Cats: The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend Frenemy

"The human-cat relationship was probably forged over a shared interest in rats more than 10,000 years ago, investigators say."

Say, you're interested in rats? I'm interested in them, too! And I'm interested in the same outcome for them as you are.

Source: UPI / HealthDay News (Cara Munez). Of course, the notion of cats having been domesticated as ratters and mousers isn't anything new; I just liked the "shared interest in rats" formulation.

Comments

[arbitrary aardvark]

i have heard that before domestic cats were invented, people used ferrets for that purpose. i do not know what the dna studies tell us about how long ago they were semidomesticated.

[Drewski]

Incredibly unlikely. Cats have been domesticated for at least 3,000 years and probably closer to 7,500. Ferrets have been domesticated for at least 2,000 years and there's some limited evidence of as long as 2,500 years. There's very little chance, and no evidence, that domestication of ferrets predates that of cats.

Consider not repeating every stupid thing you hear without checking. Credulity is not a virtue.

[Rossami]

Agree that it's highly unlikely in aggregate but it is possible in specific locations. Domestication of cats would have occurred first in places where cats of an appropriate size thrived. If a geographic area/population had few cats but lots of ferrets, that location might well have domesticated ferrets before they domesticated cats.

[mydisplayname]

I often enter bars with a collection of small ceramic cats which I distribute to random females on the condition that each female give the figurine she has received to some male arriving later and without an accompanying female. It's a great conversation starter -- and the conversation is particularly interesting if a male figurine-recipient returns to the bar: when such a male is asked "Did that girl you were talking to give you a small cat?" (or words to that effect) the male can honestly reply "Yes! She gave me the best cat I've received in quite some time" (or words to that effect).

So, I agree that a man's best friend can be a little cat.

[Frank Drackman]

When I first heard that joke in 1974 it was a small ceramic head.

[Doug Heffernan]

Perhaps human beings of different political, ideological, or religious persuasions could discover some common shared interests and desired potential outcomes. Perhaps it would be easier if some of us were otherwise a little more playful or cuddly.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The version I heard was that cats domesticated themselves — they liked laying near heat sources (still do) and that meant fire pit and warm rocks after the fire died down. Humans weren’t the neatest of eaters which meant that there were scraps of meat to chew from bones. And as to rats and such, cat’s instinctively dislike them.

And cats really don't like being wet -- and the human's caves were warm and dry. It was a good deal...

Cats are inherently feral unless they are civilized as kittens — ideally a child lugging them around as a kitten — but even if they are feral, they still don’t like rats. It’s not uncommon for fishermen to feed/shelter the feral cats on their wharves to keep the rats out of their bait. (It isn’t what the rats will eat as much as the damage the rats will do chewing their way in — and bait will spoil if it isn’t in the salted brine solution.)

[AmosArch]

most cats supposedly don't actively go after rats from what I've heard. Rats just avoid them, which might be good enough.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, with toxoplasmosis, cats hardly have to hunt rats. They just wait for the infected ones to present themselves as the next meal.

Learning about toxoplasmosis really killed my interest in having a pet cat. A NASTY disease cats spread that causes everything infected to act in a way beneficial to the cats. The sort of thing Lovecraft might have invented on a good day!

[apedad]

"Cats, and other animals, including people, get toxoplasmosis by accidentally ingesting cat feces that contain infective Toxoplasma oocysts or by eating animals already infected with toxoplasmosis."

WTF are you eating?!?

Maybe check your food supply source(s).

[Brett Bellmore]

Unless you change the litter box while wearing isolation gear, the odds that you'll be able to avoid accidentally consuming some tiny amount of cat feces aren't attractive. It's not like you have to get a lot of it to get infected, a speck would do it. Breathing dust, say.

It doesn't take eating cat feces smoothies, just not observing over the top precautions would do it.

[Mr. Bumble]

I think your concerns are overblown but if you need a "ratter" there are always rat terriers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_qUdwfxBVQ

[Bruce D]

Breathing dust, say.

It has to dry out quite a bit for that to happen. One would have to leave it for at least a week for that to happen. I scoop out the litter box at least every other day, doesn't give it a chance to dry that much. If one keeps the cat indoors, as many apartment dwellers do, there's no risk of the cat eating a rat unless there are infected rat's already in the house begging to be eaten.

[Absaroka]

(just a general comment)

Depending on how much one likes cats, you can argue either side of the question of how concerned one should be:

"About 20 percent of the American public is infected with Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that can infect birds and most other animals but that reproduces sexually only in cats."

"“It is quite possibly the most successful parasite on the planet,” Dr. Grigg said, but if you have a working immune system, “you really have almost nothing to worry about.”"

Apparently the largest risk is during pregnancy: "It can cause a devastating disease in infants, with significant harm for them at birth and also later in life. It can have consequences for them and their families, lifelong.”

Being immunocompromised is also an issue.

And there is this cheerful note: "Treatments can keep the parasite from doing damage, she said, but cannot get rid of it completely. "

[Brett Bellmore]

“you really have almost nothing to worry about.””

Except maybe becoming a cat lady...

[Mr. Bumble]

Thinking of transitioning?

[Absaroka]

Heh. There may be other effects. A few days ago I ran across this study of of behavioral effects in Yellowstone wolves. And just now while searching for that…

[Absaroka]

...I ran across this human study:

"Similarly, T. gondii has been linked to behavioural changes in humans. Toxoplasma infection is classically associated with the frequency of schizophrenia, suicide attempts or “road rage”. A more recent study shows that toxoplasma infection prevalence was a consistent, positive predictor of entrepreneurial activity. Fear of failure would be less important in infected individuals, who are more willing than others to start their own business."

[Frank Drackman]

Hope you're not a meat eater (I am, but don't worry about obscure parasitic diseases)
Google "Cysticercosis" sometime
OTOH Toxoplasmosis is responsible for a considerable number of miscarriages, not that there's anything wrong with that.

[A nerdy Fred]

Which reminds me of something cool. There's an agency, afraid I forgot their name, which places unadoptable cats. Cats who can't get along with humans get shelter and regular meals as mousers in warehouses.

[Shamie Ervin iv]

We had cats when I was a farmboy. I liked them until one sneaked into the house and ate my uncaged canary. I called him Enrico and he sang like a diva. After that heartbreak I never could find myself liking a cat.

Many of the cats in Asheville are feral. Thus, if you try to feed the birds the cats will hang out and kill them. I have watched them and they are aerobatic predators who kill not just for food, but for pleasure. So I quit feeding the birds until I can fashion a feeder outside of a high window the cats can't reach. IMHO, cats are culpable in the spread of anarchy in this dilapidated town.

I do enjoy watching cats and kittens in their antics on YouTube.

And yes, cats do carry horrible diseases which spread to humans. They are responsible for more rabid bites of humans than dogs are. And if you have children, you'd be unfit parents to have a cat in the home. OTOH, a dog...

Two pretty girl cats met in an alley one day and one asked the other, "Have you seen Tom lately?"

Said the other one "I had a litter from him last week."

[Dr. Ed 2]

Siamese cat jumped onto the birdcage, which wasn't designed to have a 12 lb cat swinging from it and proceeded to come apart. Bird escapes and flies upstairs, cat gets claw stuck in cage and is swinging from it, screaming. Great fun.

Siamese cats inherently dislike dogs -- even as kittens. We had another grey cat that made friends with our Doberman, and when the Siamese picked on him, he would simply go stand underneath his friend, the Doberman and dare the Siamese to approach. They didn't.

One night the same cat tangled with a skunk -- and his friend the dog came to his rescue. And got sprayed...

It was kinda like the cold war -- the two Siamese cats versus the other cat and the Dog.

[Shamie Ervin iv]

Very good, Dr. Ed. We had a cat on our street who was an apex predator. I saw that cat catch a squirrel in mid-air as it leaped from the roof of one house to the roof of another. They both fell to the yard in soft grass and the cat had the squirrel paralyzed with one bite to the neck. The owner had trained the cat by using a rod and reel. He would cast a little furry stuffed animal down the street. As the cat approached the stuffed animal, the owner would quickly reel it in. It was a sight to watch. The following spring that cat wiped out every nest of baby birds in the neighborhood-- cardinals, chickadees, titmice, woodpeckers, robins, and Carolina wrens. A bunch of us bird-lovers made war on the man and ran him off.

A dog jumps into your lap to please you. A cat jumps into your lap to please itself. What is the difference between a dog and a cat? A dog will bite you. A little p***y won't hurt anybody.

[Bored Lawyer]

Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you. Give me a pig. He just looks you in the eye and treats you as an equal. -- Winston Churchill

[Mr. Bumble]

...unless it's a feral hog and treats you as a meal.

[ragebot]

Cats seem to be a double edged sword in todays world. Back in the day cats were never at the top of the food chain and had natural predators that limited their numbers but to day many domesticated cats are protected by their owners and face little threat from other animals. I have seen plenty of stuff from birdwatchers about how many birds cats kill.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/29/cats-wild-birds-mammals-study/1873871/

[Dr. Ed 2]

Birds of prey such as hawks and eagles can and will kill a cat (or small dog). Some birds will defend their nests by trying to kill the cat by a beak strike to the skull -- we had a Siamese cat that went into someone's barn and came running back and hid for a day -- birds nesting there made him feel unwelcome.

OTOH, another of our Siamese cats used to sit under the neighbor's bird house, hoping that one of the baby birds would fall out.

[John F. Carr]

It is simple free-market economics. Cats placed higher value on rats than humans did. An invisible hand moved them in the direction of higher value.

[Milhouse]

There's an old Jewish saying that cats and humans appear to have a common interest because they both want the mice dead. But in reality their interests are opposed -- humans want to kill all the mice so there will be no more, while cats want to preserve the population and ensure there will always be mice.