My 7-year-old daughter came home from school yesterday and said her teacher told them that her cat has nine lives. I know they don't, but where did that saying come from?
Beginning with the cult of Bastet in 950 B.C., cats have been associated with mystery, magic and sorcery. Along with looking upon cats as harbingers of good and evil, people came to believe that cats somehow had the power to defy death. But in the 19th century, science proved that a cat's apparent ability to survive the unsurvivable has more to do with remarkable grace and flexibility than any magic.
In the late 19th century, French physiologist Etienne-Jules Marey conducted an experiment that demystified how cats maneuver during a fall to ensure they land on their feet, according to webvet.com.
Marey, who used photography as a tool to study human and animal movement, took a series of photographs -- 12 per second -- that showed the cat continuously twisting its head, legs, back and tail as it fell to keep its feet pointed toward the ground. He also shot a short high-speed movie -- 60 images per second -- that can be seen online at tinyurl.com/lemxagn.
Cats use the flexibility and innate sense of spatial relationships documented by Marey to maneuver out of any number of close encounters with sources of danger -- a speeding automobile, aggressive dogs and tip-toeing along a sliver of a window ledge, to name a few.
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If you've ever been to a cat show, you know it's pretty tame, with lots of gorgeous purebred cats sitting in cages. Spectators aren't allowed to touch the cats and the cats are taken out of the cages only for judging. But cat shows are increasingly becoming places to celebrate more than the beauty of the beasts, as agility takes a center stage.
The Cat Fanciers Association includes agility competitions in which cats weave through poles, leap hurdles, crawl through tunnels and jump through hoops.
Contrary to conventional belief, cats are highly trainable, the association says. Any motivated cat owner can teach his cat to maneuver an agility course; it's not reserved for those taking their cats to organized competitions. The fanciers' group offers information on its website (agility.cfa.org) about methods of training, such as using a clicker to mark behavior. Another tactic involves using a teaser toy to lure a cat through a course and train it by virtue of repetition.
The association also provides information on how to make an agility course using plastic tubing, wood and cardboard.
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As interesting as a cat's feats of agility is the role of the cat in myth and religion in different cultures. Veterinarian Bruce Fogle has written about cats extensively, examining them from all perspectives in a number of books, including the Cat Owner's Manual and Know Your Cat. His 2006 book, Cats, (Dorsling-Kindersly), includes a compendium about the role of cats in myth and religion.
While most people are familiar with superstitions about black cats that arose in Europe in the 15th century, cat lovers will be happy to know that cats fared better in other cultures. In Japan, Fogle says, cats are seen as lucky charms, with the maneki-neko or "beckoning cat" image a symbol of prosperity and good luck. Maneki-neko talismans typically show a cat with the right paw raised.
In Cambodia, people believe cats can affect weather so villagers sometimes carry cats around and sprinkle them with water as a prayer for rain.
Fogle notes that Chinese Buddhism associates the cat's quality of self-containment with meditation while in Japanese Buddhism, offering the image of a cat after a person's death is supposed to bring good fortune to the family of the deceased.
Family on 09/03/2014