Thank you ever so much torq. Finally someone speaks the truth!
Another message is: Mom’s not here, my bottom needs cleaning, and you’re my mother substitute I would say the invitation to sniff indicates closeness or affection (or a dirty bottom) rather than respect. Cats don’t respect humans.
Democritus, if you’re not one for pets, please don’t force yourself to be one. The shelters are filled with failed experiments.
I love animals it’s difficult to understand this viewpoint. Accept, yes, but understand, no.
The critters who have shared my life have given me so much joy, comfort, companionship and love that sweeping up a little fur and honoring their bathroom needs were a tiny accomodation.
Just my perspective, but well tended pets concern me much less from a contamination point of view than my fellow humans do. After seeing people change diapers, sneeze, hawk, cough, spit, pick noses, etc., the average door handle, stair rail, money and so forth gives me a lot more pause.
Besides, there’s such a thing as trying to make the world too tidy and sterile. If a smiling little toddler w/ a runny nose wants to kiss your cheek, do you shudder and recoil? Ever swap spit (or whatever and I do not want the details!) with someone you love? Ever shake hands with someone who wasn’t a walking poster for hygiene but was still human enough to rate respect?
Hey, life’s messy. A loving kiss from a rough cat’s tongue or a dog’s smooth one can be pretty wonderful.
Gotta go hug my dog,
Veb
How does this work, torq? Have cats obliterated my sense of smell permanently? I haven’t lived with a cat in over a year, but when I go into a house with a cat, I can never smell a thing.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, I generally have a lousy sense of smell, but I don’t know if cats have anything to do with it. A friend of mine has two cats and says they smell really bad, but I can’t ever smell a thing as usual…
If you want to reduce litter box odor, use a clumping litter (as someone already mentioned), and feed kitty a high quality food like Iams or Science Diet. The supermarket brands are mostly filler and make your cat crap 3 times as often (really nasty stuff, too). My kitty craps once every couple of days with compact, non-messy ‘tootsie rolls.’
Cats are naturally fastidious, so I doubt any bad smell is coming from the cat itself. Most likely, ‘cat odor’ is a result of owners who consider things like vacuuming and general household cleaning as semi-annual occassions.
Dogs, on the other hand, can get pretty ripe.
I think the cat odor issue has more to do with the sex of the cats than with the owners’ efforts…
Usually, when owners have 1) fewer than three cats and 2) clean up regularly, I smell cat only when a male cat is in the mix.
It doesn’t seem to matter if they’ve been fixed, either, male cat pee just smells worse.
I can say with total confidence that my cats do not smell. Does their litter box smell? Yes. That is why I CLEAN it. But do my cats smell? No. They are clean and healthy and have no odor to them at all. Most of the time when cats smell it is because they have rotten teeth, and that isn’t the cat’s fault. Cats over 5 or so should have their teeth cleaned by the vet once a year.
Also, in regards to letting cats on the counters and so forth, it isn’t that big of a deal! Do you wash your hands every time you touch your pet? I work with animals all night long–SICK animals. It is a given that by the end of a shift at work I will have come in contact with animal urine, feces, vomit, blood, and pus. Heck, Monday morning I caught a dead puppy in my bare hands as it fell out of the bitch when she pushed. I later ended up covered in a gallon of her milk when I tried to pick her up and put her on the x-ray table. Now I make a big effort to clean myself up after touching animals at the hospital, and we do our best to keep the place clean, but come on. Let’s be realistic. You can’t keep every square inch of an animal hospital 100 percent sterile. Yet the worst thing I have ever come down with is some ringworm. My apartment is a lot easier to keep clean. I wipe the counters down before I start to prep food even if my cats have not been up there!
I have noticed that people in the medical field fall into two groups: those that get paranoid over germs and those that couldn’t care less about them. I’m in the couldn’t care less group. I guess Dem is in the other camp. So he doesn’t like pets and I hate kids. We are even! 
Touche’ Michelle! I can live with that.
Ringworm though? Eeewwww! 
“Teaching without words and work without doing are understood by very few.”
-Tao Te Ching
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- I tend to find a split between men and women on this issue: Michi’s preference is kinda strange. I remember 12 or so years ago I noticed something odd: my mom brought home a humane society cat as a pet, but whenever it did something wrong, neither my mom or my sister would actually hit the damn thing. It would start sharpening its claws on a piece of furniture, they wouldn’t get off their lazy asses and actually strike, hit the animal. I would. And guess what? My way worked - somewhat. Whenever I was around, that cat would wander around freely, but soon it completely stopped sharpening its claws on the furniture, and it stopped jumping on the table when anyone was eating, , , , BUT - only when I was around! Either of them would be sitting on the couch, and it would come right up to the corner and begin to sharpen its claws, and (for some empty-headed reason) they would sit in the same place, and shake their finger at it and talk at it:
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-“Bad kitty! You know you shouldn’t do that! Don’t do that! You’re going to get in trouble!” -
- until the cat stopped on its own after twenty seconds or so. If I was there and it started, I could be sitting on the far side of the room and say “Stop!” and it would stop and look at me, and slowly unhook its claws. If it didn’t, I would stand up where I was at and it would run out of the room.
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- So now most of my mom’s furniture is ruined, in that particular way. Because she never would hit the damn thing. And I don’t mean hard enough to actually damage it, just hard enough to make it uncomfortable. Eventually she wouldn’t say anything to it at all while it stood right in front of her and did this because “it doesn’t listen”. - - On one occasion it did something wrong , and I hit it, and she got cross with me and said “What if I had hit you every time you did something wrong?” My response was something like “A pet is not a child, and a child is not a pet. A child will grow up, get a career and hopefully help support you in your old age. A pet will never be more than it is right now, it won’t ever do much more than it’s doing right now; it didn’t have a lot of plans for next year.” - MC
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OK, I’m not even going to get into a discussion on hitting pets. Whether it hurts the pet or not, don’t do it. Want a pet to behave? Take your pet to obedience class, read up on animal behavior, or talk to a professional trainer (yes, even for cats). A stern voice and a tap is OK, but I can’t condone anything beyond that.
Wow. I’m not sure where to begin…
I’ve got two young pound cats, both quite frisky and somewhat independent. I’ve never hit them. Never felt the need to, and my furniture is completely intact, as is every other thing in my house (this includes old china on the shelves and counter of an open china hutch, and LOTS of houseplants, among other things).
They quite obviously understand my tone of voice, my facial expressions, my emotions, my actions/body language, and yes, my words. Of course, they must learn these things, and if your mother doesn’t “work” with the animal or actually TRY to train it in any way, it’s not the damned cat’s fault. If anyone needs a good smack across the chops, it’s you.
Hitting is a sure way to make an animal afraid of you. They might pay attention out of fear, but they’ll never love or trust you. I suppose you really don’t give a good goddam about that, though, do you? Well, you might, someday, when that cat’s had enough of your crappy behavior and attacks you when you least expect it. It happens, you know. Abused animals strike out more often than you’d think. I recommend you don’t turn your back on the cat, ever.
My point exactly. How’s that make you feel, big man? You can smack a cat around. Boy, you’re impressive. I bet you get lots of dates that way, too.
You clearly have no grasp of the concept of pets. You shouldn’t be allowed near animals, IMHO.
StoryTyler
I am too in shape! :::muttering::: Round is a shape.
C’mon up and see me sometime.
Wow, that story is sickening. What, you can’t afford a squirt bottle or fill a pop can with pennies?
Oh cripes… there IS a difference between hitting and beating. Just for the record, I’m all for spanking children, too. I am NOT for child abuse.
Animals are not human. They cannot be reasoned with. If my cat jumps on the counter, it’s going to get pushed off and yelled at, not gently picked up, reprimanded, and set down nicely. The second or third time my dog jumped on me or one of my guests, it got knocked to the floor and yelled at. Neither my dog nor my cats are shivering bits of fluff who have become emotionally and/or physically damaged by discipline. They greet me at the door, they curl up on my lap, they follow me around the house. But if they do stuff that they are not allowed to do, they get yelled at VERY LOUDLY. If they continue the behavior, they get swatted.
Huh. Frankly I think there’s a difference between swatting big dogs and hitting cats, too.
The point is that there are better ways to discipline cats. The squirt bottle does the trick every time. All I have to do now is show my cats the squirt bottle if they act up, I don’t even have to give 'em a squirt.
Athena–
I agree totally. When we first got our cat, everyone was suggesting that we get a squirt gun…(great for when he’s standing on my $1500 tv) because if you strike the cat, it’ll hate you, fear you…bla…bla…bla.
I have and will swat my kitty’s furry little rear when he does something wrong…and he usually doesn’t repeat it. I don’t bang him against the wall, or take a coat hanger to him, but a swat across the nose gets the point across. And he still loves to cuddle with me, and streach in front of the door when I come home to get his hello belly rub.
Wrong. Maybe your pets can’t be reasonsed with, but my pets are intelligent, observant, and they understand exactly what I ask of them. I’ve trained them quite carefully, you see, and never hit them once. It can be done.
But hey, if smacking your pets around (or whatever other euphemisms you’ve got in your pocket) works for you, have at it. Just don’t turn your back - cats wrote that world-famous book: “Paybacks Are Hell.”
StoryTyler
I am too in shape! :::muttering::: Round is a shape.
C’mon up and see me sometime.
I’m utterly aghast (as a pet owner and as a veterinary technician) at some of your views. Sure pets are not people but there are still right and wrong ways of training them. It doesn’t take too much effort to learn good ways of behavior modification.
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- She still has the same cat twelve years later - it’s not battle-scarred, and it isn’t afraid of me. It doesn’t shred the furniture anymore, that’s all been done (except the particleboard crap, it never seemed to like that stuff) and it doesn’t jump up on the table while you’re eating. Mostly because it’s getting old, fat and slow. It comes and sits at my feet all the time (advancing age makes it difficult to jump up onto laps anymore). My point is, you can’t teach an animal just by talking to it; there has to be either a reward for doing something desirable, or a penalty for doing something undesirable. In both these examples, it was doing something undesirable, so it got the penalty. -And it learned!- But it only avoided doing that stuff when I was around, because I was the only one that would give the penalty. If you have the time to teach a cat the meaning of the word “Down” then fine, enjoy yourself. I found it was easier to teach the cat that if it jumped up on the table while I was eating, it would get whacked in the head with a rolled up magazine or newspaper.
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- I will also agree, pets do stink (except maybe for fish). The same way that cigarettes stink, but smokers don’t know because they are always exposed in the smell. I notice dog smell very easily, most likly because I am rarely around any dogs. - MC
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Again, the cat did not learn what it was supposed to do or not do. It learned to fear you and your aggressive behavior. The cat thrashed the furniture in the end, didn’t it? Clearly the cat did NOT learn to leave the furniture alone - it learned to leave the furniture alone when you’re there. No other time. So you didn’t teach the cat a thing except to fear you.
If you don’t have the time/patience to devote to a pet or the inclination (or brains?) to train it properly, you shouldn’t have one.
You’re expecting one hell of a lot from an animal - they cannot read minds (even if you had one, which you don’t). They must be shown what is right and wrong - several times - and they will learn. But smacking them around with no “explanation” or instruction/behavior modification about why it was wrong and how to avoid it in the future is tantamount to smacking a crying infant because the noise is annoying you.
I wouldn’t trust the likes of you with an ant farm, buddy.
StoryTyler
I am too in shape! :::muttering::: Round is a shape.
C’mon up and see me sometime.
I think the ability to smell cat-odor may be genetic, or maybe it’s just a matter of personal taste. There are certain smells that I don’t like and am extremely sensitive to, and cats are one of them (tomato juice is another; I can generally tell if my wife has had tomato juice or not several hours later as soon as I walk in the front door).
It doesn’t have anything to do with being dirty, and it’s not the “litterbox” smell either (the litterbox smell is related, but dozens or hundreds of times worse… and I think it’s primarily the urine that smells). The smell I’m talking about is the natural smell that they have even when “clean”; if they don’t have a smell then why do they bother sniffing each other so much?
I apologize if I’ve offended anyone. But even though you can’t smell your cats, that doesn’t mean that other people can’t. I’m not kidding when I say that some of the WORST-smelling houses I’ve been in are the ones where the people say “Oh, my cats don’t smell.” What it really means is “I can’t smell my cats,” which is an entirely different thing.
Michelle, I’m willing to believe that you’d be the exception to this rule, but I’m sure that has more to do with the care you give your cats (even though you can’t smell them) than because they are naturally odor-free.