Quote:
Originally Posted by john1975
feral cats are mean...and ugly.
but only because they've never socialized with humans.
|
I befriended a feral cat once. A thin, ragged cat. Being always hungry to some degree had always just been normal life for him. He'd never had contact with humans and wanted nothing to do with them whatsoever. We're creepy and scary flat-faces who need to stick metal in our mouths just to eat food.
It took a lot of time to befriend him. He grew to tolerate me. Eventually he grew to like me. Sometimes he'd even purr and roll over when he saw me. He was still terrified of other humans, though.
He didn't care much for being petted, but would tolerate it. What he really enjoyed, though, was having the top of his head scratched.
One day I was preparing food for him and he was rubbing the top of his head against my leg. What I assumed he meant by this is "Can't wait for the food! Thanks so much. You're really cool." So I was like, great, and continued. And then, without warning, he slapped my leg really hard with his claws like Wolverine. If it hadn't been for my jeans, he'd have taken a hunk out of my leg.
I looked at him and was like "Ouch! What the FUCK, cat?" He looked at me like "What?"
So it turns out, he was wanting me to scratch the top of his head. I wasn't understanding it, and he got frustrated at me. And being an unsocialized feral cat, taking a hunk out of your leg is a normal thing to do when frustrated. He saw nothing wrong with it.
He'd also get frustrated when I didn't have the exact kind of food he wanted. He'd eat any food, but discovered he loved grilled chicken above and beyond any other food. I enjoyed spoiling him as much as I could. He went from being a thin ragged cat to kinda fat. He'd also be so happy when his belly was full. He'd play like a kitten and pretend to hunt imaginary prey. Just having fun because he was happy.
He wouldn't play interactively, though. Again, a thing about being feral. I showed him a laser pointer once. Instead of chasing it like a normal cat would do, he just looked at it for 5 seconds. Then looked at me like, "Oh, its you doing that" and lost all interest.
Anyways, yeah cats are cool.
