I've been checking out Jackson Galaxy on youtube for the last couple of month since I've been around cats and learning from it. I grew up with cats and dogs and pigs and cows and horse and birds and sheep and goats and and and -- all without living on a farm.
I do consider myself someone that gets along very well with most animals no matter their background, due to the fact that I grew up around so many different kinds. Cats and dogs were probably more of the normal than any other animal. In my adult life, I haven't had any of my own. It is kind of hard when you are moving all of the time and not sure if you're going to be living in this place or the next within the year. Also, judging from my childhood, I've never felt ready to take care of animals. I feel that, as a child, I neglected them much of the time. Not in a truly horrible way, but not enough attention was given to their needs. -- I was young. Can you really blame me?
Anyways, the reason that I've been checking out Jackson's channel is because I was curious to find out if I knew some things about cats because the people that I'm staying with right now brought babies into their home.
How did they come to be here? About seven months ago, I started to hear a cat's cries coming into my window. This went on for several nights. One day when I was out doing Qigong and Taijiquan on the sidewalk in front of my neighbors' door, I saw this baby kitten clawing at the door and climbing up it; it was crying up a storm, too. I immediately knew that this kitten wasn't getting the attention it needed and felt bad for it, but it wasn't mine and there wasn't much that I could really do about it.
When the woman did come home, I asked if I could pet the kitten. She hurriedly agreed and let the kitten out. It rushed to me. Petting it, I could tell from how tense the muscles were that this cat really wasn't getting much attention. The woman then asked, almost immediately after opening the door, if I'd like to keep it.
Since I am staying with some people, doing that was not really possible (even though I'm in the process of getting housing). The woman then went inside and shut the door with the kitten still outside with me. Wow!
A short time later another woman from the neighborhood walked by and asked if that was my kitten. I told her no and that the kitten was up for adoption. The woman who owned the kitten heard us and came out to confirm that she didn't want the thing. The woman who walked up decided to give the kitten a test run after explaining that she already has a few animals and her children would kill her if she got any more.
I told the people I'm staying with the story and they said, if nothing else, they would take the kitten in and find a home for it. A short time later, the woman who took the kitten returned it somehow. The people that I'm staying with heard about it somehow and took in the kitten. They decided to keep the kittens.
What I did not know is that the woman who originally had the kitten also had the kitten's brother. The people I'm staying with took in both kittens and that is how they came into my life.
It has been pretty awesome. I've missed having a close connection with animals.
Is your kitty clawing you while being pet?
Something that I learned from watching Jackson's videos is that cats act out if their energy level gets too high. I didn't know that they collect energy in their bodies, and when that needs to come out, they attack! It is a defense mechanism. I always that it was because the cat was getting feisty and wanted to play, so I would do things that brought that about frequently. After watching the video, I now understand why cats seem to "freak out" and attack. Since then, I'm much better at keeping them calm and reading their energy.
Pretty neat stuff.
How about pet food?
Do you ever look at the ingredients of your dog and cat food? I never did while growing up. When I started to look at the ingredients found within the "normal" pet food that is picked up from stores, questions formed (ones that I've put off finding answers to). Today, I was interested in knowing what dogs and cats eat. Guess what! If you are purchasing the regular old dog and cat food that has been peddled to us through commercial after commercial claiming that this is what dogs and cats love, you don't have a clue what they actually eat (as I have never done the research, I feel sorry for all the animals that I gave that stuff to).
Here is a company, MUSH, that sells what dogs and cats actually eat. And the list of ingredients is very short and easy to read, unlike the ingredients found in your everyday, regular dog and cat food we purchase from normal stores.
Pay attention...
Your cats may want to go outside. If they are rushing to the door every time that you open it, it is a good sign that they want to explore the outside world. It happened with the two kittens I'm currently with. Almost every time I go to the door, they are right there meowing, begging to be let out.
Now, they did manage to get past me one day. They didn't run off. They stayed on the porch and explored it. They caught a few crickets and brought them back inside, batting them around and half eating them before spitting them out and starting over with the batting then chewing and spitting. It was pretty funny.
I did feel really nervous that they would take off running because they were not on a harness. But they did not. In fact, they didn't travel far from the door, as the outside world is new to them.
I wish that I could take them on walks. I mentioned to the people that I'm staying with that the kitten show a strong interest in watning to go on walks. They are against it. Sad because these kittens really seem like they would benefit from it and they show much interest in wanting to go out. They are not my kitten, so I can't say anything but, "okay," and drop it.
Whenever I had kittens/cats in the past, we lived where they could go in and out on their own with no other worries than they may get eaten by another wild animal. I prefer to let the cats do that but we live in the city. Most people would never let their cat roam around the neighborhood; they expect it would get stolen and locked behind someone else's door.
On to milk...
I did not know that most cats were lactose intolerant until I watched a video of Jackson's. I remember growing up that we gave our cats milk. Oops.
Something that I did notice with one of the cats where I'm currently staying at is that he has crusty eyes a lot, I remember that I used to get crusty eyes when I drank milk. I went and check the ingredients of what is in the supposed meat can (Friskies or something like that) and sure enough, I found milk/cheese in the ingredients.
Here is another question I have. Why are we feeding a cat (or human or other) another animal's milk? If a cat (or human or other) needed milk, wouldn't you think that it best to stick to the species that produces the milk for that type of species?
Here is a good question. What If We Milked Humans Instead Of Cows? ... Human titty farms that give us fresh milk from our own species is what we need! Who is with me?!?!
In some respects I get why humans do it; after all, since my birth, milk from a cow has been sold to use by a ton of propaganda. But, "new" western science is coming out and saying that milk isn't as necessary to our diets as once thought. Here is an article from WebMD that should shed some light on this milk situation.
I do my best to stay away from cow's milk (especially since it is heavily processed and all of the good stuff that may be in cow's milk is killed off in that process) as I've gotten older. I can still eat ice cream but to have a bowl of cereal with cow's milk or a glass of cow's milk kind of grosses me out.
Until next time...
