"The smart cat doesn't let on that he is." - H.G. Frommer
No cat owner needs to be convinced that cats are among the cleverest of creatures. Skillful hunters, resourceful strategists, these pint-sized kings of the jungle know how to get what they want from their human companions with a minimum of effort. Cats not only easily manipulate us, they accurately interpret our moods and feelings, sometimes better than we can ourselves.
In scientific research cats learn quickly by observing others perform a task, but have a perverse tendency to not do what they think the researcher wants. At home, many cats have learned to open doors, particularly to food cupboards or refrigerators. That most sophisticated and endearing Scottish Fold, Norton, whose exploits have been chronicled in The Cat Who Went to Paris and A Cat Abroad, learned to unlock and open a complicated double door apparently by observing - of all things! - a witty French dog stand up and open the door when he wanted to go out. Of course, no self-respecting world-traveling cat could let a mere canine do something he couldn't do!
"Of all animals, he alone attains the Contemplative Life. He regards the wheel of existence from within, like the Buddha."-Andrew Lang
In the words of the Zen cat master, "Cats in their wisdom
know that Knowledge only scratches at Truth, and Enlightenment
is meaningless without a compassionate lap to enjoy it on."
As every human privileged to bask in the warmth of pure catness
knows, cats are the true masters of the contemplative life. No
mere human can hope to fathom what goes on inside the mysterious
feline mind, but science may point the Way to deeper understanding.
Cats have remarkable sensory organs, so refined and acute many cultures have credited them with extrasensory perception. Cats' ears hear sound frequencies up to 60 kilohertz or more - the tiny high-frequency squeaks of a mouse, for instance. The ears' complex structure includes some 30 muscles for precision tuning (humans have only six). Even asleep, cats monitor their environment for significant sound, such as the refrigerator door opening four rooms away.
The cat's luminous eyes see in almost total darkness, and their peripheral vision is far superior to ours. If you've ever observed a cat pounce on an unsuspecting toy mouse or leap gracefully onto a countertop without knocking anything over, you know how keenly attuned the cat's body is to its vision. Its superb senses also suit the cat to spending long hours in repose, contemplating the many wonders of its world. Who knows what wisdom it gains from its rituals of staring out windows, or snoozing in a warm sunny spot.
Who could doubt the superior intelligence of a species who can make a perfect four-point landing from a 20 floor fall and stroll away unscathed? The clever cat has designed itself brilliantly to achieve amazing feats of leaping and landing. Its spine has extra vertebrae for greater flexibility. Along with its precisely designed inner ear, which gives the cat an extraordinary sense of balance, the flexible spine lets the cat rotate its front and then its back end around in midair to land safely on its feet. Powerful hind legs allow the cat to spring as much as five times its own height, and the ever-resourceful feline usually springs forward in a jump to give itself extra time spread the impact over all four feet.
Play behavior, according to Roger Caras in his book A Cat Is Watching, "is a yardstick of intelligence," and who plays more than a cat? Play not only helps an animal sharpen its skills and mind, preparing for real-life activities, it shows a capacity for imagination and a sense of humor. A kitten stalking a ball of fluff is making believe the fluff is a mouse, though it clearly knows the difference between its make-believe prey and a real mouse. As Caras writes, "Cats are enormously inventive when it comes to turning each other or all kinds of passive objects and material into enemies and prey. They turn their entire world into one big educational toy."
"Cats seldom make mistakes and they never make the same mistake twice."-Carl Van Vechten
Is your cat a genius or blissfully ignorant? Melissa Miller's
helpful book, The Superior Cat, may satisfy your curiosity about
your cat's intelligence and let you see how you measure up as
a cat owner, too. The cat quiz (to be filed out by the human companion)
covers visual skills, audio abilities, social and domestic behaviors,
and a handy scoring table and conversion graph are provided. An
especially useful section recommends various cat breeds based
on the owner type (ranging from practical to fanatical).
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