Confirmation cat is a threat to an average person

[Umbran]

Cats are, IMO, shifty, untrustworthy animals. I'll never, ever own one. When I was growing up and living with my mother, she had several over the years and it seemed like there was something mentally off with every one of them.

Every animal is "shifty and untrustworthy", insofar as they don't think like humans. Their concerns are not yours, their fears are not yours. What seems perfectly reasonable to the cat, dog, goat, or what have you, can seem as unpredictable, dangerous behavior to someone who doesn't understand.

You speak as if humans didn't also have their quirks - there is no such thing as a person who is "100% normal" mentally, either. We just understand human quirks and forgive them.

Which is not to say that the animals didn't have problems - given that in the long term animals often react to stimuli in fundamentally different ways than people do, folks often set their animals up for neurotic behavior without realizing it. Frequently, behavior problems can be dealt with if the owner has the dedication and access to the right information.

 

[frankthedm]

Every animal is "shifty and untrustworthy", insofar as they don't think like humans. Their concerns are not yours, their fears are not yours. What seems perfectly reasonable to the cat, dog, goat, or what have you, can seem as unpredictable, dangerous behavior to someone who doesn't understand.

You speak as if humans didn't also have their quirks - there is no such thing as a person who is "100% normal" mentally, either. We just understand human quirks and forgive them.

Which is not to say that the animals didn't have problems - given that in the long term animals often react to stimuli in fundamentally different ways than people do, folks often set their animals up for neurotic behavior without realizing it. Frequently, behavior problems can be dealt with if the owner has the dedication and access to the right information.

I love cats and agree with the keyboard.

 

[Pbartender]

Which got infected.

That's where all the actual hp damage of a cat comes from...

A while back, my brother and his family were moving from Germany to Japan (he's in the army). Their pet cat was getting shipped to Chicago, where he asked me to pick him up and hang on to him for a couple days. No problem... Our house is very pet friendly and we've already got a dog and a cat of our own.

The problem came a day or two after I'd picked his cat up. His cat, as cat's in a strage place full of strange people and animals will do, hid under our bed constantly, until he worked up the courage to come out on his own. That happened one evening, while the lights in the bedroom were out and I was just beginning to drift off to sleep...

The cat walked over me, as I was half asleep. He startled me, I carefully picked him up to take him out of the bedroom, I startled him, and then he bit me, leaving a series of pretty nasty and painful gashes on the back of my hand.

We thoroughly cleaned it out right away, but even so, after a few days my hand was beginning to swell up... We lanced the wounds, drained them of all the gook, cleaned them all out again, and got some general antibiotics from the doctor just to be safe. Nothing left now but a couple of scars, but man those were mean bites.

 

[pfisteria]

Yeah... cats can do some pretty nasty damage. I had a friend who almost lost her leg to "cat scratch fever." I myself was sick for about a week after getting mauled by a stray; I still have the scars on my arm. Another friend of mine has herpes in her leg where a cat punctured her with it's claws (it only flares up maybe once or twice a year).

 

[kenobi65]

folks often set their animals up for neurotic behavior without realizing it.

And then they videotape that behavior and send it in to America's Funniest Home Videos.

 

[Ulrick]

If the cat were as intelligent as a human, sure, then they could probably mess someone up... but they aren't that intelligent.

Don't ever underestimate a cat. I've read somewhere that cats have the IQ of toddlers. And you know how vicious a 2 year old can get.

Also, I found this...

http://www.sniksnak.com/cathealth/whydo.html

Are Cats Smart?

In the animal kingdom, the cat's IQ is surpassed only by monkeys and chimps. Cats think and adapt to changing circumstances and learn by observation, imitation, and trial and error. Interestingly, cats seem to learn more quickly from their own mothers than from examples set by unrelated cats, but imitate humans. They have been shown to exhibit greater problem solving abilities than dogs. Tests conducted by the University of Michigan and the Department of Animal Behavior at the American Museum of Natural History have concluded that while canine memory lasts no more than 5 minutes, a cat's recall can last as long as 16 hours, exceeding even that of monkeys and orangutans.

 

[Umbran]

We thoroughly cleaned it out right away, but even so, after a few days my hand was beginning to swell up... We lanced the wounds, drained them of all the gook, cleaned them all out again, and got some general antibiotics from the doctor just to be safe. Nothing left now but a couple of scars, but man those were mean bites.

Ha. You got off lucky.

My wife is a veterinarian. While she's very good at what she does, she occasionally gets bitten or scratched. The most recent memorable such bite went septic on her within an hour. She ended up having to camp out on the sofa for nearly a week - one hand bandaged, the other immobilized by the IV of antibiotics.

Animal bites are not to be taken lightly.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Ha. You got off lucky.

My wife is a veterinarian. While she's very good at what she does, she occasionally gets bitten or scratched. The most recent memorable such bite went septic on her within an hour. She ended up having to camp out on the sofa for nearly a week - one hand bandaged, the other immobilized by the IV of antibiotics.

Animal bites are not to be taken lightly.

That's why you use bleach, as soon as you're bitten or scratched wash out the wound in chlorine bleach. I've been doing it for more than a decade and I've never had a cut go septic yet.

 

[Pbartender]

Ha. You got off lucky.

Don't I know it... To this day, those bite scars are two of three old injuries I have that can predict the weather (the third is my "dodgeball pinky").

That's why you use bleach, as soon as you're bitten or scratched wash out the wound in chlorine bleach. I've been doing it for more than a decade and I've never had a cut go septic yet.

That doesn't always work, either... When I was bitten I washed the cuts out three times -- bleach, alcohol and then peroxide -- just to make sure. Then I bandaged them up with antibiotic cream. It didn't stop them from getting infected in the end, though likely it didn't end up nearly as bad as if I hadn't.

 

[Felon]

Frequently, behavior problems can be dealt with if the owner has the dedication and access to the right information.

OR, introduce them very early on to the concept of swift and terrible retribution.

My cats come when I call.