do a lot with me, Monkey will be on top of the blanket pouncing on the moving shape under the blankets.
And they all like to come into the bathroom with me and talk to me when I am there. Bear can purr very loudly when she is happy. Candy Cat often has a lot to talk about night, since she seems to stay in the bedroom most of the time, although she comes out in the living room in the evening to roll around on the carpet, and stretch her claws.
They will all usually come and visit anyone who comes to the house. Monkey many times will jump in people's laps..... And of course, she will climb guests to get to her high places. When my mother and father came to visit a couple of weeks ago, she was using my mothers wheelchair to jump up on top of the TV. This surprised my mom.
I often think about their brains, and how they think... Sometimes when Monkey is sitting in my lap in the living room, and the other two cats are playing, she will sit very low in my lap, with her ears folded down, peeking just over the top of my leg to watch the other two cats like she is a spy and trying to keep them from seeing her. I wonder who teach her this? How does she know this? She never look in a mirror to know that folding her ears down will make it harder for someone to see her if she is spying, she just knows this. She does the same thing when she looks out the back window at the birds when they are very close to the window. She will be very careful, and move very stealthy, as she is watching from the window. Very keen hunter. Who teach her this? She has never eaten a bird? Never caught a bird? As far as I know, unless she see it on TV, she has never seen another cat catch and eat a bird. She was raised from a baby inside my apartment with her brothers and sisters. How does she know that birds are so interesting, and that she should be like a spy when watching them?
When Baby Bear was very little, I used to keep a colony of Gerbils as pets. She was fascinated with these small animals.
Look at a cat's fascination with strings, and wire ties for bread packages. My cats are all fascinated with such things. I don't think most dogs would notice. But cats sure do. What does this difference come from?
Where do these personalities come from? Their personalities are the result of certain kinds of thought patterns, certain tendencies to think certain things in certain situations.
Somehow, it comes from how their brains are wired. And what causes their brain? The only thing we know is that it is formed, somehow, from instructions in the DNA.
Somehow, all this knowledge is inside the egg, inside the DNA. Somehow, eventhough every DNA for every cat is different, and every cat is unique, they all develop a brain that gets similar ideas. And cats get different ideas from a situation than a dog gets from the same situation. The cat reacts differently. Even though different cats may react differently, there is a theme to their reactions that generally qualifies them as "cat like".
Both are carnivores, hunters, yet different things make them tick. A dog is a very social animal, likes to run in packs, and loves to stare into it's master's eyes. Cats are more solitary, although much more social with humans than with each other, but cats will usually never gaze into your eyes no matter how close you are with them. A quick glance maybe, but never a long loving gaze, because a cat somehow knows in it's mind that a long gaze is a threat, like facing off with another cat. Yet both cats and dogs can be close with us in their own way, but it is a different way. Is it that they learn to think of us as their mothers, or is something else going on? Dogs probably can be much closer to each other than cats typically are with each other, but what in "evolution" prepared them to have such a close bond with us, so much closer than they seem to develop in their bonds with each other?
Under a microscope, what scientist could tell the difference between a few cat cells and a similar cells from a dog? How about neurons from each of their brains? Side by side with neurons from a human brain? How would you know which was which? Maybe you could be clever and count chromosomes, but that's kind of like cheating, your microscope is too powerful. Will the number of chromosomes alone really explain the differences in personality, the differents in thoughts and reactions that seem characteristic and instinctual to each species?
At that level of cells, there proably isn't much difference between the species. Even at a sub-organ level, there is incredible similarity between species. Heart valves from pigs are used in human heart valve replacements.
Yet, somehow, once all the cells of a cat are arranged into a cat, and especially all the cells of it's brain are organized into a brain, it has a different behavior than those similar looking dog neurons arranged into a dog brain. How much of an expert would you have to be to tell the difference between a naked cat brain and the naked brain from a similar sized dog?
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