Animals: Keeping Tabs on Tabby

Nobody knows exactly what the cat population of the U.S. is. Of an estimated 21 million, half are house cats living in a world of Kleen Kitty and catnip mice; the rest are loners—feline bums who range the nation’s alleys, waterfronts and backyards, scrounging, mousing, and yowling for handouts. Dogs (around 26 million) still lead in pet popularity, but cats are creeping up. Canned cat food is a multimillion-dollar industry, and this year sales are up 15% (1960 supermarket sales: $42,150,000). Veterinarians find that it pays to become a cat specialist, and some are narrowing their practice down to feline geriatrics and nothing else.

While cats make many people sneeze and alienate others with their “sneaky” ways, the pro-cat element in the nation is growing. A champion of the cat is Milan Greer, 39, whose book, The Fabulous Feline, has just been published by Dial Press. A professional cat breeder, Greer writes with none of the “dear little pussycat” gush that marks the work of most literary cat lovers. In fact, he is suspicious of anyone who claims to love cats; cats do not love people, he declares, and they probably do not even love other cats. A plane of mutual respect is as high as any owner-cat relationship can go.

Up Siamese. According to Greer, more men buy cats than women do—probably because cats (unlike dogsj never have to be taken out for an 11 p.m. “walk,” a chore that traditionally falls to the man of the household. Among pedigreed cats, most popular breed is the seal-point Siamese, followed closely by the bluepoint Siamese: these two account for 80% of U.S. purebred-cat sales. The once modish Persian is sold to only about 8% of the cat customers—mostly women and children, who like the Persian’s fluffy coat. However, only 4% of all U.S. cats are registered.

Before taking up with a cat, Greer advises the prospective owner to find a pet whose personality matches his own. Siamese, for example, are friendly and fun-loving, even though they sometimes go around muttering to themselves. The Manx is timid, dependent, and doleful to the point of martyrdom—ideal for the man who wants to be a god to his cat. Persians (and all pedigreed long hairs are so named) have minds of their own, often forget early hygiene training. Their attitude is “Why bother?” The Burmese are wise, persuasive, and can freeze a fool owner in his tracks with a contemptuous stare and a flick of the tail. Abyssinians, purported to be the sacred cats of ancient Egypt, are strong, wildly willful, almost impossible to discipline. Only insiders know how rare and expensive Abyssinians are; they are often taken for alley cats by the uninitiated, and thus are considered perfect status symbols for people who hate status symbols. As for Maltese and Angoras, in the peerage of the Cat Fanciers’ Association (feline counterpart of the American Kennel Club), they simply do not exist; they are alley cats.

Serious Sex. Greer delights in debunking a catalogue of old cats’ tales. Foremost is the “nine lives” business. Says Greer: “Cats aren’t even interested in one life. They have a built-in death wish that makes them roll over and die at a point where most other animals would be fighting for life.” As for chicken bones, cats can handle them better than dogs can. Baths, another idea that makes old-fashioned cat keepers cluck with horror, not only help a cat with the endless job of keeping clean but also minimize the problem of “hair ball”—a nugget of hair that forms in the stomach as the result of all that licking and preening.

Cats take sex seriously, as anyone who has tuned in on a city backyard on a summer night can testify. The unaltered male is belligerent, grumpy, concentrates only on the sex or lack of it in his life; his urine contains a special additive that can attract a romantically inclined female at a range of 150 yards. And the unspayed female makes a rotten pet. When in heat (in some cats, as often as every two weeks), she becomes outrageously wanton, rolling about, rubbing herself suggestively on the furniture, and yelling for a mate. To stop this erotic behavior before it begins, Greer urges owners to take Tom or Tabby at an early age (about eight months) to the vet for alterations.

If one’s prize female does become pregnant—whether down the garden path or in the sanctity of a breeding cage at a registered cattery—Greer’s book provides instruction in feline midwifery. The basic rule: Do not try to interest the father cat (if he is a member of the household) in the new kittens. He could not care less, and will often kill his own kitten under the impression that it is a mouse.