Cat tales

Our relationship with our pets has a very long history.

We know more about our connection to dogs; we've been keeping dogs (or vice versa) for at least ten thousand years, based on genetic analysis of bones found in proximity to human settlements -- and often, buried with honor.  How this relationship started is a matter of conjecture:

Wolf: I'm going to attack you, and viciously tear apart and eat your children!  You are no match for my ferocity!

Cave man: We have peanut butter, sofas, and squeaky toys.

Wolf:  ... I'm listening

Domestic cats, on the other hand, have more uncertain origins.  They were known to have been revered in ancient Egypt, and in fact the much-loved protector goddess Bastet is always depicted with a cat's head.  The ancestors of today's house cats are thought to be the Libyan wildcat (Felis lybica), a small felid which is still found in most of Africa, the Middle East, and central and southern Asia.  They were probably encouraged to live alongside humans for their use as mousers, and eventually became companion animals, just as dogs had earlier.

What's certain is that after that relationship formed, wherever humans went, their pets came along.  A very cool series of studies a while back used patterns of cat genetics -- in particular, the prevalence of the polydactyly gene and the gene that controls swirled tabby coat coloration -- to figure out the paths of migration taken by their human owners.  And just this week a fascinating paper appeared in the journal Science looking at how domestic cats first arrived in China, much more recently than you might think.

The first written reference to cats in China comes from the Tang Dynasty, and dates to the middle of the seventh century C.E.  It's a rather horrifying story.  An imperial concubine name Xiao ran afoul of a higher-ranked wife named Wu Zetian (Wu eventually was to become empress outright).  Wu had Xiao condemned to death -- by having her hands and feet chopped off, then to be drowned in a barrel of wine -- and before the sentence was carried out, Xiao said, "In my next life, may I be reborn as a cat, and Wu Zetian as a mouse.  I will then seize her by the throat to extract my revenge!"

Wu wasn't impressed, and had her rival executed anyhow.  History doesn't record any subsequent rebirths as cats and/or mice.

The earliest domestic cat bones found in China are from an archaeological site called Tongwancheng, and date to only around 1000 C.E.  There were earlier feline specimens, but they all seem to be the remains not of modern domestic cats but of the leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), a small south Asian wildcat species (that recently was crossbred with the domestic cat to produce the Bengal breed), and which probably lived alongside humans but was never truly domesticated.

Bengal cat [Image licensed under the Creative Commons User:Lightburst, Paintedcats Red Star standing, CC BY-SA 4.0]

As far as domestic cats, they seem to have arrived in China via the Silk Road.  Bones found in Kazakhstan, dating to the ninth century C.E., have a mitochondrial DNA signature that links both to later Chinese cats and to cats in the Middle East -- suggesting that merchant travel between the two is how cats arrived in east Asia.

Once there, they established a place in Chinese culture as the favorite pet of the wealthy.  Like the earlier study of cat genes and human migration, this one has an odd filigree having to do with how human selection influences evolution.  In Chinese culture, white is a symbol of purity, and white animals are especially revered.  This gave Silk Road merchants an incentive to find and transport white cats -- a practice over a thousand years ago which has left its mark all these centuries later.  This selectivity of importation is probably why today a disproportionate number of modern Chinese cats are white (or have white patches).

So we move, and we take our pets with us, and that changes both them and us.  It's a very old connection, and one many of us cherish deeply.  Think of that next time you cuddle with your kitty or puppy -- you're taking part in a relationship that goes back thousands of years, and was important enough even in those rough times that it drove commerce.  So even before the existence of mail-order places like Chewy, where we can spend inordinate amounts of money pampering our furry friends, our bonds with our pets were still a deeply important part of our lives.

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Talking to the animals

We just got back from a week-long trip to visit friends in Seattle, which meant boarding our two dogs with a local kennel.  We know and trust them -- we've used them for years -- and they love our dogs, quirks and all.  So we can leave them and be sure that they're in good hands.

Guinness, for the most part, has no problem with kenneling.  He knows he's going to get treats and play time, so for him it's kind of like sleep-away summer camp.  He jumps right into the car like it's going to be a great big adventure.

Cleo, on the other hand.

Our little Shiba Inu rescue was caged during much of her four years with an abusive breeder, and she has an absolute terror of being locked up.  She's relaxed considerably since we got her in December of 2021 -- especially once we installed a dog door so she can go in and out of our big fenced back yard whenever she wants -- but she still freaks out when the door closes behind her.  And she gets very, very wary when she knows we're going to pick her up and put her in the car (for example, on trips to the vet).  She's really snuggly and friendly if it's on her terms -- but if she knows she's going to be restrained, good freakin' luck.

Cleo in a calm moment

So we've tried everything we can think of to (1) lower the stress surrounding the situation, and (2) make it easier to get her when we absolutely have to.  Bribing her with food barely works; she's the least food-motivated dog I've ever met.  Calm talk has zero effect.  And my wife pointed out to me that my tightly-wound personality comes through in my voice, that if I say in as friendly and non-threatening a manner as I can, "Hey, Cleo, c'm'ere!  Want some cheese?" she not only isn't gonna respond to the bribe, she knows that I'm up to something.

I've tried whatever I can, but I don't seem to be able to help having it show when I'm anxious about something, like when we have to drop the dogs off at the kennel by 9 AM, and it's 8:45, and we're chasing Cleo all around the back yard.  At first, I was a little reluctant to believe that Cleo is really that sensitive to subtleties in my tone of voice, but after a few frustrating hour-long battles to come closer to her than ten feet, I have to admit Carol's got a point.

And some research out of the University of Copenhagen that appeared last week in the journal BMC - Biology bears out her contention that domestic animals are way better at picking up on vocal tone than anyone thought.  It's an odd claim, when you think about it; why should domesticated animals -- even ones like dogs, who have been in association with humans for tens of thousands of years -- recognize human social signals?  Even between closely-related primate species, the same signal can mean entirely different things.  For example, smiling is a sign of friendliness amongst humans, but smiling to a chimp is basically baring the teeth, and is considered an indicator of aggression or fear.

But the research seems unequivocal.  And they weren't even working with dogs; they primarily worked with pigs and horses.  They even controlled for the possibility that animals might learn certain words and have associations (positive or negative) that come along with them, something that is certainly true of most dogs.  (Say "do you want to play fetch?" to Guinness and he immediately turns into the canine ping-pong ball.)  What the researchers did was to hire a trained actor and gave him various gibberish phrases, with the instruction to speak them in a variety of differing tones.  They then recorded the animals' reactions on a lot of benchmarks -- ear position, facial tension, pupil dilation, and so on.

The animals had no problem picking up on the actor's emotional tone.  "Our results show that these animals are affected by the emotions we charge our voices with when we speak to or are around them," said Elodie Briefer, who co-authored the study.  "They react more strongly -- generally faster -- when they are met with a negatively charged voice, compared to having a positively charged voice played to them first.  In certain situations, they even seem to mirror the emotion to which they are exposed."

So Carol, apparently, is spot-on about Cleo picking up the tension in my voice.  The open question is what I can do about it.  Even when I'm aware of it and trying to moderate it, it apparently comes through loud and clear.  At least this is the last time for a while that we're going to kennel them, she doesn't have any upcoming vet appointments, and maybe just time and trust-building will convince her that whatever happens, she's safe.

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