Catwatching (6 page)

This is particularly noticeable when a female is having kittens. Other females have been known to act as midwives, helping to chew through the umbilical cords and clean up the new-born offspring. Later they may offer a babysitting service, bring food for the new mother, and occasionally feed young from other litters as well as their own. Even males sometimes show a little paternal feeling, cleaning kittens and playing with them.

These are not usual activities, but despite the fact that they are uncommon occurrences, they do reveal that the cat is capable, under special circumstances, of behaving in a less selfish way than we might expect.

Territorial behaviour also involves some degree of restraint and sharing. Cats do their best to avoid one another, and often use the same ranges at different times as a way of reducing conflict. In addition there are special no-cat's-land areas where social 'clubs' can develop.

These are parts of the environment where, for some reason, cats call a general truce and come together without too much fighting. This is common with feral city cats, where there may be a special feeding site.

If humans throw food for them there, they may gather quite peacefully to share it. Close proximity is tolerated in a way that would be unthinkable in the 'home base' regions of these cats.

Considering these facts, some authorities have gone so far as to say that cats are truly gregarious and that their society is more cooperative than that of dogs, but this is romantic exaggeration. The truth is that, where social life is concerned, cats are opportunists.

They can take it or leave it. Dogs, on the other hand, can never leave it. A solitary dog is a wretched creature. A solitary cat is, if anything, relieved to be left in peace.

If this is so, then how can we explain the mutual aid examples given above? Some are due to the fact that we have turned domestic cats into overgrown kittens. By continuing to feed them and care for them we prolong their juvenile qualities into their adult lives. Like Peter Pan, they never grow up mentally, even though they become mature adults physically. Kittens are playful and friendly with their litter-mates and with their mothers, so they are used to acting together in a small group. This quality can be added to later adult activities, making them less competitive and less solitary. Secondly, those cats living wild in cities, where there is little space, adapt to their shrunken territories out of necessity, rather than by preference.

Some animals can live only in close-knit social groups. Others can tolerate only a completely solitary existence. The cat's flexibility means that it can accept either mode of living, and it is this that has been a key factor in its long success story since it was first domesticated thousands of years ago.

Cats hate doors. Doors simply do not register in the evolutionary story of the cat family. They constantly block patrolling activities and prevent cats from exploring their home range and then returning to their central, secure base at will. Humans often do not understand that a cat needs to make only a brief survey of its territory before returning with all the necessary information about the activities of other cats in the vicinity. It likes to make these tours of inspection at frequent intervals, but does not want to stay outside for very long, unless there has been some special and unexpected change in the condition of the local feline population.

The result of this is an apparent perversity on the part of pet cats.

When they are in they want to go out, and when they are out they want to come in. If their owner does not have a small cat-flap on the back door of the house, there will be a regular demand for attention, to assist the cat in its rhythmic territorial supervision. Part of the reason why this repeated checking of the outside world is so important is because of the time-clock message system of the scent-marks. Each time a cat rubs against a landmark in its territory or sprays urine on it, it leaves a personal scent which immediately starts to lose its power. This decline is at a steady rate and can be used by cats to determine how long it has been since the scent-marker rubbed or sprayed. The repeated visits by a cat to inspect its territory are motivated by a need to reactivate its fading scent signals. Once this has been done, comfort and security beckons again, and the anxious feline face appears for the umpteenth time at the window.

Unlike humans, felines have very expressive ears. They not only change direction as the cat listens to sounds coming from different sources, but they also adopt special postures that reflect the emotional mood of the animals.

There are five basic ear signals, related to the following moods: relaxed, alert, agitated, defensive and aggressive.

In the relaxed cat the apertures of the ears point forward and slightly outward, as the animal quietly listens for interesting sounds over a wide range.

When the resting cat stirs itself and focuses on some exciting detail in its surroundings, the ear position changes into the 'alert mode'.

As it stares at the point of interest, its ears become fully erect and rotate so that their apertures point directly forward. The ears are kept pricked in this way as long as the cat remains gazing straight ahead.

The only variation occurs if there is a sudden noise away to the side of the animal, in which case an ear may be permitted a brief rotation in that direction without a shift of gaze.

An agitated cat, suffering from a state of conflict, frustration or apprehension, often displays a nervous twitching of the ears. In some species of wild cats this response has been made highly conspicuous by the evolution of long ear-tufts, but the domestic cat lacks this refinement and the ear-twitching itself is less common. Slight tufting does occur in some breeds, especially the Abyssinian where there is a small dark hairy point to the ear, but compared with the huge ear-tufts of a species such as the Caracal Lynx, this is a very modest development.

A defensive cat displays fully flattened ears. They are pressed tightly against the head as a way of protecting them during fights.

The torn and tattered ears of battling tom-cats are a vivid testimony to the need to hide this delicate part of the anatomy as much as possible when the claws are out. The effect of flattening the ears to the sides of the head is to make them almost invisible when the animal is viewed from the front and to give its head a more rounded outline.

There is one strange breed of cat called the Scottish Fold which has permanently flattened ears, giving it a continually defensive look, regardless of its true mood. What effect this has on its social life is hard to imagine.

An aggressive cat which is hostile without being particularly frightened has its own special ear posture. Here, the ears are rotated but not fully flattened. The backs of the ears become visible from the front, and this is the most dangerous ear signal any cat can transmit.

In origin, this ear posture is half-way between alert and defensive in other words, half-way between pricked forward and flattened backward.

In effect, it is a 'ready for trouble' position. The animal is saying, 'I am ready to attack, but you don't frighten me enough to flatten my ears protectively." The reason why this involves showing off the backs of the ears is because they must be rotated backwards before they can be fully flattened. So the rotated ears are in a 'ready-to-be-flattened' posture, should the aggressive cat's opponent dare to retaliate.

The aggressive ear posture has led to some attractive ear-markings in a number of wild cat species, especially the tiger, which has a huge white spot ringed with black on the back of each ear. When a tiger is angry, there is no doubt at all about its mood, as the pair of vivid white spots rotates into view. Again, domestic cats lack these special markings.

Under wild conditions cat-fights are a rarity because there is plenty of space, but in the more crowded urban and suburban areas feline territories become squashed together and frequently overlap. This means that a great deal of squabbling and serious physical duelling occurs, especially between rival tom-cats. Occasionally there are even killings or deaths resulting from battle injuries.

The primary objective of an attacking cat is to deliver a fatal neckbite to its rival, employing much the same technique as when killing a prey. Because its opponent is of roughly the same size and strength, this lethal bite is hardly ever delivered. Indeed, the most craven and cowardly of rivals will defend itself to some extent, and a primary neck-bite is almost impossible to achieve.

The point to remember here is that even the most savage and dominant individual, as he goes in to the attack, is fearful of the consequences of the 'last-ditch-stand' by his terrorized underling. Driven into a corner, the weakling will try anything, lashing out with sharp claws and possibly injuring the dominant cat in a way that may pose a serious threat to his future hunting success and therefore his very survival.

So even an out-and-out attacker shows fear mixed with his aggression, when the final crunch of physical contact arrives.

A typical sequence goes as follows: the dominant animal spots a rival and approaches it, adopting a highly characteristic threat posture, walking tall on fully stretched legs so that it suddenly appears bigger than usual. This effect is increased by the erecting of the hairs along its back. Because the crest is greater towards the rear end of the animal, the line of its back slopes up towards the tail. This gives the attacking cat a silhouette which is the exact opposite of the crouching shape of the weaker rival, whose rear end is held low on the ground.

With the backs of his ears showing and a great deal of howling, growling and gurgling, the attacker advances in slow motion, watching for any sudden reaction from his cringing enemy. The noises made are startlingly hostile and it is hard to understand how anything so totally aggressive can ever have been misnamed the tom-cat's 'love song'. One can only wonder at the love-life of the people who gave it this name. Needless to say, it has nothing whatever to do with true cat courtship.

As the attacking cat comes very near its rival, it performs a strange but highly characteristic head-twisting action. At a distance of about three feet it raises its head up slightly and then tilts it over to one side, all the time fixating the enemy with its eyes. Then the attacker takes a slow step forward and tilts its head the other way. This may be repeated several times and appears to be a threat of the neck-bite to come, the head twisting into the biting position as much as to say 'this is what you will get'. In other words, the attacker acts out the 'intention movement' of the assault typical of the species.

If two cats of equal status meet and threaten one another, a long period of deadlock may follow, with each animal performing exactly the same slow, hostile approach, as if displaying in front of a mirror.

The nearer they get, the slower and shorter are their movements, until they become frozen in a prolonged stalemate which may last for many minutes.

Throughout this they will continue to give vent to their caterwauling howls and moans, but neither side will be prepared to capitulate.

Eventually they may separate from one another in incredibly slow motion.

To increase their speed would be tantamount to admitting weakness and would lead to an immediate attack from the rival, so they must both withdraw with almost imperceptible movements to retain their status.

Should these threats and counter-threats collapse into a serious fight, the action begins with one of the adversaries making a lunging attempt at a neck-bite. When this happens the opponent instantly twists round and defends itself with its own jaws, while at the same time striking out with its front feet, clinging on with its forepaws and then kicking wildly with its powerful back feet. This is the point at which the 'fur flies' quite literally, and the growling gives way suddenly to yowls and screams as the two animals roll and writhe around, biting, clawing and kicking.

This phase does not last long. It is too intense. The rivals quickly pull apart and resume the threat displays, staring at one another and growling throatily once again. The assault is then repeated, perhaps several times, until one of them finally gives up and remains lying on the ground with its ears fully flattened. At this point the victor performs another highly characteristic display. It turns at right angles to the loser and, with great concentration, starts to sniff the ground, as though at that very moment there is an irresistibly delicious odour deposited there. The animal concentrates so hard on this sniffing that, were it not a regular feature of all fights, it would have the appearance of a genuine odour-check. But it is now only a ritual act, a victory display which signals to the cowering rival that its submission and capitulation have been accepted and that the battle is over. After the ceremonial sniffing the victor saunters slowly off and then, after a short while, the vanquished animal slinks away to safety.

Not all fights are conducted at such high intensity. Milder disputes are settled by 'paw-scrapping' in which the rivals swipe out at one another with extended claws. Slashing at their rival's head in this way, they may be able to settle their disagreement without the full ritual battle and all-in wrestling described above.

If a cat feels threatened by a large dog, it pulls itself up on fully stretched legs and at the same time arches its back in the shape of an inverted U. The function of this display is clearly to make the cat look as big as possible, in an attempt to convince the dog that it is confronting a daunting opponent. To understand the origin of the display it is necessary to look at what happens when cats are threatening one another. If one cat is intensely hostile towards another and feels little fear, it approaches on stiffly stretched legs and with a straight back. If its rival is extremely frightened and feels no hostility, it arches its back and crouches low on the ground.