The domestic cat is a contridiction. No other animal has developed such an intimate relationship with humanity, while at the same time demanding and getting such an independent movement and action.

The cat manages to remain a tame animal because of the sequence of its upbringing. By living both with other cats (its mother and littermates) and with humans (the family that adopted it) during its infancy and kittenhood, it becomes attached to and considers that it belongs to both species. It is like a childthat grows up in a foreign country and as a consequence becomes biligual. The young cat becomes bimental. It may be a cat physically but mentally it is both feline and human. Once it is fully adult, however, most of its responses are feline ones, and it has only one major reaction to its human owners. It treats them as pseudoparents. The reason is that they took over from the real mother at a sensitive stage of the kitten's development and went on giving it milk, solid food and comfort as it grew up.

This is rather different from the kind of bond that develops between human and dog.The dog sees its human owners as pseudoparents, as does the cat. On the score the process of attachment is similar. But the dog has an additional link. Canine society is group-organised; feline society is not. Dog live in packs with tightly controleld status relationships among the individuals. There are top dogs, middle dogs and bottom dogs; and under natural circumstances they move around together, keeping tabs on one another the whole time.

continue later.
It took me how many days? 3 days? :( ok, sorry..i continue the story....

So the adult pet dog sees its human family both as pseudoparents and as dominant members of the pack, hence its renowned reputation for obedience and its celebrated capacity for loyalty. Cats do have a complex social organization, but they never hunt in packs. In the wild, most of their day is spent in solitary stalking. Going for a walk with a human, therefore has no appeal for them. And as for "coming to heel" and learning to "sit" and "stay", they are simply not interested. Such maneuvers have no meaning to them.

So the moment a cat manages to persuade a human being to open a door (that most hated of human inventions), it is off and away without a backward glace. As it crosses the threshold, the cat becomes transformed. The kitten-of-human brain is switched off and the wildcat brain is clicked on. The dog, in such a situation, may look back to see if its human packmate is following to join in the fun of exploring, but not the cat. The cat's mind has floated off into another, totally feline world, where strange bipedal primates have no place.

Because of the difference between domestic cats and domestic dogs, cat-lovers tend to be rather different from dog-lovers. As a rule, cat-lovers have a stronger personality bias towards working alone, independant of the larger group. Artist likes cats; soldiers like dogs. The much-lauded "group loyalty" phenomenon is alien to both cats and cat-lovers. If you are a company person, a member of the gang, or a person picked for the squad, the chances are that at home there is no cat curled up in front of the fire. The ambitious Yuppie, the aspiring politician, the professional athlete, these are not typical cat-owners. It is hard to picture football players with cats in their laps-much easier to envisage them taking their dogs for walks.

The who have studied cat-owners and dog-owners as two distinct groups report that there is also a gender bias. The majority of cat-lovers are female. The bias is not surprising in the view of the division of labour evident in the development of human societies. Prehistoric males became specialised as group-hunters, while the females concentrated on food-gathering and childbearing. This difference contributed to a human male "pack mentality" that is far less marked in females. Wolves, the wild ancestors of domestic dogs, also became pack hunters, so the modern dog has much more in common with the human male than with the human female.

The argument will always go on - feline self-sufficiency and indivudualism verus canine camaraderie and good fellowship. But it is important to stress that in making a valid point i have caricatured the two positions. In reality there are many people who enjoy equally the company of both cats and dogs. And all of us or nearly all of us, have both feline and canine elements in our personalities. We have moods when we want to be alone and thoughtful, and other times when we wish to be in the center of a crowded, noisy room.

The passage is from a book that was from a book written by a zoologist and published in 1986.

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haha..wa...quite the interesting la. Hehe, there's a guy in #npbio...nick is mitch^. I got a new term..mitch: male bitch. Wahaha

Was so tired today..took off my clothes and went straight to bed. Wanted to juz lie down..end up slept with my blanket. Slept for 1 hr..juz woke up. Tonite may be a long nite..gonna key in my ELISA results after my bro goes off to camp. So that rest was gd. Hmm..wat else? Today...slack! Supervisor msged me in the morning..said she mc today. So my job that day was try not to doze off at journal club (which of course..i failed...their immunology talk was...huh all the way..but learned things on how to present today. Xuhui was presenting her Ph. D examination presentation..woo!) and to split aka subculture CHO clone 80. Optional was the keying in of ELISA results. Aww, i wan to sleep again. I think friendster's testifying, i've done ard 30%. Decided to skip for those im not too gum/known for long type of friends. And saving the best for last too. :)

outz`