{"id":6169,"date":"2014-08-15T05:47:57","date_gmt":"2014-08-15T09:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=6169"},"modified":"2014-08-15T05:47:57","modified_gmt":"2014-08-15T09:47:57","slug":"alien-cat-is-alien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=6169","title":{"rendered":"Alien cat is alien"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the reasons I like cats is because I find it enjoyable to try to model their thought processes by observing their behavior.  They&#8217;re like furry aliens, just enough like us that a limited degree of communication (mostly emotional) is possible.<\/p>\n<p>Just now I&#8217;m contemplating a recent change in the behavior of our new cat, Zola.  Recent as in the last couple of days.  Some kind of switch has flipped.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>When last I <a href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=5993\">reported on Zola<\/a>, about six weeks ago, he was &#8211; very gradually &#8211; losing his initial reserve around us; behavior becoming more like Sugar&#8217;s was. Not all that surprising in retrospect &#8211; those Maine Coon genes are telling.<\/p>\n<p>In the last couple of days Zola has become <em>markedly<\/em> more affectionate and attention-seeking.  He&#8217;s even taken to sleeping part of the night on the waterbed coverlet, which was something Sugar did that we liked (before a few days ago, he&#8217;d occasionally jump up but then skedaddle after less than a minute). We find it very restful to have a cat curled up nearby when we&#8217;re dozing off or wake up in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n<p>I think I understand the long-term, gradual increase in affectionate behavior; Zola has been testing us and learning that we&#8217;re safe. I wish I understood the sudden jump. It&#8217;s as though we&#8217;ve moved to a different category in his representation of the world.  It doesn&#8217;t feel like he&#8217;s testing us anymore; now he just cheerfully assumes that we love him and loves us right back.  He&#8217;s happier and more relaxed &#8211; he&#8217;s almost stopped disappearing during the day (but is still more nocturnal than Sugar was).<\/p>\n<p>The reason I&#8217;m writing about this is to invite speculation &#8211; or, better yet, reports from ethological studies &#8211; on what social classifications cats have other than &#8220;stranger&#8221;, &#8220;packmate&#8221;, and &#8220;kin&#8221;.  Also, whether there&#8217;s any evidence for domestic cats putting humans in a close-kin category, or something else distinguishable from and more trusted than &#8220;packmate&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Now, if we can just teach him not to sprawl where he might get stepped on.  Without actually stepping on him *wince*&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the reasons I like cats is because I find it enjoyable to try to model their thought processes by observing their behavior. They&#8217;re like furry aliens, just enough like us that a limited degree of communication (mostly emotional) is possible. Just now I&#8217;m contemplating a recent change in the behavior of our new&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=6169\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Alien cat is alien<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45],"class_list":["post-6169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-zola","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6170,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6169\/revisions\/6170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}