A coworker of mine said she was upset with her mother as she lets the cat sit on the dryer. She claims it is hot and the cat will fall alseep and get burned.
Are animals really that dumb? I mean if the dryer is too hot the cat will get off. I had a cat once and it would love to sit by the fire even when the rest of us were hot, the cat would sit there.
One word:
Lemmings.
I never could save those suckers!
“Dumb animals?!”
Uh, who was going out buying cat chow, kitty litter and working to pay the utility bills to keep that dryer warm?
(Not to say all, or even most, critters are particularly well treated. But the ones who score good human companions…)
That said, I’ve learned an enormous amount here, mostly from Michelle, about the perils humane companionship can present to critters.
Hey, (twanging like Mr. Rogers), “can you say ‘symbiotic’”?) the whole danged point of sharing life w/ other life forms is mutual bonding and knowlege. I don’t worry about dryers and heat vents; I worry about chocolate and the bad stuff in pillow beds and chow I bought w/ the best of intentions.
Whoops! Me and Da Woofer gotta go romp around the yard/neigborhood.
Critters are reality checks.
Veb
A cat will depart from an overly energetic infrared source.
Just try to hold one too near a fire.
Bring mercurochrome.
Relative to what ?
I recall watching a woman complain to the local Washington Fish & Game Warden that a stupid, crazed bear attacked her four-year old son. She had put honey on the boy’s hand, and sent it up close to the bear in the cranberry bogs on Willapa Bay, to get a nice close-up photo. The bear bit the child’s hand (not unsurprisingly I’d have thought), but while he was being seen to by the paramedics on-scene, Mom complained about the “wrong” behavior of the bear.
O le mea a tamaali’i fa’asala, a o le mea a tufanua fa’alumaina.
Best!
Byz
Animals are just smart enough to survive and procreate. That’s about it.
The cat would get off the dryer before it got burned. Cats have the same reflexes when asleep as they do when awake. Wish I could claim the same …
OK, something like a cow is pretty basic in it’s activities. What would happen if a cow was born with brain damage ? Would it not be able to chew properly…or moo properly?
Veb, thanks for that vote of confidence, I’m happy to know that there are people out there who take my advice seriously. In light of the recent anount of e-mails I have gotten, as well as some threads here asking for me, I would like to add once again that if someone asked a question I could not answer, I would not attempt to give bad advice! If I didn’t know the answer, I would ask one of the many fine doctors I work with and then report back with info.
That said, I really can’t see anything wrong with a cat sitting ON the dryer. The only problem is when the cat sneaks INSIDE it. Just a few weeks ago we saw a kitty that had been tumbled in the dryer. Thankfully he was in there with a large load of clothes and the heat was not set very high. He also wasn’t in there very long. He had a little head trauma but he was OK in the long run. I have seen cats who were not so lucky.
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.–Coleridge
Michelle you make a good point but it sounds like, at least with my experience with cats, the only reason they like the dryer is that it is warm.
The only thing I can think of is that some people say Dogs and Cats can get heatstroke on hot days, but I think this is different.
We had a dog who was really dumb. She kept approaching our cat (he was two years older), even though he would always swat at her.
I know a girl from high school–I’ll call her Vickie–whose family I have known since graduation, more than 30 years. The parents (now deceased) were Amway customers of mine for many years. I would come over and visit on days I would deliver.
Vickie’s brother had brought his cat over. She (the cat) was a very ordinary cat; she would lie on a nearby couch while I was talking with Vickie’s parents. At one point I was discussing dreams, and I said that, although Vickie has appeared quite a number of times in my dreams, the cat has never appeared! At that, the cat jumped off the couch and walked out of the room!
You can’t tell me cats, at least, understand us humans better than we give them credit for! 
A routine from a stand up commedian I saw a few years ago:
The difference between cats and dogs. Picture a busy highway, cars just whizzing past, and a cat and a dog crouched at the side of the road, thinking about crossing
Cat: I can MAKE it.
Dog: They’ll stop for ya.
I had an old boxer. Sweetest thing, but good grief, was she stupid. She’d walk into the refridgerator or the bookshelf, then stare at it, like it hit her head. I trained her how to shake hands (not that hard with a boxer), and from then on, she would punch you in the head with her paw, trying to be a good dog.
I miss that goofy animal.
You say “cheesy” like that’s a BAD thing.
What do you get when you cross a really dim-witted shih-tzu, and a person with no idea of how to house break a dog? Let me tell you, it’s not pretty. My mom thought that if she put my old dog’s nose near his “accident”, spanked him, and threw him outside, he would learn not to pee in the house. Not so. He learned to clean up after himself…by licking it up. Even if he actually went outside (he never became fully trained), he would lick it up. And you could hear it all through the house. Blech.
Well, our dog Sara (who is a Jack Russel Terrier / Beagle mix) is stupid also. Whenever we put a towel over her head, she sits there fore a minute with it on her head. She doesn’t even try to shake it off, she’ll walk around the room with it on until it falls off. Our other dog would drop her head and use her paw to get it off within 20 - 30 seconds of us putting it on her. She also will bark and growl at this stuffed German Shepherd toy that we have. She thinks it’s real obviously.
Markxxx
If your coworker’s mother’s cat is anything like mine, you can’t stop it if that is what it wants to do.
When my cat( 12 yr. old female siamese-himalayian mix) decides she wants to sit in my lap it happens, even if I am standing up at the time.
Peace
t lion
Not that I prefer one over the other, but do you know how you can prove cats are smarter than dogs?
Have you ever seen 8 cats dragging a heavy sled through the freezing snow?
I know, I know. . .
White Wolf
“Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.”