 Purred: Mon Feb 21, '11 1:36am PST |
 | |  | | The thread title says it all, and I suspect there's no connection, but this is related to something the cat photographer Chanan said to me at a cat show yesterday. He's got nine cats, and when a bunny hopped into their yard the other day, the shorthaired cats immediately went into attack mode, while the longhaired cats went over in a friendly way, as if to say, "Hi, buddy!" (his words). (In the end, his wife made him rescue the rabbit.) I know that shorthairs tend to be more vocal and active than longhairs (at least in my experience, living with both, and seeing different breeds at cat shows), but to cut to the chase, do shorthaired cats take to raw more readily than longhaired cats? It certainly wouldn't seem logical, since Maine Coons, for example, were always prized for their mousing skills (as well as their ability to withstand New England winters). I'm not sure if what kinds of cats he has, moggies or purebreds or both, but I was wondering if shorthaired cats might be more aggressive and enthusiastic than longhairs when it comes to introducing them to a raw diet. I do know that shorthairs tend to come into heat considerably earlier than longhairs, and that their heats are much noisier; the males also enter puberty and start spraying earlier than their longhaired cousins, at least in my experience, so there are some basic biological differences between the two.
My vet once told me that females make better mousers than males--because they have keener hunting instincts, as they must consume enough nutrients to raise their kittens, and then teach the kittens how to hunt. This may very well be an old wives' tale, but at cat shows, you'll notice that (again, it depends on the cat and the breed), the females tend to be much more aware of their surroundings--they show their feline instincts in a big way (usually by going into heat immediately at the smell of intact males, or becoming nervous). So, a related question is, do female cats take to raw faster than males?
Yes, these are odd questions (as the thread title says), but what Chanan said piqued my curiosity regarding how breed or gender could affect response to a raw diet. Or, perhaps the underlying question would be, how much relation is there between a cat's hunting instinct and its preference for a raw diet? Among my cats, for example, Lowell lives for toys; any kind of toy lasts only a few hours once he gets hold of it, and I'm positive that he'd be a star mouser in the wild. Harvey, on the other hand, has a personality like that of a burned-out hippy; he looks at toys and then looks away without the slightest interest. I wonder if he would respond at all if a live critter crossed his line of vision, and whether any of this would be connected to the ease with which a cat takes to a raw diet.
Sorry to babble. I'm just curious. Anybody have any ideas?
 |  |  | |  |
|
| my posts | my page | msg me | my family's posts | gift me | become friends | [notify] |
6
