Can cats smile?

Of course they do. Just ask any cat lover.

Cat Claws

Did you know that kittens are born with claws extended, and only after they mature a little do they develop the muscles to sheath them?

Oh, you did?

I didn't.

More cat claw information.

Cat Marketing

A cat strolls into a Cadillac dealership, walks up to a salesman and says:

Show me something that will make me purr.

Puzzling over this for a second, the salesman returns with a saucer of milk, placing it on the floor in front of the cat.

The cat takes one look at the milk, one look at the salesman and walks out.

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In polls of professions most disliked by the public, car salesman, and salesmen in general often rank highly. However honest an individual might be, they are dragged down by perceived untrustworthiness of their peers. In my experience the generalization is true.

Why is this the case? Why do ethics, honesty and fair dealing elude those in the selling side of business? Don't we all understand that business is selling, and that quality control in software development can equally be applied to sales staff?

This is an experiment I'd like to try: let's find one hundred sales people, from all types of business. We'd put them in a room of, say, twenty cats, and see how their sales pitches work.

This, another beauty of the cat, is that they know what they want, and what you think they want makes no difference...except over a long period of being together, when they trust and know you.

Imagine missing out being the person who sold the cat a Cadillac because you didn't listen.

Cat ears

When I was taught to draw a cat (at age 5) there were four components to remember. The body, the head, the tail and the ears. Sure it's only a silhouette, but nonetheless recognizeably a cat, mostly because of those triangles at the top.

It's obvious they're great for hearing mice rustling in the hay. Like so much about cats, their hearing and processing is utterly tuned to keep them alive and in food. Talk about a perfectly designed killing machine!

I love watching an alert cat rotate those things around so they catch the minutest (mouse-ee-est?) wee noise. You just know they are interpreting what each sound means, whether it's a threat or lunch. Luckily for me, my two are indoor cats, and there are precious few mice around for them to kill and show me.

In any case, when they're in the mood, they both love having their ears scruffed and rubbed, just like some people.

Whiskers

Years of observing cats makes one aware of their subtle ways. The whiskers don't tell you much about what you're cat is thinking, but they're interesting nonetheless. I have noticed that a happy or confident cat will push the whisker pads forward, which positions the whiskers more perpendicular to the body.

If scared (or asleep, or eating) they're faired against the cheeks for that streamlined look. Funny how they're integral to the cat "look", and so easy to overlook. This link will tell you all about the whiskers.

I guess everyone's aware that the major use of the whiskers is to determine if a space is too small for their body width. Pity it doesn't tell them if they'll have to reverse out. (Smile.) Imagine if we had that system on our cars telling us that the parking spot is a fraction too small.

Hey, that's not a bad idea! Car-skers!