As all cat-owners know, feline affection can feel maddeningly fickle.
But there’s a scientific explanation for why cats and humans don’t always understand each other, says Tony Buffington, a veterinarian at Ohio State University. Unlike dogs, cats evolved as solitary hunters with little need for reading social cues and often lack the cognitive ability to connect their actions with human feedback. Take your admonishment for scratching the couch, for instance: “To the cat, you’re this crazy primate who is attacking him for no reason,” Buffington tells Wired.
Image via Cat-Key/Flickr
Many human behaviors stress our cats out (such as petting their bellies or putting the litter box too close to the humming refrigerator). The best cure, according to Buffington, is learning to listen to your cat, offering choices and creating a calming environment with your cat’s nerves in mind.
Read more at Wired
Pet costumes at a record high: People will spend a record $2.8 billion on costumes this Halloween, and $350 million of that will be spent on pets. Forty-two percent of pet parents plan to dress up their furry friends, according to a survey by Pets360.com.
Read more at The Oregonian
What Arianna Huffington learned from her Maltese: Media mogul Arianna Huffington’s latest book, “Thrive,” includes an entire section about how animals enhance our lives. They teach us to live in the moment and enhance our social networks, Huffington explains, adding that her family learned many essential lessons from their Maltese, Oliver Pistachio Huffington.
Read more at The Huffington Post
Service dogs race for a cause: Sunday’s Marine Corps Marathon, an annual race in Washington, D.C., included a 2K run for “Dogs of War.” The race-within-a-race drew attention to service dogs that help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and injuries suffered overseas.
Read more at USA Today
