34 thoughts on “Cat vs. wipers”

  5. Cute. I also like that when the cat turns around it looks like he/she is wearing a shirt because of the colouring.

    1. Let’s face it: we’re all cat “sucks” ( a very Canadian expression which kinda means wuss, but not quite).

  8. Now see, that’s the difference between cats and d*gs–a dog would lose interest and wonder where his food dish was.

        1. Yes, but only as part of their general bathtime…dogs neglect the rest of the coat in favor of that one spot…and aren’t at all discreet about it, either….

          b&

          1. I’m sure there are evolutionary causes for both behaviors, which clearly have persisted over vast spans of time! I wonder what their 40-plus million year-old common ancestor did.

            Maybe dogs gave up the practice when they figured out that their tongues only smear saliva around unlike the cleaning action of a raspy cat tongue.

            Another thing about dogs that I haven’t noticed so much with cats is that they seem to evidence more quirky behavior–individual tics. For example, I once had an elkhound who exhibited submissive behavior by dropping one shoulder to the ground and using his hind legs to move about in a circle using the shoulder as a fulcrum. Strange.

          2. I think what you’re describing sounds like a mildly neurotic nervous tic, and, yeah…dogs seem more prone to that than cats. They’re also much more likely to indulge in fawning submissive behavior.

            There are absolutely a great many — the overwhelming majority, in fact — sweet and adorable and lovable and friendly and enthusiastic dogs.

            It just seems to ring a bit hollow with me. Not that the dogs are insincere — they’re quite sincere. But that their criteria for liking a person is that said person is a person. Too many dogs continue to love their masters even when the masters abuse the dog’s trust.

            A cat will generally only grant trust, respect, and love to those who demonstrate to the cat that they actually deserve it.

            b&

  9. “Even if nobody else appreciates this….”

    I don’t think Mark was trying to be rude. The viral video that he mentioned is actually very funny:

    1. This is funny ONLY if the kitty wasn’t hurt. Professor Ceiling Cat is right, though. Mark is obviously rude. I have always found that cat people love all animals. D*g people only love d*gs, then they advise you of the gradation of how they really only love big d*gs, or medium-sized d*gs. The ones who love big d*gs hate little d*gs. Who has the time, really? Cat people are so much more evolved.

      2. Your comments made me aware of something I haven’t given thought to before: D*g breeds exhibit a huge range of size and morphology compared to cats. To visualize this, imagine a world where you had domestic cats ranging in size from chihuahua to mastiff! Would you want a mastiff-size house cat jumping up on the kitchen counter?

        1. Cats actually have a much, much larger range of body sizes than d*gs. There are species in the teacup size, and no dog is as large as a lion — let alone a tiger.

          There are people who have all types of exotic species as pets, including the big (and not-so-big) cats. But there are multiple problems, of course. Even ignoring the ones about conservation…well, even the most loving of big cats — and they’re fully capable of being cuddle kitties, just like housecats — is going to mark its — your — territory.

          And then…pound for pound, the only predators on the planet deadlier than cats are humans. A ten pound cat will hold its own against a dog half again or even twice its weight. A mastiff-sized cat would be a jaguar. Jaguars kill their prey by puncturing the prey’s skull with their incisors.

          All cats love to play, and play is hunting behavior. Baihu still attacks my toes from time to time, and we’ll play patty-cake, too. He knows his strength perfectly well and never injures me…but I’ll still typically come out of such sessions as scratched up as if I had gone blackberrying. If he wanted to, he could flay my hands to the bone, something no ten-pound d*g could do.

          As we saw with Roy Horn, a big cat acting instinctively to protect a human, or one experiencing a startle reaction, or, yes, even one reacting to perceived (let alone real) threat or abuse…well, the human doesn’t stand a chance. A jaguar could kill you in less time than it would take a mastiff to draw blood.

          Given the average IQ of the population, the housecat is the perfect size for a popular pet. A bobcat would be the absolute upper limit of size — and, again, there are lots of other reasons why bobcats should almost never be pets. Bigger than that and you’re no longer looking at a relationship in which you can call the cat a pet, even if the bond between cat and human is especially close.

          Cheers,

          b&

          1. The difference of course is all the dogs referred to are domesticated & created through selective breeding where the cats you mention are a mix of selective breeding & natural selection (for the wild ones).

            People have done some horrific things in the name of aesthetics, breading dogs with back problems (the sloping back of a german shepherd is relatively recent & some of them have terrible back problems), pugs have breathing issues (as do some cats bred to have short snouts) & so forth. Breeders IMHO should not be allowed to breed animals without a degree in genetics so they understand the damage they may be doing.

          2. Amen to the sins of the breeders.

            But a lone Mexican Gray wolf wouldn’t stand a chance against a lone cougar, even though their sizes and habitats overlap. Of course, wolves generally come in packs….

            I’ve met a few wolves and wolf hybrids in my life. One 3/4 gray wolf / 1/4 Shepherd in particular I got to spend a bit of time with. She was a gorgeous animal. Skittish, but playful once you earned her trust. As I often do with d*gs, we played tug-o-war with me hooking my fingers behind her canines. She was very, very strong and powerful, and liked to see just how far she could take the game, but she also always stayed on the safe side of injury. We both knew she would easily win the game if she really wanted to — that wasn’t the point.

            I imagine the parallel with a cougar would be patty-cake…and I’m pretty sure any such attempt would end in me getting stitches. Lots and lots of stitches — even if the cat played with excessive caution and according to all the standard rules of the game. Those claws are big, sharp, and present even when fully retracted.

            Cheers,

            b&

          3. Serendipitously, while looking for things to spice up my PPT deck today and trying to find an image that showed the relative sizing of things (the deck is for training in Agile) I came across this image showing the relative size of cats.

          4. Strange presentation on the diagonal like that, but it’s got the proportions right.

            And so sorry you have to contaminate yourself with PowerPoint…there’re damned few people whom I’d wish that on — but, fortunately, most of them are already condemned to such an existence….

            b&

          6. Darnit! I did something and lost my whole comment! Rather than try to recap it all, I’ll just say that Felids of different sizes are different species, and the domestic cat is descended from the African wildcat. Dogs descended from Canis lupus. But the total size range of all Canids is not anything like that of Felids in the wild. The reverse is true of the domestic pets.

  10. Now, if only I could figure out how to get Baihu that relaxed in the car. He doesn’t like going to the park. A few minutes on the trail and he starts to unwind and seems to have a blast for most of the walk. The drive back, he’s eagerly paying attention to everything around him.

    But the drive there…not happy….

    b&

  12. Worth trying the link, but I’ve finished my expenses and it’s still not opened. Connection sucks.
    Cats vs wipers … what could POSSIBLY go wrong?

  13. Love it all. Including the human laughter. Lovely sound. Cats do not laugh, or do they?

  14. The surprise is at the end, when we learn that the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car.

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