[8H5]⇒ PDF The Lion in the Living Room How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World edition by Abigail Tucker Crafts Hobbies Home eBooks

The Lion in the Living Room How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World edition by Abigail Tucker Crafts Hobbies Home eBooks

Download As PDF : The Lion in the Living Room How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World edition by Abigail Tucker Crafts Hobbies Home eBooks

The Lion in the Living Room How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World edition by Abigail Tucker Crafts Hobbies Home eBooks

Abigail Tucker’s first book looks like it’s just about feline pets, but in reality it concerns history, natural history, genetics, epidemiology, sociology, invasive species biology, extinctions, and euthanasia. In fact, it’s the best book I’ve ever read on cats. I learned how cats became domesticated—they domesticated humans rather than vice versa. I also learned that all domesticated cats came from one species, Felis silvestris lybica, the African wildcat, often called the African forest cat. With house cats now outnumbering dogs in American families and in the wild, Tucker tells us why this is so, but still wonders why people love cats so much when, unlike dogs, they don’t really do anything useful, like hunt for us, or act as guards, rescue people or track them down, detect tumors or cancers, and in the past, turned spits for roasting over fires. And except for occasionally catching mice and rats, cats sleep fifteen to twenty hours a day. So why do we love them so much? Tucker loves to make sweeping statements like “Cats, though, are self-contained. They don’t need people to complete them.” I don’t know how many cats Tucker has lived with—she only mentions two family cats, both long-lived—but from her photo, I’m about twice her age and have lived with dozens of them. Many of them didn’t have the aloofness and independence she ascribes to all domesticated felines. Roswell, for example, who my wife and I have lived with for sixteen years is very much not self-contained. She runs around like crazy, entertains us, and makes us laugh. She does, indeed, need us to complete her. Or at least it looks that way to us. House cats have a wide range of personalities from extreme independence to being pests that always demand attention. Don’t get me wrong, despite her occasional generalizations, Abigail Tucker has written an excellent, informative, and incisive book that I recommend highly.


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The Lion in the Living Room How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World edition by Abigail Tucker Crafts Hobbies Home eBooks Reviews

After seeing a video short featuring Abigail Tucker on social media, I purchased this book, eager to find new insights into my feline overlords. It is well written and peppered with dry wit. However, as other reviewers have noted, it seems more based on cats in theory than in actuality. Some of the science (evolutionary/paleontological info) was interesting and new to me (though not as much as I had hoped), and since I work for a conservation organization, I know the havoc domestic cats can wreak on a habitat and the information about the damage caused by feral cats was an unpleasant truth. (Though I must point out that cats are not alone in their wanton destruction of habitat and indigenous species—foxes, ferrets, rabbits, hogs, goats, and countless invasive plant species too were transported around the globe by humans and they also are paying the price for our environmental folly as they are eradicated from places they never should or would have colonized without assistance from humans. But I digress...)
Tucker’s comparisons of cats and dogs were dramatically skewed by the extrovert bias. Of course dogs encourage healthy living habits because they must be taken out for daily walks. She points out that during walks and visits to the dog park, they encourage social interaction among their humans. But not everyone ENJOYS chitchatting with strangers or people you don't really know but see all the time and therefore feel obligated to engage in small talk. Cats are therapeutic for people who need diversion and relaxation in the privacy of their own homes—hence the conquest of Internet cats. Cat people aren’t looking for an animal that will pull sleighs, herd animals, track down criminals/game animals, retrieve things, defend your home, lead blind people, alert people who are about to have seizures/heart attacks/feinting spells, identify drugs/explosives/melanomas/etc. Cat people want strange furry creatures who remind us that we are not all that (and therefore neither are our problems) and delight us with their often inexplicable behaviors. The Internet is a giant worldwide cat park, where people can connect and share the enchanting and bizarre behaviors that their feline companions randomly display. But without having to make eye contact.
In her exploration of Internet cats, Tucker cites Hello Kitty, I Can Has Cheeseburger, Grumpy Cat, Colonel Meow, and Lil Bub. These are all celebrity cats, but as with celebrity humans, not all have the same substance. Homer the Blind Wonder Cat's human, Gwen Cooper used the story of Homer to remind us that an animal (or a person) does not have to be perfect to be loved. What about the satirical musings of Henri, the cat with ennui? Or the wry adventures of Cole and Marmalade as interpreted by their clever human caretakers? Internet cat videos capture an astonishing range of perplexing behaviors, some trained and some spontaneous on the part of cats themselves (which of course is one of their most appealing traits). What do these behaviors tell us? She observes that cats, because they are poker-faced, allow us to project our emotions onto them but theirs remain a mystery (though she seems to suggest they haven’t any). It’s hard to know what ANY animal (including the human animal) is feeling for certain. Cats are variable and often (though not always) subtle in expressing their feelings. Understanding them often requires more adept skills of interpretation on the part of humans.
Tucker blames the surge in overweight cats on the probability that many people engage with their cats primarily over food and so overfeed them to encourage interaction. Of course many people do overfeed, but that is usually a case of allowing cats to free-feed. Socialized cats are very interactive outside of feeding time, and for those who appreciate subtle signs of affection, lying around on the sofa reading a book for a few hours with a cat in your lap IS interacting. Feline obesity (like human obesity) may have more to do with the amount of carbohydrates that bulk out many commercial cat foods.
Though she brings up “domestication syndrome” which is a newish theory that explains why so many different species retain juvenile physical features into adulthood after being domesticated (these traits are incidentally linked to a less active adrenal gland) and explains that with dogs and other social species humans basically hijack that species’ social system—for instance with dogs, the human caretaker is regarded as the alpha animal. Since cats are by nature solitary, this explains, she reasons, why they are less interactive than dogs. But this is ignoring two important points. Cats that are socialized with humans, basically remain kittens all their lives. She delves into the idea that cats resemble infants to us in size, basic configuration (big, front-facing eyes and round head), and sound, and that this partly explains the appeal of cats for women. But she overlooks the fact that the one fundamental social relationship that cats engage in is with their mothers, and it is this relationship that is hijacked by humans. Hence the retention of kitten behaviors such as milk treading, vocalizing, and in some cases suckling. She also overlooks how socially adaptable cats are. On farms where multiple barn cats cohabit, they learn to tolerate shared territory and females will even communally nurse kittens as lionesses do in prides. A recent “kitty cam” study also revealed (to the researchers surprise) that neighborhood toms would actually hang out together in groups, lying around in sunny spots staring companionably into the distance.
So although she addresses the ability of Felis cattus to adapt to different climates and various diets and their ability to reproduce at a furious pace, one of the most important fluid characteristics of domestic cats is overlooked. Who knows how the trend toward living indoors or with limited hunting opportunities will change cats. A recent dog study has suggested that domestic dogs have lost much of their ability to work together as a pack. They are less “socially intelligent” than their wolf cousins. Maybe in another 10 or 20 generations of cats, they too will lose more of their wild hunting instincts in order to adapt better to life as companion animals.
It would be enjoyable to read a better-informed sequel—hopefully Tucker will adopt several more cats and spend more time immersed in cat videos!
The book is well-written and provocative, but in the end I do not think the author has lived long enough with enough cats to really understand the nature of the house cat. I have lived with 25 cats in my 68 years -- not all 25 at the same time. Each of these cats has taught me something new.

The author argues that cats are not social; this true and not true. Some of my cats have been friends to each other, littermates or not. How do I know? Because they slept by each other, ate with each other, played with each other, and hung out by each other over and over through their lives together. Other cats did not have cat "friends." Either way there was always a social order among my cats.

My cats have also been bonded to me. Yes, they wanted food, though some much more than others. But, other cats wanted my attention and were visibly upset when I paid too much attention to another cat. This is not just about the food. Yes, cats do tend to train their people, but they are also trained. It is a negotiated relationship. They do love predictability and schedules and can be acclimated to those routines. Tucker just does not get this because she adopted one cat; she should have adopted both of those orange kittens; she would have learned twice as much.

I hope Tucker is continuing to research this topic. She has not quite figured it out yet. It is a fun exploration of a wide range of stuff, but next edition she needs to interview some cat ladies, who have spent a lot of time with lots of cats. The cat ladies know.
Abigail Tucker’s first book looks like it’s just about feline pets, but in reality it concerns history, natural history, genetics, epidemiology, sociology, invasive species biology, extinctions, and euthanasia. In fact, it’s the best book I’ve ever read on cats. I learned how cats became domesticated—they domesticated humans rather than vice versa. I also learned that all domesticated cats came from one species, Felis silvestris lybica, the African wildcat, often called the African forest cat. With house cats now outnumbering dogs in American families and in the wild, Tucker tells us why this is so, but still wonders why people love cats so much when, unlike dogs, they don’t really do anything useful, like hunt for us, or act as guards, rescue people or track them down, detect tumors or cancers, and in the past, turned spits for roasting over fires. And except for occasionally catching mice and rats, cats sleep fifteen to twenty hours a day. So why do we love them so much? Tucker loves to make sweeping statements like “Cats, though, are self-contained. They don’t need people to complete them.” I don’t know how many cats Tucker has lived with—she only mentions two family cats, both long-lived—but from her photo, I’m about twice her age and have lived with dozens of them. Many of them didn’t have the aloofness and independence she ascribes to all domesticated felines. Roswell, for example, who my wife and I have lived with for sixteen years is very much not self-contained. She runs around like crazy, entertains us, and makes us laugh. She does, indeed, need us to complete her. Or at least it looks that way to us. House cats have a wide range of personalities from extreme independence to being pests that always demand attention. Don’t get me wrong, despite her occasional generalizations, Abigail Tucker has written an excellent, informative, and incisive book that I recommend highly.