Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

It certainly makes you think twice when you sit on the throne doesn't it!

I never sat on that one again!!!

The possibilities don't really bear thinking about do they

like a "rat up a drainpipe"?

A rat swinging on sweetmeats!

When he was courting a friend of ours, her boyfriend used to take a shotgun into the loo; they used to get poisonous snakes in the rafters.

That was in a privvy down the garden in deepest Zululand (now Kwa-Zulu)

Some of the stories that my father-in-law tells me about his time in South Africa are mind blowing.

huntertitus wrote:I leave it to nature now

i.e. 2 cats

Hardly natural?

I thought it was in a cats nature to kill mice

They even do it in Beatrix Potter's books

Ruthie-Baby wrote:

huntertitus wrote:I leave it to nature now

i.e. 2 cats

Hardly natural?

Allow me as a 'senior' poster and an ex breeder of pedigree cats, (over 20 years), to expand on the subject.

It is beleived that the ancient Egyptians were the first to 'domesticate' the now tame feline. It is more likely that the feline domesticated man. The Egyptians quickly learnt that having many cats in their grain stores kept the rodent population down. Cats WILL kill rodents and birds, purely because it is in their nature and not just because of hunger, unfortunate though it is. The Egyptians eventually recognised cats as Gods. The penalty for abusing hurting or killing a cat was death !

Conversely, in England Cats were hanged, (executed), as a religious ceremony against Papism.

A cat DOES NOT 'meow' in the wild state. It is somethingbthat the cat has developed to communicate with humans.

Cats DO NOT purr because they are content. They will purr loadly when in intense pain. Another form of communication.

Have you learnt to 'eye-kiss' with your cats yet ?

Lesson over for the day ! Don't forget to do your homework !

Sorry, I should maybe have explained a little more, I was musing (internally you understand!) that having a cat in a human house was not a natural state of affairs. What I mean by this is not that it is wrong (I couldn't possibly suggest this with so much potential opposition out there) but that the cat didn't get there naturally. I mean someone went out to a cat-shop or wherever they come from and made a decision for it to live there, a human decision.

Really what I meant was you can't say it's natural for a home to have a cat because some (most?) don't.

Sometimes cats arrive and demand to be taken in. No amount of putting them outside or sticking notices up in the Post Office window seems to do any good.

The odd thing is, that they never do this in an anti cat household.

What's all this about cats?
My cats (twin tabbies, both male, aged 5 years 2 months) are very special.
A) they are CH cats. When my dog died 5+ years ago, Wendy Killner in the CH Club told me that I needed cats for company and that as I was out at work all day there should be two of them to keep each other company. AS IT HAPPENED her cat had just given birth.. so I was invited to her bedroom to see the shoebox in her wardrobe. I defy anyone to deny two little blobs with great big blue eyes (even if they were - as I was not - a cat lover). They were inseparable from birth and Wendy would not allow them to be separated as they moved on to their new home. So Sucker No. 1 took them in.....
B) Yes, OK, they rule my life (and that of the 'new' dog who now lives with us)
C) Their paws are black (not pink). My friend (also a Hertford Old Blue, who - as it happens - now owns their sister) tells me that this indicates that they are descended from Ancient Egypt and that, therefore, they are genuine aristocratic cats. I believe her.....

J.R. wrote:Cats DO NOT purr because they are content. They will purr loadly when in intense pain. Another form of communication.

Have you learnt to 'eye-kiss' with your cats yet ?

Lesson over for the day ! Don't forget to do your homework !

I don't understand the bit about purring not being a sign of pleasure

But I do know that if you blink at a cat it blinks back and it is a friendly gesture

One of my cats (see earlier posting) doesn't just purr, he SMILES (and people have witnessed that) if I pick him up and cuddle him onto my shoulder. I would absolutely deny that that is causing him any pain....
(But maybe being a CH bred cat he might be different from others...?)