The Character of Cats

Rating:
Summary: Are cats just too complex for Mr Budiansky?
Review: As a cat owner (fellow traveller, anyway) I approached this book with some expectations. It has always puzzled me that cats - loners - associate so well with people. Obviously the cats - loners, as I've said - can't see people as just big cats as apparently dogs see people as big dogs. So what's going on with cats? Unfortunately Mr Budiansky doesn't know or can't tell us, and neither can the researchers he quotes.

What is certain is that cats don't NEED people. Mr Budiansky has some great statistics to show this. Cats just do so well as feral animals, they get on quite admirably often to the disadvantage of other animals. But this is not a fault of the cats - just the people who manage them, or should be managing them. But cats don't automatically become feral if they are abandoned - they sometimes employ other strategies, which is something Mr Budiansky and his researchers apparently haven't considered. We were adopted by a cat who lived with us for nine years. We didn't want a second cat, and neither did our already resident cat. But the stray endeared herself to us in such a way that we could not deny her - although there was never more than cool tolerance between the cats.

Sadly this book descends into lists of anecdotes and veterinary responses to behavioural aspects of a cat that may not be acceptable to human owners - fellow travellers. But even in this there are great omissions - for example, no discussion on the effectiveness of the strategy of making cats wear bells to warn birds.

So, cats remain a mystery to me. Even living with them doesn't really help. But it is enriching. If you don't know much about cats you may find this book interesting to read - even informative. But if your knowledge of cats is not superficial - especially if you live with cats - this book may disappoint you as it did me.

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating read
Review: As a first-time cat owner, I found my cat to be a great curiosity. In particular, I often wondered what my cat was thinking. I read an excerpt of this book in the June 2002 volume of The Atlantic Monthly, and I later received the book as a gift and read it voraciously. This answers many of the minute ponderings that had crossed my mind while living with my enigmatic cat (as well as many, many questions I never thought of). Among other things, it includes the feline family tree, info on the history of cats, behavior/ communication & learning.

_The Character of Cats_ contains all sorts of fascinating tidbits, for example, I found explanations for why my cat charges if I stare at her, why she blinks her eyes at me, and why she rolls on her back to attract my attention when she wants to play. It explains cat's senses and gives an idea of how they perceive the world. It offers a kitty personality test. It explores how cats learn and therefore how they can be trained, including detailed info on training a cat to use the toilet! The only question it didn't answer is why my cat meows when I sneeze. As an added bonus, it has helped me to interpret my cat's communicative gestures and improve my relationship with her.

I highly recommend this book for cat-curious people.

Rating:
Summary: For the intelligent cat lover
Review: Being an owner and lover of horses, dogs, and cats, and having enjoyed Budiansky's two books about horses and dogs, I was happy to find he had taken on cats. In this book also the wit and historic, scientific, and social details that make for an interesting read are there, and it is written upon the same premise as the books on the other two species: that the best way to love our domesticated animals is to understand and appreciate what they really are. Why cats have physically changed so little (unlike dogs) after domestication, and why they can be so social (despite being descendants of a very solitary species) are two interesting topics. I also found fascinating the story about human influence on the distribution of cat colors (and number of toes) worldwide. That traveling ancient Egyptians apparently snatched cats they found abroad to "return" them to Egypt is one bizarrely amusing historical anecdote that made this book a pleasant read for me. And the story of the cat that attacked its owner who was bathing a parrot is weirdly unforgettable. Although this isn't necessarily a how-to book, it contains good information on behavior that can help with problems cat owners encounter. I found some practical information that helped me improve a new-cat-added-to-three-cat-household problem. I'd recommend this book to cat owners who are as curious as their cats.

Rating:
Summary: fascinating facts about how cats and humans came together
Review: I find it interesting that so many of the readers that review this book poorly do so because the book doesn't reinforce their pre-conceived notions of cat behaviour (this is also true of Budiansky's book about dogs - the number of readers that trashed his book because he doesn't believe that dogs "unconditionally love" their owners was truly sad). These reviews often say more about human behaviour than they do about cat behaviour.

If you are interested in cats, and are not afraid to have your beliefs challanged, this book is a truly fascinating read. Otherwise, you're probably better off staying away.

Rating:
Summary: Elementary and bland
Review: I picked up this book under the impression that some of the quirky things my cats do might be explained and substantiated. I wanted to learn more about their thought processes and evolutionary background. Overall, this book did not live up to my expectations.

Stephen Budiansky starts off the book with an interesting historical perspective on cats. He also briefly describes some evolutionary background as well as close relatives to Felis silvestris catus, body color patterns, and similarities and differences between feral and domesticated cats. From there, Budiansky delves into the behavior patterns of cats and their various personalities. He discusses things such as low-light vision in cats, the odd reactions some cats have to cat nip, the tendency to mark territory, the tendency to eat plants, and learning capabilities. He also gives some descriptions of what might be done to discourage unwanted behavior in your pets, which is probably the most beneficial aspect of the book (except for the fact that one of his suggestions is prescribed drugs).

Budiansky covers a vast plethora of information within this book, however, none if it is really described in very much depth. Furthermore, I found it extremely discouraging that much of the behavior described in this book seems to be mere observations made by Budiansky without much (or, at times, any) explanation, and is only rarely backed by scientific studies. Much of the knowledge presented in this book is general information that anyone who has owned cats for any length of time, and paid any attention to their behavior, should already be aware of. Frequently Budiansky writes off various cat behaviors by merely stating "it's hard-wired in their brain." As a biology major, I found these explanations to be extremely elementary and quite lacking.

In addition, this book was just a bland read. Though I was determined to get through it, it has taken me a couple of months of picking it up and reading a couple of pages at a time before I had to put it down and save it for another day. If anything, this book might be used as a jumping off point from which to determine what aspects of cats you might want to research in more depth, since Budiansky barely glosses over the surface of everything he discusses (how much detail can he really get into in only 201 pages?).

As someone who has been a cat owner for about seventeen years now, I didn't feel that this book added much to my knowledge of cats, and would thus not recommend this book to those who own cats and are already familiar with their behavior. If you aren't a cat owner and are interested in the quirky cuteness that is Felis silvestris, then this might be more worthwhile.

Rating:
Summary: fascinating facts about how cats and humans came together
Review: I was looking for a summary of new research on cat behavior and this book delivered exactly what I wanted. In addition, one learns where cats came from, that domestic and wild cats are genetically very similar, and why cats have not changed nearly to the same extent as other domestic animals. The bulk of the book is devoted to explaining how cats perceive the world. A number of fascinating experiments are used to explain cat bahavior. It even has some ideas on how to stop your cat from doing things that seem perfectly in order for the cat but disruptive to their humans (such as spraying). The book is extremely well written and a great read.

Rating:
Summary: If you're going to read one book about cats, let THIS be it!
Review: I've read dozens of books about cats, but this is the one I won't be re-selling on Amazon after having read it. Rarely does a book deal strictly with FACTS while also providing insightful and intriguing information. From the history of cats worldwide (I didn't know that brown tabbies like mine are commonplace in England) to easy-to-understand genetic basics (why orange tabbies are usually male) to clarification of fact vs. fallacy (a declawed cat may not be any more prone to behavioral problems than any non-declawed cat), this book takes solid research and translates it into fascinating, readable stuff. Best of all, the author's style is delightfully conversational, quite easy to read, and occasionally has me laughing out loud!

If you're looking for an author's first-person diatribe about what his cat did last Tuesday and how cute he is under the Christmas tree, this isn't the book for you. But if you want a book that teaches you more than you ever expected to know about our feline friends -- without making it tedious or hard to read -- THIS is the book you want.

Rating:
Summary: The whys and wherefores of kitties!
Review: Stephen Budiansky has taken all the latest scientific and psychological research done on cats to date and simmered it down into this compact little volume for the lay reader. It explores everything from the origin of the purr to the origin of the black-cat mythos, from why cats meow to why they can be stand-offish or even bite the hand that feeds them. I now understand why my cats will head-butt me to offer affection (there are scent-marking organs in the forehead--who knew?), as well as why and how each of my cats ended up with their very different temperaments. From biology to sociology, mythology to psychology, this slim book covers it all.

While Budiansky's work is always informative and very complete, it's only occasionally entertaining which, I suspect, is more a result of my expectations as a reader on this subject than any of the author's fault. Would I recommend it? Most certainly, especially to those of you who are cat owners.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the casual reader
Review: The subtitle is a very good indication of the flavor of the book. It includes the Latin name of the species Felis silvestris catus. What follows is more of a highly scientific analysis of cats than a guide to understanding your pet. The generally pratical information is scant and overwhelmed by massive digressions in evolutionary and historical explainations. I got to page 100 and couldn't bear to read any more.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful insight into the feline mind
Review: This is a fresh, insightful, and scientifically solidly grounded explanation of what makes cats tick. I especially liked the chapters at the end that discuss and explain the many wonderful and weird things cats do. The author clearly loves cats, but more than that is fascinated by them--and he has the scientific understanding to bring the full spectrum of the latest scientific research to bear on his enthusiasm for his subject. The Washington Post reviewed this book and called it a "regular Fancy feast of recent research as well as evolutionary and cultural history." I highly recommend this book to all cat owners and cat lovers. It's a real change from the run of the mill cat books.