Years ago, a neighbor of mine had a young pit bull dog -- well, two actually. But the dog in question had been raised by a cat. So one day I'm leaning on the chainlink fence talking to my neighbor. A grey tomcat I had at the time beside me, the neighbor's pit bull beside him. As soon as the dog saw my cat, he laid down with his nose pressed to the fence, beseechingly whimpering for attention from my cat. Cat stood back about a foot from the fence doing cat stuff, hissing, arching his back, and pressing against my leg for a sense of security. The cat was clearly puzzled. Funny, but intriguing. The dog, however, was very comfortable with other dogs as well, but the cat really took him someplace emotionally, almost like he was seeking to re-experience the feeling of being a coddled puppy/kitten again.
On the flip side, we had a cat when I was growing up that had been reared by our dog, and must have been separated from its mom and all other cats at a very young age. The dog had recently had puppies at that stage, and they had all been given away. So, she thought that this was a weird looking puppy that had come back. She dearly loved that puppykitten.
That cat never learned how to meow. It would open its mouth, there would be silence for a few seconds, and then there would be a tiny squeak. It was clearly trying to bark, and failing. Every time.
Fortunately, that cat did learn how to use a litter box. But she never tried to run outdoors.
<<<Fortunately, that cat did learn how to use a litter box. But she never tried to run outdoors.<<<
This is hard wired cat behaviour. Big cats do this too. They dig and bury because they are predators and don’t want to leave their wee/poo scent trail.
Domestic cats do this too. Except the parasite in cat’s urine makes rats lose their fear instinct and makes them suicidal..thereby luring them to the waiting hungry cat’s maw.
[..]Researchers have known for a few years that a rat infected with Toxoplasma loses its natural response to cat urine and no longer fears the smell. And they know that the parasite settles in the rat’s amygdala, the part of the brain that processes fear and emotions. Now a new study in the journal PLoS ONE adds another bizarre piece to the tale: When male rats infected with Toxoplasma smell cat urine, they have altered activity in the fear part of the brain as well as increased activity in the part of the brain that is responsible for sexual behavior and normally activates after exposure to a female rat.[..]
