
Are Cats Domesticated? - ingve
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/are-cats-domesticated
======
Apocryphon
“I don’t think it makes sense to talk about animals as semi- or fully
domesticated,” Greger Larson, a paleogeneticist and archeologist at Oxford
University and an expert on domestication, said. “Any threshold you try to
define will necessarily be arbitrary.”

I agree with that idea- to consider dogs as "fully domesticated" and cats as
"semi-domesticated" is to make assumptions about how animals ought to behave.
I don't think docility and domestication are synonymous.

~~~
anonbanker
Are we even cognizant of the daily assumptions we make over how animals
behave?

Look at how humans have interpreted cat food: Felines should be eating a
sufficiently varied diet of bird and rodent. Full animals are best. Meanwhile,
we (by way of Ralston-Purina's suggestions) feed them a bunch of Taurine in a
can of meat-flavored sawdust, and wonder why our cats constantly meow at us
for more food. Or even better, feed them nothing but dry food, and watch the
urine crystals build up until they pee, then be mad at them for not drinking
enough water (cats get water from their food).

Cats feel extraordinarily unsafe on ground level. But humans angrily shoo them
off tables or dressers, and wonder why they act all jittery and spooked all
the time.

We cut off the tips of their fingers so that they don't scratch up the
furniture, then we restrict their freedom of movement by forcing them to be
indoor pets only, for "their own safety" because we just crippled them. if
that isn't an indication of how disconnected we are from how cats are supposed
to behave, I don't know what is.

------
codingdave
"Somewhere along the line, people shifted from tolerating cats to welcoming
them, providing extra food and a warm place to sleep. Why?"

Anyone who lives near fields knows why - they eat the mice. If you have cats,
your farm stays rodent-free. And snake-free, with my cats. They are an
important part of the ecosystem around here.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
The answer is: Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.
[http://thepetbooklady.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8347a49a469e2017c3...](http://thepetbooklady.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8347a49a469e2017c34d56a73970b-500wi)

~~~
Natsu
I'm more inclined to say that cats have domesticated humans than the other way
around, though...

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imaginenore
I like cats for their independence. Mine walk in and out as they please, they
do their stuff, I see them a couple of blocks away sometimes, but they always
come back. I don't have to babysit them. I don't have to walk them. I don't
have to worry if they are bored. Cat food is cheap enough not to bankrupt us.
They are not a second child.

~~~
dingaling
> Mine walk in and out as they please, they do their stuff

...on other people's property.

In the UK cats enjoy a unique status of protection. They are not classified as
vermin ( so cannot be eliminated as pests ) but are considered "free spirits"
under the law, so their owners are not held responsible for their actions.

Basically they can do whatever they like wherever they like and we have to
tolerate it. In fact it goes beyond that, as a property owner I have to ensure
the safety of any cats which come on my property e.g. I can be charged for
cruelty if I salted their paths with something nasty even if I was targeting
rats.

This status is completely unlike foxes ( vermin ) or dogs ( owner responsible
). Little wonder cats are so polarizing of opinion.

~~~
imaginenore
Well yeah, cat's are not known to hunt humans in packs, or murder children, or
severely damage adults. You really need to provoke a cat into defending
itself, whereas dogs tried to attack me even when on a leash with the owner
attached.

------
kryptiskt
Cats have successfully domesticated humans.

------
dangoor
I realize it's a bit of a nitpick, but I kind of like the "heavy metal umlaut"
in "reëvaluating" in the first paragraph. In context:

> [...]cats seem to be constantly reëvaluating the merits of our relationship,
> as well as their role in domestic life

It sort of emphasizes that cats evaluate things differently than we do :)

~~~
tomjakubowski
The diaeresis isn't any kind of umlaut, even a heavy metal one; it shares
notation with the German Umlaut, but it's used to indicate that the vowel is
not part of a digraph or diphthong and should be pronounced separately from
the vowel preceding it. Its use is somewhat archaic -- the more "modern" way
to do that is to use a hyphen, like "re-evaluate" \-- but some publications,
like the New Yorker, include it in their style guide.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_\(diacritic\))

~~~
dangoor
Thanks for that!

Must be archaic indeed because I cannot remember ever having seen reëvaluate
before.

I appreciate the correction. If I had a cat, I'm pretty sure it would give me
one of those "see I told you so" looks right about now.

~~~
autarch
The New Yorker is the only place I can ever remember seeing this usage.

~~~
alecdbrooks
The other common places are in names like Brontë, Zoë, and so on and in the
word naïve. See the the English subsection of the Wikipedia linked to above:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_%28diacritic%29#Engl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_%28diacritic%29#English).

~~~
nommm-nommm
Chloë is also a common name as well.

The New Yorker itself published an article on its use of the diaeresis:
[http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-
of-t...](http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-the-
diaeresis)

Basically, we have three options for these kinds of words: “cooperate,” “co-
operate,” and “coöperate.” Back when the magazine was just getting started,
someone decided that the first misread and the second was ridiculous, and
adopted the diaeresis as the most elegant solution with the broadest
application. The diaeresis is the single thing that readers of the letter-
writing variety complain about most.

We do change our style from time to time. My predecessor (and the former
keeper of the comma shaker) told me that she used to pester the style editor,
Hobie Weekes, who had been at the magazine since 1928, to get rid of the
diaeresis. She found it fussy. She said that once, in the elevator, he told
her he was on the verge of changing that style and would be sending out a memo
soon. And then he died.

This was in 1978. No one has had the nerve to raise the subject since.

[The first issue of The New Yorker was February 21, 1925 for reference]

------
yaur
> Many dog, horse, and cattle breeds are more than five hundred years old, but
> the first documented cat fanciers’ show didn’t take place until 1871, at the
> Crystal Palace, in London, and the most modern cat breeds emerged only
> within the past fifty years.

Chartreux (at least) have been around as a breed a lot longer than that.

------
nommm-nommm
The video at the bottom, though not directly related to the article, is well
worth a watch too.

------
vermooten
Cats are lovely.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
Yep, they are cute and adorable and a good friend to have. That's all that's
necessary to explain.

------
andrewflnr
Interestingly, Betteridge's Law of Headlines fails us here.

