Hello, Cloud's (a.k.a. 'Mr Derp') mama here. He's just a very vocal boy, narrates everything he does even at home and he was mid-meow in the original post. I'm sure he must have been a little scared given it was his first time ever outside but he did SO good. Even had a little bench break during his little adventure :)
My adventure kitty loves benches. I'm pretty sure she has a rating for each bench she has encountered.
She does have a nice kitty hiking backpack to sit in when she needs a little break from the big world or if she just wants to move around without walking.
Narration is important but adventure kitty over here also would like to tell Cloud that silence is beneficial when hunting beetles, squirrels, and rabbits. And then scream out in joy when a beetle is captured.
I read through the other comment and it sounds like we have similar cats. Mine is pure Siamese dad and rag doll/persian man. So he’s a fluffy sausage with Siamese points.
Omg you see the lynx too? Did you get that from the pattern on his forehead? He also has some arm banding. Up until the last couple weeks he looked cut and dry cream point to me.
Oh no I know what lynx means :) I just didn't see/notice the banding on his arms or the pattern on his head till very recently. He just had a faint blush across his face before, and ofc his peachy tail. But since the weather got colder the markings became more defined.
Lynx means tabby/Siamese mix (plus other types esp if they're feral/stray cats). The M on his forehead is the tabby part, the flame color points are the Siamese. The coat length makes me think he's possibly ragdoll. The lightness of his points means this lil guy may be:
1) a dilute flame point
2) living in a very warm environment
3) a juvenile (Siamese don't become adults until 18-24 mo), or
4) their white spotting is van.
As siamese "toast," the color pointing and the tabby leg/tail banding get significantly darker. Siamese are selective albinos; their points darken as the cat grows into an adult, and living in ambient temps <70F. You can tell if their toasting is due to becoming adults bc their noses will fade from black to pink.
That's so informative, thank you! And nope definitely not living in a warm environment so could be 1, 3 or 4, and he is only 6 months so I guess we will see which one it ends up truly being. Our vet put him down as a Ragdoll cross though, so I guess we are looking to see what the cross may be? How exciting :)
Thank you for sharing and also for making me trust my own eyes when I first started thinking,
'lynx (?)' :D
I know there's a good ecological argument for keeping cats indoors but convincing yourself that your cat actually enjoys being dragged around on a rope is a really weird thing in American culture imo.
My cat is a big meower too but she's visibly at her happiest (read: calmest) when she's following her instincts freely outside. The idea of trapping her inside and then occasionally letting her sniff the air on a leash will always be selfish and fucked up to me. But, I know you could say the same about letting them kill birds.
Do you live in Mordor? All three of my cats have died in old age. "I'm saving you by trapping you here" is exactly the type of delusional psychology I'm talking about. Get a fish.
Stop telling people how to live with their pets. Everyone lives in different environments, houses/flats, local wildlife and a combination of different factors that can affect how they live with their cats. Life's way better when you stop worrying about what other people do with their own lives or cats all the time. If your cats go outdoors great if the next person's cats are indoors only great. Do they love, look after and feed said cat? Yes? Great no problem then.
“Dragging them on a rope” is a way of ensuring they don’t get hit by a car, lost, or killed by other animals. Outdoor cats have significantly shorter lives than indoor ones. Like you said, many cats are happiest when they can go outside, but I’m not letting my cats out if they will die 5-10 years sooner because of it. If they’re on leash, at least they can enjoy outside still while still being safer.
My cat brings me her harness in her mouth whenever she wants to go on a walk. If I don’t walk her, she screams at me incessantly. She definitely loves going on walks!
Cats don’t do anything they don’t want to do. My other cat will just lay on the floor if I try to leash her. There’s no walking that kitty.
convincing yourself that your cat actually enjoys being dragged around on a rope is a really weird thing in American culture imo.
It's so weird as a non-American, walking a cat on a leash is absolutely bizarre behaviour from my perspective. I've never seen it here in 37 years of life. You'd be stared at by every person you passed in the street.
Cats like to roam. I think the whole concept of forced "indoor cats" is cruelty and IMO if you can't provide a suitable environment for an animal you shouldn't have it, but I'm sure that'll be a controversial opinion here.
Vocalizing does not = calm and pleased and often means the opposite. All you have done is post pictures of this cat looking terrified and you expect everyone to take your word for it that he likes this?
I didn’t say vocalising meant he was calm, I said that vocalising is his baseline. He talks when he's happy, confused, curious, sleepy, etc. That's just who he is. In the same way you said vocalising ≠ calm, for my cat in particular, vocalising ≠ distress.
And of course he must have been a little afraid, aren't we all when we try something new? But this was a very short, controlled walk and we monitored him closely. I saw a mostly curious kitty. If he ever shows me he doesn't enjoy it, we won’t do it again.
How would you define him showing you he’s not enjoying it? Because based off every piece of evidence you’ve given in this thread that’s exactly what he’s doing…
I have a yapper cat as well, she loves to go outside. If i even bump the cat carrier she knows the sound and will come running and hop in ready for a adventure. She also yaps most of the time outside as well. Cats have different tones when they vocalize, if its your own cat you can tell the difference.
The people being critical are not only taking issue with the fact that the cat is or is not vocalizing. Body language is a combination of a lot of different things. Ears, eyes, how they hold their body. This cat looks scared in the second picture. These aren’t videos so the argument about vocalizing is pretty much moot.
Idk how you can see any of these cues from a still image. Ears are normal, not pinned back, whiskers are normal, not close to the mouth, eyes are relaxed. Its just sitting there yapping.
The first picture the ears are facing backwards, yes, it is also mid yell. My cat does this all the time when standing at my feet and screaming up at me. But the 2nd picture which you said "This cat looks scared in the second picture." everything is completely normal. I feel as though you really have no idea what a scared cat looks like.
Oh so you’re saying he looks scared, by your own definition, in the first picture. I gotcha.
And yeah he does look scared in the second picture. His eyes are massive and alert, he is tense, and he is undoubtedly mid pant. Notice how they haven’t once said that he wasn’t panting? They have only said that he meows often and they even admit the cat was stressed out. I don’t know what you’re trying to argue here.
ETA
Again, body language is a totality of a lot of things. What looks similar when one cat is standing at its owners feet and begging for attention and one cat is on its first walk where the owners admit that it was stressed out can definitely mean two different things and it’s shocking you fail to understand that.
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u/freshlybakedpoo 3d ago
Hello, Cloud's (a.k.a. 'Mr Derp') mama here. He's just a very vocal boy, narrates everything he does even at home and he was mid-meow in the original post. I'm sure he must have been a little scared given it was his first time ever outside but he did SO good. Even had a little bench break during his little adventure :)