Leopard gets fusses

September 17, 2013 • 9:27 am

In the last two days I’ve been to Auschwitz (and believe me, no matter how much you know about it, the full import of that place requires a personal visit), Oscar Schindler’s famous factory, and the old Jewish quarter of Cracow. (The whole city now contains only 200 Jews. There were about 75,000 before WWII, and the difference is due to extermination and emigration.)

Given that (and I will post pictures after I return tomorrow), all I’m good for is pictures of cats enjoying themselves. Reader P. sent this video with the caption of “a leopard enjoying fusses.” And indeed it is!

Note the resemblance to how a house cat gets fusses, including directing the fusser’s hand.

71 thoughts on “Leopard gets fusses”

    1. @Ben Goren… Funny little cat fact… when they stretch on their sides/back they actually trying to communicate in cat culture, “Please scratch my head!.

      The “bellyrub” back stretch comes from dogs attempting to communicate with us via dog culture.

      Once I realized I had mixed up two very separate cultures, I changed MY behaviour understanding their language a little more!

      And the cat is happier for that change!

    1. …agreed/// similar to the way some people can be “sexy ugly” — this cat was very “scary cute”!

  7. The cat is just the right size to get my arms around & I want to give the cat big cuddles and smooches! But then I’d die & have a closed casket funeral because of the mess.

  10. It’s neat the way she/he rubs her/his ear with its paw while being scratched. Both of my house cats do exactly the same thing.

  11. What a truly magnificient creature! Look at those eyes, those arms, those paws, those teeth!

    Years back a friend of mine rescued a South American panther from someone who bought it for a pet, only to realize once it had reached adult size that it was way beyond their capabilities. He had a huge outdoor enclosure built for it and spoiled it ourageously.

    It was female and weighed about 185 lbs. It was impressive watching her play with him. He would enter her enclosure to give her a bowl of food and she would just sit and watch him from her perch up in a tree. As he would walk away towards the exit she would suddenly leap out of the tree, hit the ground, and in one or two more bounds leap on him from behind and take him down to the ground. You could feel the impact through the ground both when she hit the ground after leaping out of the tree, and when she hit him. He was large and strong for a man, but nothing but a play toy for that cat.

    Then they would wrestle around for a while ending up with a good “fussing” very much like in this video. And she would make the most outlandish sounds that I never would have expected out of a cat.

      1. An older chap I knew used to work as a diplomat in India, and helped for a while raising a leopard cub which had been abandoned by its mother. He told me that when he came home the cub would gallop down the hall and jump on him for a play.

        Then, when it got to about 8 months old, it turned into silently stalking him – he’d come home and look carefully around, but the leopard would sneak up unseen and unheard, to leap on his back.

        It all sounded very much like Kato and Inspector Clouseau.

        He also told me that it liked to step onto his coffee table ans sweep everything off onto the floor with its paw, with a look that said “So – what are you going to do about it?”

  12. It’s adorable, but I wouldn’t put my hand in there. The best-case scenario is losing an arm.

    1. Hehe… look at how fast he pulled out his hand at 0:28.

      I think he’s done this a few times before. 🙂

  14. I have it “out there”, my visit to Auschwitz.

    I worry some, that the visit will take me to a place from which I can’t return.

    I’ll be very glad to read your thoughts about it.

  15. Domestic cats get excited when they’re “fussed” with and sometimes grab with their claws. Tiny claws. Just saying.

  16. We had a friend who had acquired a Cheetah from a zoo which was going to kill it because a broken leg didn’t set right. Once when we visited it put its head on my shoulder from behind and started purring. It was like having a small noisy motor on ones shoulder. Very pleasant. It would run around the living room, vaulting off two walls with its nails clicking loudly.
    At the tie we had 20 cats (3 semi-wild rescued pregnant females gave birth within one week). Every now and then one of the
    mothers would disappear for some days for a break. The mothers shared feeding the kittens. Each female would plop down on a pile of them. That communal purring was also loud but nothing like the cheetah. With help of some friends we gave all the kittens away being left with only 6 of them.
    Some years later we again had a lot of cats.
    Cat purring is very theraputic. We now also have a hound named Belle that purrs when scratched.

    2. I had a college friend who had two female cats. The family took in a puppy shortly after one of the cats had miscarried and lost a litter. She took over mothering the puppy. When I met the d*g, he was large and full-grown, really too big for indoors, and whenever I tried to pet him, he started growling at me. He was trying to purr.

  17. A couple of years ago, I read a memoir about a guy who’d been a vet at the San Diego Zoo for many years.

    One of the stories he told in it was about a Chinese leopard that the zoo acquired whose previous owner had treated like a house cat and was thus very used to receiving a great deal of human attention. I don’t remember exactly how it occurred, but somehow the vet ended up seated on the floor with the leopard sitting on his lap, doing his very best to get the leopard off his lap without making it angry.

    1. As long as we are doing stories here…
      Back in 1978 I interned in the big cat house at a major Chicago area zoo. It was only for a week and a half –I asked for a change to the Childrens Zoo– because there was nothing to do or learn except scrub down the cages every morning, then feed the cats a prepared hunk of food. I didn’t learn much else about the cats, part of the problem being that the two male keepers (keepers were usually non-college grads at that time in history) didn’t like a young college woman doing their job.
      Anyway, one day before the zoo opened, I did –barely– stick my hand between the bars to pet the black leopard, just a tiny touch. I got yelled at terribly by the keepers, my safety being their concern, which was true. The leopard could have with one swipe ripped my arm to shreds. I am not sure I would fully trust any huge cat like this. Too many variables. Kudos to those who do, but so many raised as pets end up in bad circumstances when their owners cannot handle them anymore.
      I did however get to grab an escapee margay in the closed part of the cat house, in a darkened exhibit area. The margay had gotten out from the netting that covered the display. That was considerably safer.

      1. Wasn’t it Sharon Stone’s husband du jour whose foot was nearly ripped off by a Komodo dragon at the S.D. Zoo? He got a “special” backstage pass or something. Special indeed lol.

        My VERY woo-y coworker has videos of her frolicking with juveniles Bengal tigers in Indonesia or somewhere. I am incredibly jealous over this. I guess they only let tourists play with the young ones because once they mature they are just too aggressive. She said they were very well-treated and controlled the tigers by using reeds, not to whack them but just to make a sound that they learned to identify with a command.

        Regarding Auschwitz, I am not sure if I will be able to open those posts. I should, but I am just emotionally drained with all the crap, horrors, crap, shit, crap news of the last few weeks. The shooting yesterday was the icing on the cake and left me numbly wondering why there weren’t more casualties. Only 12? “Only”.

        1. The “woo-ey” people often don’t wish to see the real tragedy of tigers being so endangered in the wild and don’t see that maybe the money they paid to pet the kitties could have been better spent. They are not able to see the full picture, sort of like the religious people who want ivory and claim the elephant was happy to give his life so people can pay the poachers big money for the tusks. Woo and religion are the main reasons for the recent slaughter of elephants in Africa…. oh don’t get me started.
          I didn’t hear about a shooting yesterday. Not looking forward to turning on the TV or radio.

          1. Yes, woo results in a lot of threatened species! Animals are often killed with the intent of making boner medicine out of their various parts!

          4. Bear gall bile, unlike rhino horns or tiger penis bones, actually does have some documented medicinal value.

            But the way the Chinese keep bears for harvesting is completely and totally inhumane and inexcusable. Laboratories can make the same medicines synthetically at a low price, without any need to keep live bears in such conditions.

    2. Of course, the other story that this video reminds me of is that zookeeper who was mauled to death by a jaguar at the Denver Zoo. Tragedy for everyone involved.

  18. Folks
    Big cats (ie those in the genus Panthera- this leopard included- plus snow leopard and clouded leopard) probably cant purr. In all 6, females in oestrus make a sound which has been called purring though its probably not phylogenetically related to purring. For a really good summary of this see Mammal Review 2002, 32 (4):245–271.Purring and similar vocalizations in mammals by Gustav Peters.

    1. probably can’t purr – where does this “probably” come from?

      From Peters (2002) Abstract: “Because use of the same term implies ‘sameness’, which in an
      evolutionary sense can only mean that the vocalizations so named are homologous (=share
      the same ancestral vocalization type), the terms purr and purring ought to be restricted to vocalizations homologous with felid purring, and any mammalian vocalization homologous with felid purring ought to be named accordingly. According to present knowledge ‘true’ purring is established only in the families Viverridae and Felidae of the Carnivora.”

      If it’s established that purring is plesiomorphic for Felidae and present in the majority of species, it seems more than just sceptical to then refuse to use the word ‘purring’ for Panthera s.l. (where it might be restricted to oestrus females); has Peters not heard of parsimony? For it to be ‘not purring’ involves two evolutionary steps for which there’s absolutely no support (loss of true purring, acquisition of ‘false’ purring) in the common ancestor of Panthera spp. Owen’s dichotomy between ‘purring cats’ and ‘roaring cats’ was just typical bad, pre-phylogenetic typological thinking, and Peters (who seems to have done his thinking on the topic back in the 70’s) should drop it.

      1. Although his research is rather old, Layhausen asserts that cats, both big and small, are very consistent both physiologically and behaviorally, than any other group of closely related species. He reported observing purring in cats as big as leopards and cheetahs, and a sound made by lions which is similar to purring but was never sustained, but generally occurred as a prelude or coda to other vocalizations.

        Of my two current cats, the younger one has a purr that is barely audible, while the older one’s rumblings are not only quite loud, by they have a musical tone to them.

        I did have one girlfriend in my college days who could manage a good approximation of a purr, especially when she was feeling kittenish. It always meant that I was rubbing her the right way.

        1. I mistyped: my previous comment should have read, “…are more consistent both physiologically and behaviorally, than any other group of closely related species.”

      2. The main text (instead of only the abstract you cite) discusses the controversy. From the text:
        “To conclude, there is good reason to assume that all species of the Felidae, with the
        exception of the six pantherine species Lion, Leopard, Jaguar, Tiger, Snow Leopard and
        Clouded Leopard, have purring. For these six species the present situation is as follows. (i)
        There are no substantial data available that any of them produces purring. On the other hand,
        no definite proof exists that they do not/cannot purr. (ii) For none of the vocalizations in
        these species listed here and as purring by various authors are sufficient data presented to
        evaluate the exact nature of these vocalization types and specifically to assess whether they
        may be phylogenetically related to purring or not. This is especially true of the ‘growling-like’
        sounds uttered by females in oestrus, prior to and during copulation, and not only in these
        six cat species. The establishment of their exact nature requires a detailed sound spectrographic
        study of its own. (iii) With the data presently available it is not possible to settle the
        question of whether a fully ossified hyoid in a felid species causes its ability to purr, or whether
        felid species with an elastic ligament in their hyoid cannot purr”

        1. Maybe it’s not purring, even though it sounds like purring. And Shakespeare’s plays were not witten by Shakespeare, but by a man who called himself Shakespeare.

        2. Absence of evidence (i-iii) does not validate a less parsimonious conclusion.
          Not a “probably” in there.
          People should realise that, to a first approximation, Richard Owen was wrong about everything.

  19. Since we are on the subject of cat purring,
    I might as well admit that in our 47 years
    of marriage we have had a lot of cats, probably more than 70. Most were adopted
    strays that were fixed on adoption, of course. We have sent quite a few vets on fine vacations. Others were adopted from friends who could no longer keep them. Only a few were kittens born at home that we kept. My wife has invented a new kitty litter made from alfalfa pellets
    and wood chips that is much cheaper and absorbs odors more effectively. The mixture is 1/4 rabbit alfalfa and 3/4 horse bedding pellets. It has saved us much $$ over the years.

    Some kittens exposed to distemper virus in utero, suffer from cerebellar hypoplasia, being uncoordinated, staggering and falling when walking. We had one like that some years ago that the vet recommended we keep
    and have another one now. They grow up to be delightfully friendly, cuddly and good natured, and we recommend that cat lovers keep them. Our current one, Wally, staggers somewhat and falls but can develop a good uncoordinated romp around the house only
    falling occasionally. He eats and uses the litter box lying on his side but drinks standing up. I would like to submit a movie of this kitty to encourage others to keep them if the occasion arises, but I need advice on how to do this along with some text. Perhaps Jerry has a canned set of instructions?

    1. I would very much love to see that!

      I think you should contact Jerry by email (click on “research interests” above to get his eddress) and suggest this. You might want to wait a while, though, till he processes (and shares) his Auschwitz experiences.

  20. The Ecuadorian Army used to have a zoo a few blocks from where I lived. One of the animals was Marco, an old male African lion that had been somebody’s pet. I went to the zoo so often that he got to know me. Eventually we could give each other body-fusses (he rubbing his side against me, and vice-versa). He purred loud!

    But it kind of broke the spell when the keepers came with wheelbarrows containing bloody quartered donkeys or horses to toss into the cage.

    1. No Lou, Marco can’t have been purring because only oestrus females of that species purr, and it’s probably not really ‘purring’ anyway (see comment 18 above). He must have been growling at you. 🙂

  21. I thought that the so-called “big cats” didn’t purr. If not a purr…what was the guttural noise the leopard was making in response to the human’s ministrations?

    1. While most cats purr continuously (both inhaling and exhaling), some (not all) of the big cats (Leopard, Lion and Jaguar, possibly Tiger) purr only on the outbreath as you hear in the video. See my comments above: I’d call it purring (contra Peters), in the absence of any reason not to.

      1. Incidentally, ‘purring’ (making a cat-like sound by fluttering the tongue behind the teeth, so clearly not homologous) continuously is difficult for humans, but can be done, possibly requiring ‘circular breathing’ as practiced by didgeridoo players and some flautists. I’m sure it’s no big freaking deal for big cats either, if they want to.

  24. I would fantasize about renegotiating the “no pet” policy with a nasty landlord I had some years ago.

  25. We just did Auschwitz for the second time this summer, this time with our teenagers. Such a sobering visit, but really good for the kids to see I think. Two years ago, we visited Kazimierz as well. You really can’t go anywhere in Poland without the whole Jewish story finding you. That and Pope John Paul.

  26. I toured Mauthausen in Austria in 1963, and the words written in a metal arc, “Arbeit Macht Frei” were etched into my memory forever, or at least until I die. Furthermore, I remember the ashes in the ovens, and didn’t realize until years later what I was looking at.

  27. I’m so intrigued because my housecat acts just like this. It’s like we can selectively breed for 10,000 years to get size and shape and eye color and fur color & density — but we can’t breed out the instincts which are there underneath.

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