Cats Adore, Manipulate Women | Hacker News Reader

Cats Adore, Manipulate Women

news.discovery.com

35 pointsguyr17 comments

Cats are tiny hackers: curious, nocturnal, not fans of authority. The one purring on my lap right now has figured out how to open every door that it's physically possible for her to, and has trained me to throw rubber dice down the hall on demand so she can chase them.

> has trained me to throw rubber dice down the hall on demand so she can chase them.

That's just the first step in the process. Next step is for her to throw rubber dice down the hall and train you to chase them ;-)

The final step is to get him to both throw and chase the rubber dice by himself, with occasional side-trips to open tins of tuna.

My friend's cat managed to open an apartment style fridge, correctly identify a package of hot dog weiners, tear the package open and eat all 12 weiners. After that he didn't come out from under the bed for three days.

... I'm trying not to think what else the cat left under the bed after three days.

As the Crazy Cat Lady of my family, I can attest to this.

> Cats also seem to remember kindness and return the favors later.

The reverse is also true: an affronted cat will hold a grudge.

Yes, yes they will. And an "affront" includes leaving the house for longer than the time to the next feeding :)

Isn't that a contradiction? Or the cats can feed themselves, they just hate eating alone? :)

Preciselly. It's like they enjoy the background noise.

Either that or they hate opening cans of food by munching them :P :D :D

When I was in high school we had a cat that was, shall we say, not small. My cousin was staying the night (taking my bedroom) saw the cat laying on her mat. She said "Wow, your cat is really fat". Claws and teeth suddenly displayed with much hissing. it was quite a fast reaction. I grabbed the cat before any harm could be done.

That night as I sat on the couch reading, the cat walked past with that "I am going to do some damage" crouch. Walked into my room (where she never really went at night), and proceeded to "play" on top my cousin. Retrieved cat was still pretty ticked.

If owners comply with their feline's wishes to interact, then the cat will often comply with the owner's wishes at other times.

I would change that to "might generously consider".

Funny, but this point is actually quite interesting since it's an example of inter-species reciprocity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_(evolution)

I wonder how much of the cat/woman attraction is fueled by the transmission from cat to woman of the toxoplasmosis parasite? There's been speculation that the "crazy cat lady" is really manifesting symptoms of toxoplasmosis: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/magazine/09_10_catcoat.htm...

Probably not much at all. Toxoplasmosis wouldn't explain a sex-biased result. Additionally there's no good evidence that the parasite affects human cognition.

Something much more simple is likely going on. In all likelihood cats are more like brood parasites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brood_parasite).

They're about the same size as a human infant, have faces with juvenile features (i.e. are "cute") and mine wakes me up at 2 hour intervals at night asking for food.

Basically they're furry babies.

"Toxoplasmosis wouldn't explain a sex-biased result."

Then why does Toxoplasmosis affect men differently than women?

"cat aficionado women" has to be the euphemism of the year.

A link to the original study: "Factors influencing the temporal patterns of dyadic behaviours and interactions between domestic cats and their owners" http://medienportal.univie.ac.at/uploads/tx_ttmedienportal/f...

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