Do pet cats routinely lead a double life?

[dougie_monty]

@engineer_comp_geek

When I first read the OP, I thought about a cat that a friend of mine used to have. He took it in as a stray, and for a while everything seemed normal. Then one day he let it out, and as he watched, the cat went up the street a bit and into another house. The cat had literally been living a double life, with two separate owners, neither one knowing that the other existed. Both my friend and his neighbor thought it was pretty funny when they found out.

A two-family cat! Now THAT is a double life, all right.

[Hopeful_Crow]

Scrub Jay had a cat who actually belongs to another family in the neighborhood. He loved to hang out in her back yard though. And dealing with any mice and critters happening by.

I know he has another family because a couple of years ago, he showed up with an abscess on his shoulder. Then he didn’t show up at all for a couple of weeks. Scrub Jay was worried as he always stopped by every single day but I wasn’t. I was sure his other family had taken him to the vet and that he was now spending some quality time indoors, which must have been wonderful for the other family since he’s very much an outdoor cat. Sure enough, after his quarantine was up he was back, abscessed area shaved, the stitches out and wound healing nicely.

Years ago, before there was so much fuss about spaying and neutering and keeping your animals confined, we used to have a cat who would disappear for months. Then she’d come home pregnant. She’d do the mommy thing and as soon as the kittens were old enough to be on their own, off she’d go again. She never acted feral or as if her other life was hard, so someone must have been watching out for her. But for some reason she seemed to feel safe having her kittens with us.

[Arrendajo]

@Jragon

Cats aren’t nocturnal, they’re crepuscular (active during dawn and dusk).

They are not only crepuscular, but domesticated, and quite flexible about the hours they keep. Most cats are active when their humans are up and around, whatever time that is. “Active” meaning the several hours per day they are awake, of course.

[panache45]

Cats don’t lead a double life, any more than you do, when you go to work (or school) all day, then come home and do different things at night.

[susan]

What is this double life of which you speak? My cats are asleep except for the couple of hours when they’re eating or grooming their butts with horrible, wet, smacking noises.

[watchwolf49]

The notion of a double life comes from their behavior in the house compared to their behavior out of the house. Inside they behave very affectionately, endearing and in general seem a gentle well mannered pet. Outside they become a terrible cold-blooded killing machine.

[Malthus]

@watchwolf49

The notion of a double life comes from their behavior in the house compared to their behavior out of the house. Inside they behave very affectionately, endearing and in general seem a gentle well mannered pet. Outside they become a terrible cold-blooded killing machine.

Yup.

My take is that indoors, they behave like they are kittens and you are the parent. Outdoors, they are in full-on adult cat mode. We, the human owners, tend to forget that cats are, in their own small way, vicious predators who kill for fun as well as food, and who defend their territory with violence against other cats.

Having anthropomorphised little snookums as a gentle cuddly purr machine, to some it comes as a shock when she behaves more like Vlad the Impaler towards smaller creatures - and proudly presents their mutilated corpses for your approval.

[CalMeacham]

Six Dinner Sid by Inga Moore

Six-Dinner Sid: Moore, Inga, Moore, Inga: 9780671796136: Amazon.com: Books

In Sid’s neighborhood on Aristotle Street, the residents don’t talk to one another. So it’s simple for Sid, a six-dinner cat, to make six different people think he belongs to them. He works hard for his suppers, with six different names and six types of behavior. But when a cough precipitates six visits to the animal hospital, he is found out by the observant vet. His owners agree to make sure he receives only one meal a day, but since Sid is six-dinner cat, he just moves to Pythagoras Place where the neighbors do talk to one another and don’t mind sharing dinner with him. Moore’s large, colored pencil illustrations are realistic and fill the pages. She is especially strong in portraying individualized characters in the multiethnic neighborhood and the wonderful feline playfulness and insouciance of Sid. The text is rhythmic and the plot is one that children can follow and enjoy. Moore’s text and lush illustrations work together to create a book that can be shared one-on-one or with a group. Readers will be happy to have this cat come back again and again. --Marge Loch-Wouters, Menasha Public Library, WI

We picked this book up at Waterstone’s in Dublin, but I’ve since seen it in the States.

I’m surprised and delighted to see that it has a sequel:

Six Dinner Sid: A Highland Adventure: Moore, Inga: 9780340988954: Amazon.com:...

[Evil_Captor]

@dougie_monty

Discourage Archie from hunting? We wouldn’t think of it! For a long time he would sit outside by a hole in the house foundation, just staring at it. Then we found he had accumulated a pile of mouse skeletons! He was a fine mouser, that Arch.

Yes, so fine that he probably contributed to a few species extinctions.

[dougie_monty]

Well, how many species small enough to get out through a small hole in a house’s concrete foundation would there be in the urbanized Los Angeles area? (At the time we lived in a 45 - year-old house in eastern Hermosa Beach, that had recently been remodeled.) Around that time a county agent came to the neighborhood distributing packets of poison to deal with the only other known kind of rodent in the area: rats.

[gigi]

@susan

What is this double life of which you speak? My cats are asleep except for the couple of hours when they’re eating or grooming their butts with horrible, wet, smacking noises.

Thanks for posting! This and the IRL Great-Dane-puppy-having-the-runs-in-the-car story are my most recent reminders that it would be a Very Bad Idea for me to have a pet. I do enjoy reading everyone’s stories, though!