Domestication

I know I am off my own topic, which I plan to return to, but I had to post this.

As a cat owner, I just had to read this article in June 2009, Scientific American Magazine, The Evolution of House Cats. Authors Carlos A. Driscoll, Juliet Clutton-Brock, Andrew C. Kitchener and Stephen J. O'Brien discuss their research into the genetic and archaeological findings. They give a creditable argument that house cats developed earlier than the Egyptian times previously thought. It was interesting to say the least. One sentence really caught my eye:

"And as to utility to humans, let us just say cats do not take instruction well. Such attributes suggest that whereas other domesticates were recruited from the wild by humans who bred them for specific tasks, cats most likely chose to live among humans because of opportunities they found for themselves." See whole article here.

I started laughing. Opportunists? Cats? I definitely believe cats chose to live among humans. To say we have domesticated cats is a mistaken notion. The truth is: cats domesticated us. They find us very useful. Good owners provide their cat owner's every need. While they are often neutered by their 'owner,' enough humans do nothing about their cats' sexuality, providing ample means to keep the species going. Yes, cats usually ignore orders of any type. They only hunt creatures humans consider vermin at their own leisure. Who else works just for a few contented purrs from their cat? And yes, there are not perhaps as many good 'owners' as cats might wish, but enough to keep millions of cats happy. The rest keep hunting.