Cat Facts & Trivia

Cat Facts

• • Blue-eyed, white cats are often prone to deafness.
  • Calico cats are almost always female.
  • Cats knead with their paws when they’re happy!
  • People who own cats live longer, have less stress, and fewer heart attacks.
  • When a cats rubs up against you, the cat is marking you with its scent claiming ownership.
  • The way you treat kittens in the early stages of its life will render it’s personality traits later in life.
  • Cats do not think that they are little people. They think that we are big cats. This influences their behavior in many ways.
  • Cats respond most readily to names that end in an “ee” sound.
  • A cat can recognize her owner’s footsteps from hundreds of feet away.
  • The average cat sleeps between 12-14 hours a day.
  • If your cat snores, or rolls over on his back to expose his belly, it means he trusts you.
  • Cats and kittens should be acquired in pairs whenever possible as cat families interact best in pairs.
  • In multi-cat households, cats of the opposite sex usually get along better.
  • The average age for an indoor cat is 15 years, while the average age for an outdoor cat is 3 to 5 years.
  • A cat cannot see directly under its nose which is why a cat cannot seem to find tidbits on the floor.
  • White vinegar is good to neutralize cat urine odor. 

Cat Trivia

• • Cat urine glows in the dark if a black light is shined on it. This is a good way to detect cat urine in your home!
  • Cats can predict earthquakes.
  • A cat’s nose pad is ridged in a pattern that is unique, just like the fingerprint of a human.
  • Both humans and cats have identical regions in the brain responsible for emotion.
  • While a dog’s memory lasts about 5 minutes, a cat’s recall can last as long as 16 hours (Source: Behavioral Department of the Museum of Natural History)
  • A cat’s hearing is one of the sharpest in the animal kingdom.
  • A cat spends about 30% of her life grooming itself.
  • It is estimated that cats can make over 60 different sounds.
  • Besides smelling with their nose, cats can smell with an additional organ called the Jacobson’s organ, located in the upper surface of the mouth.
  • Cats hate the scent of orange and lemon, use these to stop cats scratching furniture and of course provide a cat scratcher.
  • Cats eat grass to aid their digestion and to help them get rid of any fur in their stomachs.
  • Cats bury their feces to cover their trails from predators.
  • A cat can jump even seven times as high as it is tall.
  • Cats sense of smell is fourteen times stronger than ours. 

Anatomy

• • Almost 10% of a cat’s bones are in its tail, and the tail is used to maintain balance.
  • Kittens are born with both eyes and ears closed. When the eyes open, they are always blue at first. They change color over a period of months to the final eye color.
  • Kittens have baby teeth! At three to four months the incisors erupt. Then at four to six months, they lose their canines, premolars and molars. By the time they are seven months old, their adult teeth are fully developed.
  • Cats walk on their toes.
  • Cats lack a true collarbone. Because of this, cats can generally squeeze their bodies through any space they can get their heads through.
  • Cats have an average of 24 whiskers, arranged in four horizontal rows on each side
  • A cat has more bones than a human; humans have 206, and the cat – 230.
  • Cats have 30 vertebrae–5 more than humans have.
  • The cat has 500 skeletal muscles (humans have 650).
  • Cats have 30 teeth (12 incisors, 10 premolars, 4 canines, and 4 molars), while dogs have 42.
  • When cats are “declawed” they are actually having their 3rd phalanx removed. It is the equivalent of you having your fingers cut off at the 3rd knuckle.

Why Spay or Neuter Cats?

• • The female cat reaches sexual maturity at around 6 to 10 months and the male cat between 9 and 12 months. Female cats have 2-4 cycles every year. If she mates the cycle normally lasts only 4 days, if she doesn’t, a cycle may last for 7-10 days and recur at 15-21 day intervals. It is possible for a female cat to cycle every 3-4 weeks until she finds a mate.
  • Female cats can go into heat 1-6 weeks after giving birth, so a female may be nursing one litter while pregnant with another. Female cats can and do go into heat and become pregnant as little as 48 hours after delivering a litter. The normal gestation time for a female cat is two months.
  • A single pair of cats and their kittens can produce as many as 420,000 kittens in just 7 years
  • Neutering a cat extends its life span by two or three years.
  • If left to her own devices, a female cat may have three to seven kittens every four months. This is why population control using neutering and spaying is so important.
  • Cats are more aggressive when they are not neutered or spayed

Health Watch

• • Chocolate is toxic. As little as a 16 oz. bar can kill a cat. The darker the chocolate, the more dangerous it is.
  • A steady diet of dog food may cause blindness in your cat – it lacks taurine.
  • A cat will tremble or shiver when it is extreme pain.
  • Cats are subject to gum disease and to dental caries. They should have their teeth cleaned by the vet or the cat dentist once a year.
  • Many cats cannot properly digest cow’s milk. Milk and milk products give them diarrhea.
  • Cats can get tapeworms from eating mice. If your cat catches a mouse it is best to take the prize away from it.