All You Need to Know About Cats

By Jim Hagarty
1986

Just this week I read a quiz about cats – a list of questions and answers designed to help owners know the true facts about their pets.

It dealt with whether cats can see in the dark (they can’t), whether a high fish diet is good for them (it isn’t) and whether they need a lot of exercise (they don’t) among other relevant data.

However, it occurred to me that a lot of important information was left out of the article, perhaps by accident, perhaps by design, and I’d like to fill in the blanks. Here are 12 true-or-false statements about cats. Check your score at the end.

1. A cat is most content with itself after it has had a good meal and some pats on the head from its owner.
   Answer: False. A cat is happiest when it has kicked every last grain of kitty litter (along with some of the reason for the litter) out of the pan and onto the floor.

2. A cat can be taught to understand the meaning of the word, “No!”
   Answer: False. A cat, in time, can understand, “Here kitty, kitty, kitty!”, “Supper!” and “You’re in big trouble!” but “No!” is a concept entirely beyond its grasp.

3. When a cat has eaten all it needs, it will stop eating.
   Answer: False. A cat believes its duty is to eat everything it sees, whether the food is in its dish, on your plate, on the neighbour’s front porch or still walking around (as in mice, birds, june bugs, etc.)

4. A cat loves to drink cool, clean water.
   Answer: False. It prefers filthy, lukewarm water, especially the kind found in mud puddles. In fact, it’s next to impossible to drag the average cat past a murky pool without it dipping its face into it. Toilet water is like champagne to a cat.

5. A cat does not like to go to the veterinarian.
   Answer: False. A trip to the doctor’s office is a good chance to mix it up with a few strange animals, maybe slash the smile off a happy-looking dog named George, cuff another cat or two. Also, a cat enjoys breaking out of the cat carrier in the car on the way home and digging its claws into the upholstery.

6. A cat prefers cool temperatures to warm.
   Answer: False. A cat can detect sources of warmth more accurately and quickly than a heat-seeking missile. It loves to sit on furnaces, the hoods of recently parked cars, people’s midriffs and when it’s young, other cats.

7. A cat likes its name.
   Answer. True. At least the names Buffy, Whiskers and Coco. The names Dirty Little Rat, Rotten Beggar and Why You Monster Wait Till I Get My Hands On You don’t appeal to it quite so much.

8. A cat enjoys sleeping in a specially made $40 wicker basket.
   Answer: False. It prefers clothes hampers, shoe boxes, dresser drawers and kitchen table tops.

9. A cat can always find its way back home.
   Answer: True. Even if you move. It knows how to go to the post office, find out your new address and join you later.

10. A cat is so agile, it never falls off things.
    Answer: False. It falls all the time off couches, beds, cellar steps. And what it likes to do on its way down is to try to hang onto anything not nailed down, such as an afghan, cushion, bed sheet or your leg.

11. A cat has feelings.
    Answer: False. Unless hunger can be classed as a feeling.

12. A sick cat prefers to bring up on a clear, hard surface such as a linoleum or wood floor.
    Answer: False. A nauseous cat will crawl on its paws and knees across a tile floor to make it onto the living room carpet before throwing up.

Scoring: if you answered 10 questions or more correctly, you are onto your cat and any day now, will be getting the upper hand; if you answered between six and nine questions correctly, you’ve had your cat for only the past three months and are still telling fellow workers in the mornings about the cute things it did last night; if you answered fewer than six questions correctly, your cat is smarter than you.

And if you answered all 12 questions correctly, your cat is still smarter than you.