Some of those I knew, and the one about vocal sounds was one of my trivia quizzes a couple weeks ago! Smudge our Maine Coon has a heck of a vocabulary. He sings every nite when we're in bed, he's out in the livingroom by himself. We laugh hysterically at his vocals. LOL

A friend of mine had a Besenji and I loved him! He would chortle, never bark. A tire dealer has 2 chows that are tied outside in the summer, on the grass. Big guys with lots of fur and the blackest tongues you ever saw. haha

The same gene that makes animals white, gives them blue eyes, and often gives deafness. You got lucky! Give your kitty an extra pat from me!

jasdip, now you have me wondering. My most favoritestest, ever cat, a Maine Coon, was very very very vocal. He also hugged me and was incredibly bright. But, I wonder if their species has a special vocal gift? Maybe.

Maine Coons don't "meow", they sound more like a small bark when they speak. Did you notice that Rob? Ruff, is what they do. And yes, their vocabulary is huge. Smudge sounds anywhere like a baby crying, howling, singing going up and down the range......all kinds of cool sounds.

Smudge likes head-butting the best. He'll lead us to what he wants talking all the way.

Headbutting?! Keegan too?! How cool. Yes, very varied talking. Each one means something too. When I'd get a call and I was at home, people would ask me if I needed to go, so I could take care my [human] baby. They really thought he was a child! Talking. I just called it talking. You're right though, meow? Not on your life.

Interesting and how cool that the humane society put out a flyer like that!!! How old is it? Just a few years? Totally cool.....

As Rob pointed out, not all white cats are deaf. The white fur gene combined with the blue eye gene is generally what causes deafness. Typically, a white cat with one blue eye will be deaf in the ear on the side where the blue eye is. Two blue eyes in a white cat is going to mean total deafness 98% percent of the time.

Cats tongues are not "scratchy to hold prey". It's raspy (using hairs) to better pull meat off the kill/clean the bones. It also helps with grooming, which is important to remove the scent of it's prey. Think big cats and not Fluffy sitting over on that couch grooming herself.

Yes, you don't want an 'affectionate' licks from a big cat; take the flesh right off your bones.

Dogs don't have sweat glands either; they pant.

I typed everything as it was in the flyer -- Spring Newsletter 2008 -- so any questionable 'facts' should be addressed to the Humane Society of Rome. :p

My 3-legged cat calls for me in a range of voices when he wants me to carry him upstairs.
something like this: (repeat each word twice with a 4 second pause in your best cat
mrr-ow)
mom.
MOM.
mah-um?
MOM!
oh mom...
maaahh -ummmm (sing this one high to low)
maaah-umm? (sing this one low to high)

By this point I'm on my way down, but I do love to hear him call for me. (and no he doesn't "say" mom, but dang if you ever had a kid bug you, it sounds just like it!)

And my cats love vanilla icing, so not sure about the sweets...

chisue, dogs regulate heat via panting and sweating via their pads. Most people don't know about the feet. It's true though!

Pure white cats aren't actually called white cats, they are technically called Cats without colour. My white cat doesn't have blue eyes and so hears the crackle of his food bag just fine.

He also likes to have conversations with me. He'll meow and I will respond with something stupid and he will meow back, and we go back and forth for quite some time.

Our other cat prefers no contact with us unless he wants to be brushed and then he will set up quite a cater-walling and bat his brush.

If cats have better memories than dogs why can't they be trained to stay off the kitchen counter? You would think they would remember the yucky water bottle.

dees -- Oops! Forgot about the foot pads -- and it's right there in the list! Our Westie 'sweats' when he is nervous; yawns then too.

My all white cat (cat without color) has 2 yellow eyes and is totally deaf.

I had also heard, any cat with more than 3 colors most likely would be female...Are there any male calicos? I've been a cat person all my life (77 yrs.) and am still learning...Also, heard, a female can have multiple partners and thus the kittens might have different fathers...The animal would is very interesting, isn't it?

Interesting!

My at least part Maine Coon cat is very smart, easy to tell "no" and that's it. He doesn't walk on the kitchen counters. He does sit in the breakfast bar stools & watch me cook. :0) He has single chirps, trills and chortles in his vocabulary. He says "maaaaah" a lot. He has a kitten voice that's high pitched, slow and an adult voice, deep and loud.

We had a white, deaf cat. She "heard" just fine. Just open the fridge and she was there. Loved to knock things down so she could feel the vibrations. She was also a brilliant cat who ruled our not so smart (but very sweet dog) - and who also loved men - any man - it was kind of embarrassing. She also thought she was a dog. If we went in the car and took the dog, she had to come too.

Re the Pap being the only dog that does not smell. Our American Eskimo - also part of the Spitz breed does not smell either (unless he is wet and has been rolling in something). But I do miss "eau de hound".

I'm not so sure about cats not being able to taste sweets either. Kaci races to our side whenever we eat anything sweet - she appears out of no where. We offer her a taste which she gladly accepts. She doesn't beg for anything else. Ever.

I think cats can taste sweets, otherwise our white, deaf cat as noted above would not have cared for fruit cake. We obviously did not feed it to her but she was very resourceful and always managed to get into it - and she did receive a lot of fruitcakes from people at Christmas (I believe it is called "regifting". Fruit cake was right up there with my aunt's heart attack on a plate macaroni and cheese - preferably served cold to Blanche.

My present cat has a perfect memory when it comes to the squirt bottle. When he first came into our household as a young adult, he seemed to think that he was allowed on the counters, that it was okay to scratch anywhere he wanted. I don't think it took anymore than a couple of sprays for him to get it. Now, four years later, all I have to do is pretend I'm reaching for the bottle and he runs. :-)

To a dog - you're boss, if you choose to be. Though s/he'll test the boundaries, occasionally.

To a cat - you're staff. To serve their needs.

o j

They'll test the boundaries "occasionally"? LOL My boys test the boundaries every minute of every day.

Of course, Harry has reached the Venerable Elder stage and no longer has any rules. Sam? Sam has rules, lots of rules; all of which he tests constantly. Harry helps him test them; they are a hoot.

I swear Sam rolls his eyes and goes "ahh, man" every time we call him on a no-no.

Different vision too.

We're sleep deprived. Thursday and Friday nights our Westie was up and down ten times from his bed at the foot of our bed (and ON our bed). He was trying to escape *some* kind of pain. He refused to eat Wednesday night. He's often gone without eating for three days, then is right as rain, but we planned to take him to the vet this morning -- he's never seemed in pain before!

The vet opens at 8:30. About 4 a.m. Eliot stopped pacing and shaking and went quietly to sleep -- us too. I got up quietly this morning and made rice and chicken. Sure enough, Eliot came out and went right to his dish. I gave him a half cup of rice/chicken, then another half cup 30 minutes later.

DH walked him and brought home the small stool he passed. We took Eliot and the stool to the vet. He'd passed a twist-tie! WHERE did he pick THAT up? We'll watch carefully for blood. The vet said we would have just watched and waited regardless -- no surgery. She said veterinary magazines run contests to show what dogs have swallowed, and that this is minor. I'm sure it didn't feel minor to Eliot!

Early to bed for all of us tonight.

Oh, your poor puppy! I'm glad everything turned out well for him.

Sleep well, all of you.

Oh my, your poor puppy. I'm sure he is feeling much better now

When Carmelita was about a year old, she ate a very small piece of mulch. I didn't know that at the time. When we went to bed that night she started crying and walking around and crying and crying.

Well, I couldn't let that go on so I took her to the emergency vet in the middle of the night. They xrayed her and saw the piece of mulch. Nothing to do but wait it out. They did give her Tramadol for the pain. It was pitiful. And expensive.

This post was edited by murraysmom on Sat, Mar 15, 14 at 21:30

Chisue, how scary that must have been for you when Eliot seemed sick. Glad it was simple, not an illness, even though a twist tie could have been serious.

Thanks for your concerns! We're all feeling better this morning, after a good night's sleep! More chicken and rice for El this morning, along with some bread, at the vet's suggestion. He also licked the egg off our Sunday breakfast plates -- just a tad, and NO BACON, which puzzled him!

Mulch! Eliot eats it whenever he can. It's likely the twist-tie was IN a piece of mulch. I was too late, running out the back door in DH's size 12 boots, but Wednesday I saw him gulp something under the honeysuckle vine -- which is anchored to a fence with something imilar to twist-ties.

Eliot never *cried* with this pain. Maybe he's a stoic. I know dogs don't like to show any weakness. He just shuddered and couldn't get comfortable. Now we know this *thing* was passing along his gut. I can't believe we are in the clear from this...yet.