Excerpts from “Zen and the Art of Cat Maintenance”

Bathing a cat is a martial art
“Aubrey, crouching on a nearby counter, watched me with squinty eyes, apparently pondering why anyone would willingly immerse themselves in water ever, let alone for extended periods of time”
― Richelle Mead
Some people say cats never have to be bathed. They say cats clean themselves… that cats have a special enzyme of some sort in their saliva that dislodges the dirt where it hides and whisks it away. Many spent most of their life believing this folklore.
Like most blind believers, I’ve been able to discount all the facts to the contrary-the kitty odors that work in the corners of the garage and dirt smudges that cling to the throw rug in the hall. The time finally comes, however, when a person must face reality; when he must look squarely in the face of massive public sentiment to the contrary and announce full: “this cat smells like an outhouse.”

My new book “Zen and the Art of Cat Maintenance” is now available at Amazon.com. Over the next few days I will be sharing excerpts of the book to whet your interest.

Part I:

Introduction

Zen Cat

In ancient times cats were worshiped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
Terry Pratchett

The popular saying “Dogs have owners, cats have staff” brings a smile to the faces of Cat lovers.

We get the joke.

Like all great jokes, it is the kernel of truth which makes it funny.

Cats and their human servants are a misunderstood bunch. The relatively newly mapped cat genome reveals that, compared with dogs, house cats are only partly domesticated.

Cats just aren’t programmed to please people the way dogs are.

And this may explain why cat people seem to have an incredibly deep bond with their pets.

Compared to dogs, house cats still have much more in common genetically with their wild cousins. It’s the differences between house cats and wild cats, however, that illuminate a lot about the history of human-cat relations.

Among the biggest divergences involve genes that influence reward-seeking behavior and response to fear. About 9,000 years ago when grain agriculture began spreading throughout the Fertile Crescent, scientists think wild cats began encountering people more often as they hunted the rodent populations that swarmed granaries during harvests. Farmers likely responded by rewarding those cats that stuck around with food scraps. The offspring of those whose genes allowed them to tolerate the presence of humans are the ancestors of modern-day house cats.

Genetically speaking, cats come out of the box less programmed to socialize with humans than dogs do. In fact, they treat humans much as they treat other cats. Cats also tend to be much less reliant on people than dogs are. They are good at taking care of themselves—e.g. hunting and cleaning themselves—and will reject abusive owners.

Mutual dependency is therefore more balanced than it is with dog ownership; pet and pet owner both have to work to understand each other, negotiating emotional and physical needs in a similar way to how human friends do. It means that when cats give and receive affection, it’s not necessarily in exchange for food or because their DNA is hardwired to do so. It’s probably because, like humans, they feel inspired to express it.

In breeding dogs as his own best friend, man made a creature inclined to listen to him more than to Nature. Cats haven’t let that happen, and yet they still choose to love people. You don’t have to be a cat person to respect them for it, but cat people know it instinctively.

This book is the result of a lifetime of living with, caring for, loving and being loved by cats. It covers many subjects covering the domestic, (and I use that word loosely), feline. Bathing and grooming a cat, (from the standpoint of how it would be done by a professional pet groomer); common household feline injuries, (and how to apply first aid and CPR until you can get to the vet); assembling a pet first aid kit; feline vital signs; dealing with fleas, (and other pests); common cat injuries; poisons and toxic substances; ear, dental and eye care; all about cat poop; understanding feline behavior and body language and cat massage.