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Speaker 1: Guess what. Well, what's that, Mango? So I was looking

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Speaker 1: online and I found this description for a job that's

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Speaker 1: definitely not for us. Professional cat cutler. Yeah, I'd have

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Speaker 1: to agree with that. And first of all, why is

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Speaker 1: that a job? So? I have no idea. And this

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Speaker 1: posting is from late January this year and it was

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Speaker 1: put up by a cat's only veterinary clinic in Ireland.

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Speaker 1: But here's a list of some of the questions you'd

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Speaker 1: have to answer to see if this job is right

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Speaker 1: for you, and these are all real. Are you a

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Speaker 1: crazy cat person and love cats already? I'm thinking that's

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Speaker 1: all right. Does catitude come to you naturally? So I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't say we have high cattitude levels? Have you counted

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Speaker 1: kittens before you go to sleep? Do you feed stray

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Speaker 1: cats in your locality? Does pett and cats make you

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Speaker 1: warm and fuzzy? I mean, I gotta be honest, Mango,

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Speaker 1: I can't say that any of those sound like me.

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Speaker 1: So I can't think of a job you're less suited for.

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Speaker 1: And the job basically involves calming down skittish cats and

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Speaker 1: Mr me doggying them into a zen like space so

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Speaker 1: the vets can see them. But one of the biggest

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Speaker 1: criticisms of our show has been that we're not kind

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Speaker 1: enough to cats on the program. You are, of course

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Speaker 1: scared of them, and I have let's call it a

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Speaker 1: healthy respect for them. So I thought it was time

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Speaker 1: for a cat intervention, or a cattervention. We're gonna increase

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Speaker 1: our empathy of cats and try to understand them a

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Speaker 1: little better and maybe even call out some of their achievements,

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Speaker 1: and perhaps by the end of this all you and

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Speaker 1: I will be begging for that cat cuddling job. Well

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure I see that happening, but let's dive in.

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Speaker 1: Heay their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm

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Speaker 1: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good

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Speaker 1: friend Man Guesho Ticketer and sitting behind that soundproof glass

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Speaker 1: surrounded by cat themed music albums, and there are far

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Speaker 1: more of these than I expected from him. But he's

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Speaker 1: got cat power. Cat Stevens, I think Latigre Acoustic Kitty

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Speaker 1: and I didn't see the album cover for this, but

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Speaker 1: I swear is that Garfields smooth Jazz I hear playing

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Speaker 1: in the background. It is so Tristan was showing me

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Speaker 1: this earlier. It's all Garfield inspired music, but my favorite

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Speaker 1: is that is where it's at, you know, because Garfield

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Speaker 1: needs a lot, right Thanks for explaining that that guy

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Speaker 1: has the best taste and novelty albums, and that of

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Speaker 1: course is our friend and producer Tristan McNeil, now Mango.

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Speaker 1: As you know, we've gotten some criticism about not being

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Speaker 1: cat friendly enough on the show, and I have to

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Speaker 1: be honest, it's a little bit surprising how much we've

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Speaker 1: heard from listeners about this. Yeah, I mean it was

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Speaker 1: really shocking to me too, and I actually love all animals,

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Speaker 1: or at least most furry animals. And you know this,

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Speaker 1: but maybe some listeners don't. There was a long period

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Speaker 1: of my life where I've dreamed had become a vet.

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Speaker 1: And also, for the record, we had cats on a

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Speaker 1: bunch of covers of Metal Flass. Plus the first story

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Speaker 1: I wrote on metal fast dot com was about a

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Speaker 1: cat piano, so I had no idea where he came

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Speaker 1: across this anti cat's right, you wrote about what was

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Speaker 1: it called the cats and Clavier. It was this musical

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Speaker 1: instrument that I think it was. It was inmitted to

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Speaker 1: cheer up a prince or something. Is that right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So it was like a piano, but instead of strings,

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Speaker 1: you just put kittens in a box behind each key

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Speaker 1: and it was supposed to gently prod the kitten to

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Speaker 1: yaw in tune. And there was this modern version of

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Speaker 1: it that was made with toy cats all tuned to

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Speaker 1: different notes with this dude playing over the rainbow on

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Speaker 1: them by squeezing them in order. I mean, there's a

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Speaker 1: video this on YouTube, but all that mewing isn't exactly music,

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Speaker 1: but it's also not not music either. I have definitely

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Speaker 1: seen that video a few times and it's pretty great.

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Speaker 1: And you know, it is interesting how polarizing cats are.

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Speaker 1: And for the record, I should say I don't hate cats.

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Speaker 1: I just happened to be terrified of cats. When I

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Speaker 1: was growing up. I was across the street from Triplet Boys.

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Speaker 1: They had a family cat, and not intentionally but just

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Speaker 1: by being Triplet Boys, they tortured this cat, and the

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Speaker 1: cat decided to take out all of its anger on

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Speaker 1: me for some reason and attacked me every time I

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Speaker 1: came over there. So I just wanted to put that

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Speaker 1: out there. But it has been really weird as we

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Speaker 1: just make these little jokes about cats on the show.

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Speaker 1: These I guess we think of them as like throwaway comments,

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Speaker 1: and then the angry letters that we hear from people

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Speaker 1: about I don't know if I can listen to this

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Speaker 1: show because you guys hate cats. But this we, we

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Speaker 1: apparently are not alone in this polarizing world of cats.

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Speaker 1: I actually found this quote by the American writer Carl

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Speaker 1: van Vechten, and he wrote a book called Tiger in

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Speaker 1: the House, which is really all about house cats. And

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Speaker 1: here's how he talks about people's strong feelings about cats.

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Speaker 1: And I actually really like this quote. So he says,

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Speaker 1: one is permitted to assume an attitude of placid and

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Speaker 1: difference in some matters elephants, cockatoo's h g well Sweden,

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Speaker 1: roast beef, puccini, even Mormonism. But in the matter of cats,

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Speaker 1: it seems necessary to take a firm stand. The cat

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Speaker 1: himself insists upon this. He invariably inspires strong feelings. He

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Speaker 1: is indeed the only animal who does well. It is

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Speaker 1: true that cats definitely inspire strong feelings. And when we've

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Speaker 1: joked on the show about not being cat lovers, people

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Speaker 1: have written in and said, uh, you know who also

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Speaker 1: hated cats? Hitler and also Napoleon and Mussolini, and I

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Speaker 1: looked this up. It's true they were cat hitters. Like

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure all three of them also hated

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Speaker 1: like broccoli and homework, So it doesn't really mean that

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Speaker 1: much like a lot of people, just like a lot

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Speaker 1: of things. But I was intrigued by the comments, so

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Speaker 1: I looked up other famous cat hitters in history. And

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Speaker 1: it's not a good look for us to be perceived

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Speaker 1: this way. And so in addition to Napoleon and Mussolini,

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Speaker 1: you've got Genghis Khan Stalin also hated cats. Caesar Alexander

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Speaker 1: the Great, Eisenhower, for some reason, is on the list,

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Speaker 1: but frankly, I'm a little surprised at Polpon and Daman

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Speaker 1: aren't on there as well. To round out the limbs,

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Speaker 1: a lot of terrible people, I mean, aside aside from Eisenhower,

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Speaker 1: who we love for building highways and infrastructure, of infrastructure.

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Speaker 1: I love infrastructure. But you know, I think what's worse

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Speaker 1: than the list of horrible people is when cat fans

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Speaker 1: tell you about all the great people who were obsessed

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Speaker 1: with cats. You've got Abe Lincoln, who was notorious for

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Speaker 1: his love of cats, and his wife Mary Todd once

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Speaker 1: said that cats were his only hobby. Also, they've got

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Speaker 1: the prophet Mohammed, Nicola Tesla, St. Francis of ASSISI, Mark Twain,

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Speaker 1: Florence Nightingale, Catherine the Great, Charles Mingus, and all of

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Speaker 1: the Brontes, all the Brontes, even Brandwell Bronte I checked

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Speaker 1: up on this mango. They got Brandwell Well. Obviously, of

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Speaker 1: those two sample sets, i'd I'd rather be associated with

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Speaker 1: the cat lovers and the cat hitters. But I was

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out why it is that dictators and

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Speaker 1: world conquerors don't like cats. And here's one theory about

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Speaker 1: it that I found that's popular on cat sites, and

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Speaker 1: it goes like this quote. It might just be that

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Speaker 1: cat people who have dreams of dominating the world can't

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Speaker 1: get used to the idea that cats won't submit to them.

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Speaker 1: So is the idea that like, cats are just too

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Speaker 1: independent minded for dictators or what exactly? And truthfully, that's

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Speaker 1: also a big part of what cat people like about cats.

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Speaker 1: They're total independence, right, Like people are always saying cats

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Speaker 1: have more personality than dogs and that they're less needy

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Speaker 1: and they're like a little more badass and rock and

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Speaker 1: roll or something. And in fact, this is a little

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Speaker 1: off topic, but one of the cat origin stories I read,

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Speaker 1: and this is an Islamic tale I believe, is that

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Speaker 1: Noah was on his arc and during the storm, he

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Speaker 1: became really afraid that the mice on board would eat

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Speaker 1: all the food, or even worse, that they'd nibble through

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Speaker 1: the floors and create these holes in the arc, kind

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Speaker 1: of just like putting all the other animals and jeopardies.

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Speaker 1: So he prayed for a solution, and God answered his

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Speaker 1: wishes by having a lion sneeze, and out of both

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Speaker 1: nostrils from that sneeze emerged two cats, which is I

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Speaker 1: guess how cats came to be. And I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of a sweet origin story in terms of myths,

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Speaker 1: But I feel like you can interpret the story in

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Speaker 1: two ways, right, Like cats are either God's gift to humanity,

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Speaker 1: like what adorable little God bless you they are, or

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Speaker 1: no one needed a ruthless killing machine on the ship

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Speaker 1: and God provided cats. I think I'm might lane towards

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Speaker 1: the latter of it. I'm gonna be careful. I don't

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Speaker 1: need any more hate mail about this, but I have

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Speaker 1: a different question here. Mago like, how useless is every

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Speaker 1: other animal on the arc, Like why couldn't any of

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Speaker 1: the owls on board pitch in for this effort? I know, well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, the truth is cats are incredible hunting machines.

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Speaker 1: And I read this crazy story in the New York

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Speaker 1: Times from five years ago, and that's when the Smithsonian's

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Speaker 1: Conservation Biology Institute teamed up with the US Fish and

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Speaker 1: Wildlife Service to do some research on cats, and they

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Speaker 1: wanted to identify how much wildlife these cats were killing

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Speaker 1: every year, so they used cameras and create this new

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Speaker 1: math model, and basically they were stunned by the results.

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Speaker 1: So listen to this between feral and domestic cats. The

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Speaker 1: domestic ones, you know, are the ones that get to

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Speaker 1: roam outdoors while sleeping indoors. Together, they kill about two

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Speaker 1: point four billion birds every year. And also they killed

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Speaker 1: twelve point three billion mammals a year, and most of

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Speaker 1: those those things like shrews and chipmunks and bowls, along

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Speaker 1: with mice. I kind of want to know how they

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Speaker 1: came up with that estimate of twelve point three billion mammals,

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Speaker 1: but either way, it's insane and terrifying. So I don't

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Speaker 1: understand like, why would this make me like cats? More

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Speaker 1: so we've talked about this on the program before, but

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Speaker 1: those mousers are also keeping places like Disney parks and

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Speaker 1: houses and also city streets more free of vermin. And also,

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Speaker 1: I I've read this thing about how they're all these

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Speaker 1: cat islands in Japan that are super popular as tourist destinations,

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Speaker 1: just places where they're all these feral cats, And initially

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Speaker 1: I was thinking, like, who wants to go to these islands?

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Speaker 1: But one of the arguments I was reading online that

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Speaker 1: I had actually never thought about was most people can

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Speaker 1: go to a cat island and not be terrified because

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Speaker 1: these small feral cats aren't going to bother you. They

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Speaker 1: just don't care about you. But you know, if you

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Speaker 1: went to a wild dog island and they were just

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Speaker 1: wild packs of you know, feral dogs there, you'd be terrified,

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Speaker 1: like you want to call animal control because roaming packs

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Speaker 1: of wild dogs aren't fun. But you know, the cats

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Speaker 1: don't have that herd mentality. I mean, that's an interesting point.

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Speaker 1: But to be fair, if you put the word feral

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Speaker 1: in front of any animal, like, I don't want to

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Speaker 1: be near those and I have no desire to hang

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Speaker 1: out with I don't know, like Australia's feral camel population

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Speaker 1: or any of these other animals, but you know, you

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Speaker 1: started talking about cat origins and and killer cats, and

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Speaker 1: you were talking about how cat lovers tend to love

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Speaker 1: the animals independence And actually I had a story that

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Speaker 1: I wanted to share just real quick. So while freethinking

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Speaker 1: critters might be great for pet owners, they're not great

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Speaker 1: for filmmakers. I was reading this interer you with the

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Speaker 1: Cohen brothers about filming inside Lewin Davis, and they were

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Speaker 1: talking about how hard it was to shoot the cat

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Speaker 1: in the movie. So here's a quote from an NPR

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Speaker 1: interview that Ethan Cohen did, and he says, the whole

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Speaker 1: exercise of shooting a cat is pretty nightmarish because they

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Speaker 1: don't care about anything. They don't want to do what

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Speaker 1: you want them to do. As the animal trainer said

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Speaker 1: to us, a dog wants to please you. A cat

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Speaker 1: only wants to please itself. It was just this long, painstaking,

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Speaker 1: frustrating day shooting the cat, which to me is a

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Speaker 1: little refreshing. You know that cats don't want to be

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Speaker 1: seen as film stars, but you know, I've seen Lewin Davison.

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Speaker 1: I loved it, But how do they get all those

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Speaker 1: shots eventually? Like, I'm guessing they didn't use c g I. Well,

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Speaker 1: first of all, they used a lot of cats, and

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Speaker 1: a cat trainer told them specifically to use a marmalade

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Speaker 1: orange tabby because it's easier to get a lot of

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Speaker 1: them on hand. So they had three or four cats

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Speaker 1: ready for each scene, and essentially they had to find

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Speaker 1: cats that had a predisposition for doing whatever it was

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Speaker 1: that they were looking for. So, like, if you needed

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Speaker 1: a fidgety cat to jump out of someone's hand ends,

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Speaker 1: you have to find a cat that tends to do

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Speaker 1: that all the time and hates to be held. So

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Speaker 1: you get that type of cat for one angle. But

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Speaker 1: then you know, if you want them to rub against

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Speaker 1: the table or run down a fire escape, you need

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Speaker 1: to find the cat that wants to do that naturally.

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Speaker 1: And even then when they had those cats on hand,

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Speaker 1: the cats rarely did what they wanted. The Cohen Brothers

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Speaker 1: actually compared the experience to having to film a vulture

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Speaker 1: in True Grit. They said the vulture was awful, and

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Speaker 1: they said that was even by vulture standards, And even

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Speaker 1: though the experience was really frustrating. They'd take filming a

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Speaker 1: vulture scene over a cat scene any day, so that

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Speaker 1: that is ridiculous. And I do love that story. But

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Speaker 1: here's the thing, and maybe it's something that will increase

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Speaker 1: our own empathy for cats, But I don't actually think

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Speaker 1: it's a cat's fault that they're so independent. And why

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Speaker 1: is that? Because there's a theory that cats aren't actually

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Speaker 1: domesticated animals. They've never had to be domesticated. But even

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Speaker 1: more than that, the theory goes, these clever, adorable beasts

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Speaker 1: have over a thousands of years, actually domesticated us. But

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Speaker 1: before we talk about that, let's take a little break.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, and we're talking cats.

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Speaker 1: So a mango. I know you're going to tell us

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Speaker 1: about cats and domestication, but before we talk about a

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Speaker 1: cat in the household, let's talk about cats breaking up households.

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Speaker 1: And you know that totally unfair reputation they got for

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Speaker 1: causing divorces in America. So I obviously know people are

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Speaker 1: attached to their animals, but I've never heard about this trend.

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Speaker 1: So what's the scoop? Well, this comes from Natalie Zarelli

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Speaker 1: at Atlas Obscura, and she reports that once the Married

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Speaker 1: Women's Property Act took hold in America, there was actually

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Speaker 1: an uptick in the number of divorces, and essentially unhappy

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Speaker 1: couples weren't doomed to stay together, but you still had

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Speaker 1: to have someone at fault and it had to be irreconcilable.

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Speaker 1: So a big strategy from the nineteen tens going forward

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Speaker 1: where couples that they just started blaming their cats. That's

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Speaker 1: pretty crazy. I've never heard of that, you know. I

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Speaker 1: actually remember one of our friends from college had a

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Speaker 1: grandmother who got divorced, and he told me that the

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Speaker 1: couple staged her walking in on him with another woman,

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Speaker 1: and it was purely so that they had a traumatic

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Speaker 1: story to tell. The New York Chorus. But you know,

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Speaker 1: just blaming a cat would have been so much easier. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would say that would have been a lot easier.

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Speaker 1: There's actually a story from this piece in nineteen o

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Speaker 1: three where a man told the judge this horror story.

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Speaker 1: He says, a cat met him at every turn with

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Speaker 1: an angry and a chorus of blood curdling mews. Apparently

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Speaker 1: he find cats in his bed sheets and when he

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Speaker 1: tried to escape them. He was too scared to leave

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Speaker 1: the bed, you know, lest he should expose his bare

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Speaker 1: feet to the claws of numerous pussies and provoke a

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Speaker 1: melody that would ring in his ears for the rest

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Speaker 1: of the day. So that feels so dramatic. Well, he

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Speaker 1: really had to sell it to the judge. And you know,

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Speaker 1: if the judge asked why the husband didn't just get

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Speaker 1: rid of the cats, often there'd be some story about

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Speaker 1: his wife being involved in like the A s p c. A,

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Speaker 1: which I guess felt virtuous or something. So, I mean,

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Speaker 1: there were lots of these stories. Oh, there's tons of

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Speaker 1: these stories that There's actually also a Civil War veteran

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Speaker 1: who claims he could never sit in his easy chair

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Speaker 1: because the cat was always there hissing at him. There

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Speaker 1: was another there was a wife that said she didn't

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Speaker 1: mind her husband's profanity, but it was too much when

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Speaker 1: he heaved the family cat at her. And looking at

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Speaker 1: that case, apparently she wanted twelve hundred dollars for the

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Speaker 1: humiliation of being beamed by the family cat. Just unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: There was also another dude who was upset that his

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Speaker 1: wife kept fifty cats around the house and gave them

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Speaker 1: more attention than him. Well, I mean, fifty cats would

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Speaker 1: need a lot of attention. Well, in court, she testified

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Speaker 1: that she only had fifteen cats. But you know, since

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Speaker 1: her husband didn't come home most nights, they were both

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Speaker 1: interested in splitting up. And you know, most of these

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Speaker 1: stories were either made up or just greatly exaggerated. So

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Speaker 1: how long did this cat blaming go on for? According

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Speaker 1: to the article, cats were scapegoats for really about a century,

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't until nineteen sixty nine, when no fault

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Speaker 1: divorce laws started becoming adopted by states that suddenly all

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Speaker 1: the cat blaming disappeared from the newspaper stories, which is

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Speaker 1: pretty insane. And uh, you know you feel sorry for

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Speaker 1: the cats. I know it's it's true. It's weird to

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Speaker 1: say that, but I actually do feel a little sorry

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Speaker 1: for them. But you were going to talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit about this idea that cats aren't really domesticated. Yeah, so,

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Speaker 1: you know, aside from that lion sneezing theory about cats,

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Speaker 1: researchers have actually found cat bones near human bones for

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Speaker 1: a while. There's a New Yorker piece on this, but

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Speaker 1: in China, by analyzing the bones and teeth of cats

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Speaker 1: skeletons from about five thousand years ago. Scientists can actually

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Speaker 1: show that cats were eating rodents and grains as well

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Speaker 1: as leftovers from human meals. And basically cats were opportunistic, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: they realized that rodents were plentiful around these farmers stores

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Speaker 1: of grain, so they ingratiated themselves. And people were opportunistic.

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Speaker 1: They were us that cats would kill off the disease

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Speaker 1: carrying vermin for them, and it was relatively little investment,

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Speaker 1: Like they didn't actually have to train the cats. All

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Speaker 1: they had to do was give them some shelter and

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Speaker 1: like a little extra food to eat, and then just

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Speaker 1: lean on their natural instincts. It was totally symbiotic. But

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Speaker 1: you know, cats were never bred for traits the way

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Speaker 1: dogs or cattle were. Like, you know, you look at

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Speaker 1: a docs and then you see how that dog was

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Speaker 1: bred to go after badgers, right, it was supposed to

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Speaker 1: chase badgers down badger holes and it's fearless, but it's

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Speaker 1: also shape for that, with that sort of long noodle

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Speaker 1: like shape. And uh, you know, cat reading is a

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Speaker 1: relatively recent phenomenon by the comparison, So I mean, are

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Speaker 1: there ways to prove out this theory that cats are

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Speaker 1: only semi in domesticated. Yeah, there definitely are. So there's

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Speaker 1: this geneticist at Washington University in St. Louis named Wesley Warren,

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Speaker 1: and apparently he and his colleagues looked at DNA from

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Speaker 1: wildcats and breeds of domestic cats. And this is from

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Speaker 1: the New Yorker again. The research showed that genetically cats

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Speaker 1: have actually diverged far less from their wildcats ants sisters

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Speaker 1: than dogs have from wolves. You know, you can kind

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Speaker 1: of see this in the wild, right, Like house cats

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Speaker 1: are better hunters than dogs. They can they can also

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Speaker 1: fend for themselves in the wild. And according to the piece,

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Speaker 1: feral cats have even routinely bred with their wildcat cousins.

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Speaker 1: And according to Warren quote it's not the true differentiation

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Speaker 1: you see between wolf and dog by comparison. His belief

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Speaker 1: is that the modern cat isn't fully domesticated. That is

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Speaker 1: pretty interesting, and to be honest, it kind of explains

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Speaker 1: why I don't fully trust them and I do still

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Speaker 1: almost feel sorry for them, though, well you shouldn't feel

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Speaker 1: too sorry for them, because some people like to joke

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Speaker 1: that these wildcats have actually domesticated us, and you know,

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Speaker 1: they've obviously stayed aloof while we keeping them shelter and

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Speaker 1: putting scratching posts in our houses and allow them to

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Speaker 1: go to the bathroom indoors. But the biggest argument for

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Speaker 1: them having trained does is that they have conditioned humans

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Speaker 1: to feed them on demand with something called solicitation purring.

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Speaker 1: So this comes from the journal Current Biology. But scientists

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Speaker 1: Karen McComb from the University of Sussex analyze the acoustic

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Speaker 1: structure of cat purs and she actually realized that cats

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Speaker 1: dramatically exaggerate their purs all to elicit this emotional response

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Speaker 1: from humans. Apparently it's the same frequency that babies cry at.

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Speaker 1: And it isn't all cats that do this, it's just

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Speaker 1: cats that have one on one relationships with humans. That

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Speaker 1: is pretty manipulative. I mean it's impressive, but it's pretty manipulative. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, they've got us on a tight leash. And

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Speaker 1: also they have a behavior where they rub up against

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Speaker 1: our legs. As you know, we pull a can out

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Speaker 1: to get their food, and that's supposedly rewarding us for

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Speaker 1: being good to them. But there's one more thing that

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Speaker 1: people site as felines clever control over humans, and that's

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Speaker 1: that we actually taste test their food for them. You know,

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Speaker 1: I know we talked about humans taste testing dog food before,

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Speaker 1: but I can't remember, like, why do they do that again?

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Speaker 1: So this comes from a Brock University study from Canada.

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Speaker 1: But basically, the pet food industry has noticed over the

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Speaker 1: years that cats are fussy eaters and they're quote unreliable

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Speaker 1: expensive test subjects in the pursuit of more appealing cat

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Speaker 1: food flavors, and the study basically showed that human taste

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Speaker 1: panels are you know, a much more cost effective way

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Speaker 1: to test can cat food. Apparently, the paper lists of

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Speaker 1: methodology for human testers to quote profile the flavor and

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Speaker 1: texture of a range of cat food products, including evaluating

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Speaker 1: meat chunk and gravy to gel constituents gross you know. So,

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Speaker 1: you know, if we're gonna keep keeping our feline masters happy,

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Speaker 1: more people are going to have to get into the

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Speaker 1: cat food tasting business. Well. I definitely have come away

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Speaker 1: with some understanding of why cats act the way they do,

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Speaker 1: and and maybe even a little admiration for how they

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Speaker 1: manipulate it. But why don't we talk about how cats

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Speaker 1: became so popular in the first place. Let's take a

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Speaker 1: quick break first, welcome back to Part Time Genius where

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Speaker 1: we're talking cats. All right, Mango. So obviously we know

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Speaker 1: that the Internet has done a lot for cat appreciation,

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Speaker 1: and you know, you had grumpy cat Little Bob ruling

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Speaker 1: the internet for a while, and all that I can

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Speaker 1: has cheeseburger memes being such a big thing for a while.

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Speaker 1: But but actually, looking back, Time Magazine kind of predicted

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Speaker 1: this trend way back in nineteen eighty one, right, that's right,

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Speaker 1: And you and I found an old Time magazine cover

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Speaker 1: story from nineteen eight one that declared that cats were

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Speaker 1: the hot new thing. But uh, I'd almost argued that

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Speaker 1: the thing that truly brought cats to the level of

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Speaker 1: popularity and endearment there at now isn't the Internet or

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Speaker 1: Morris or even Garfield comics, which are some of the

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Speaker 1: things that are in this Time article, and I do

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Speaker 1: think we should talk about them, definitely. But one of

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Speaker 1: the things I saw that writer Paul Ford points to

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Speaker 1: is the rise of kitty litter, which is actually a

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Speaker 1: relatively recent invention. I didn't realize this. It only came

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Speaker 1: about in ninete so what were people doing before then?

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Speaker 1: So I had the same question, and basically they had

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Speaker 1: sandboxes outside they'd let their cats go in the yard. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the story is pretty interesting and Ford wrote this up

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Speaker 1: for Medium. But basically, this woman's sandbox for a cat

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Speaker 1: was frozen, so she came to buy some sawdust from

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Speaker 1: a local mill in Michigan. And the guy's name was

427
00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:15,840
Speaker 1: at Low. He had been working for his dad's mill

428
00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:18,360
Speaker 1: at the time, and when she described what she wanted

429
00:22:18,359 --> 00:22:21,080
Speaker 1: for her cat, he gave her an alternative. He had

430
00:22:21,080 --> 00:22:24,000
Speaker 1: this kil and dried granulated clay that they just started

431
00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:27,159
Speaker 1: using for grease spills at the mill, And when she

432
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:29,880
Speaker 1: came back for more, he started labeling a kitty litter

433
00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:32,720
Speaker 1: and tried marketing it. But what's amazing is what a

434
00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:35,199
Speaker 1: business it became. So, according to his obit in the

435
00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:38,240
Speaker 1: New York Times, he sold the product to Ralston Purina

436
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:41,639
Speaker 1: for two d million dollars. And listen to this, he

437
00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:46,560
Speaker 1: owned twenty two homes, a private railroad, a stable of quarterhouses,

438
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:50,919
Speaker 1: and an entire Michigan town. Isn't that incredible? So so

439
00:22:50,960 --> 00:22:55,119
Speaker 1: basically kitty letter changed how we interacted with cats. Yeah, so,

440
00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:58,280
Speaker 1: like all cats were indoor outdoor cats until the advent

441
00:22:58,320 --> 00:23:00,920
Speaker 1: of kitty litter and then slowed more and more cats

442
00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:03,480
Speaker 1: game house bound. But it's also starting to think about

443
00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:07,080
Speaker 1: how much kitty litter we use. So according to Ford's research,

444
00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 1: about twenty companies strip mind about four billion pounds of

445
00:23:10,840 --> 00:23:14,439
Speaker 1: the necessary clay each year, four billion pounds. And and

446
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:18,600
Speaker 1: by comparison, Ford sites the Great Pyramid of Giza only

447
00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:22,080
Speaker 1: ways thirteen billion pounds. I like that, that's the comparison

448
00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:23,800
Speaker 1: to you. So all right, so then you're saying, with

449
00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:26,200
Speaker 1: three or four years of work, you could actually build

450
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:30,360
Speaker 1: this impressive pyramid of kitty letter then, which is amazing.

451
00:23:30,359 --> 00:23:32,200
Speaker 1: But all right, well let's talk about this time article

452
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:34,960
Speaker 1: that because it is pretty fun blind for it. So

453
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:38,919
Speaker 1: this piece basically argued that the nine eighties were this

454
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 1: time that really primed the world to love cats, right, yeah,

455
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 1: And here's just a few of the indicators they show

456
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:46,240
Speaker 1: that cats were on the rise. So the point you

457
00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:48,720
Speaker 1: made earlier, these cat litter boxes in the eighties were

458
00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:51,680
Speaker 1: now oder proof and kick proof, and that made keeping

459
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:53,399
Speaker 1: a box where your cat poops in the house far

460
00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:56,920
Speaker 1: more appealing than it previously was. There were also three

461
00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:00,400
Speaker 1: different Garfield books on the best seller list which cat

462
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,119
Speaker 1: humor had truly arrived. I'm not sure what it says

463
00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:06,359
Speaker 1: about the taste of people in the nineteen eighties that

464
00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:08,720
Speaker 1: three of them were on the bestseller list. And then

465
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:11,840
Speaker 1: California suddenly there were a cat everything's. You could find

466
00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 1: a cat resort at, a cat department store, a cat

467
00:24:14,600 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 1: rest home, a rent a cat agency, a cat dating service.

468
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:20,320
Speaker 1: I have no idea what that is, but it was

469
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:24,239
Speaker 1: one of the things. Cats psychics, cat acting coaches, and

470
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:27,960
Speaker 1: of course a special annual contest to judge cat's meouse.

471
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:30,680
Speaker 1: And then at that time you had Mars, the cat

472
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 1: who was officially declared a celebrity cat, you know, essentially

473
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:36,760
Speaker 1: the feline Burt Reynolds, if you will. And then, as

474
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:40,640
Speaker 1: the story reported, cats were quickly gaining on dogs. According

475
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,520
Speaker 1: to the article, thirty four million cats had worked their

476
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 1: way into homes, which was a fifty increase over the

477
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:50,040
Speaker 1: last decade. Now if you look at those numbers, now

478
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:53,439
Speaker 1: some reports have cats that closer to nine billion cats

479
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 1: in homes, you know, plus the thirty or forty million

480
00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 1: feral community cats that you know, they're the ones that

481
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:00,880
Speaker 1: keep rodents at bay. Yeah, yeah, I guess for all

482
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:03,440
Speaker 1: the jokes about this cat trend like, cats have really

483
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 1: grown on us as a culture. And while you and

484
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:08,360
Speaker 1: I might not be cat people yet, I do think

485
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 1: we have to grudgingly admit that they're pretty amazing creatures.

486
00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:14,439
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not sure I'm there just yet, but

487
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 1: maybe after a few amazing facts. So let's start the

488
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:28,199
Speaker 1: fact off. Do you know that jazz musician Charles Mingus

489
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 1: trained his cat Nightlife to go on the toilet. In fact,

490
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:34,080
Speaker 1: he even wrote a step by step manuel called the

491
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 1: Charles Mingus Catalog for Toilet Training your cat. Well, there

492
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 1: is at least one thing you cannot train a cat

493
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: to do, and that's hold a candle for you. According

494
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:46,480
Speaker 1: to the folks at Qui, Dante desperately tried teaching his

495
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:48,880
Speaker 1: cat to hold a candle for him so he could

496
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:53,119
Speaker 1: write at night, but to no avail, I mean, stupid Dante, Like,

497
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you just get a candle holder? Doesn't make

498
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:59,159
Speaker 1: it never occurred to him for some reason. So you know,

499
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:01,040
Speaker 1: I I know if you will always talk about cats

500
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: incredible ability to land on their feet, but did you

501
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:07,200
Speaker 1: know that cats can survive falls from sixty feet? Now,

502
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 1: obviously this isn't a suggestion for listeners to go test

503
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:12,479
Speaker 1: this out on their cat. Far from it. But uh,

504
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 1: in a study on cats that had fallen from tall buildings,

505
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:20,960
Speaker 1: apparently of them survived, though they did have injuries. And

506
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:23,480
Speaker 1: this comes from our old pal bill domain. But the

507
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:25,879
Speaker 1: study found that cats that fell from heights of seven

508
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:28,920
Speaker 1: to thirty two stories were less likely to die than

509
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 1: those that fell from two to six stories, which makes

510
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:35,160
Speaker 1: no sense. So the scientists know why this is. So

511
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 1: there's actually a lot of theories and and there's been

512
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 1: a lot of research into it. And part of it

513
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: might be that because cats bodies act as a bit

514
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:44,960
Speaker 1: of a parachute, and part of it might be that

515
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:48,159
Speaker 1: cats relax once they've fallen a certain distance. And you know,

516
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 1: the reason babies and stuff men often survive accidents is

517
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 1: that they bounced because they don't tense up their muscles.

518
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:56,240
Speaker 1: I mean, I always love that buttered cat paradox, you know,

519
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 1: because cats always land on their feet and butter bread

520
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:01,679
Speaker 1: always lands face down. So like if you tie a

521
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 1: piece of buttered bread to a cat's back and then

522
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 1: drop it, well the cat just like hover above the floor.

523
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: I love that. So here's a quick one about cats

524
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:14,119
Speaker 1: making the world a better place. So in two thousand

525
00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: seven the New York Times. Before that, Thailand was shaming

526
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 1: wayward cops. You know, these were the officers who were littering,

527
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: or parking in the wrong place, or even showing little

528
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:26,199
Speaker 1: abuses of power. And they did this with an unusual method.

529
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 1: They started making them wear pink Hello Kitty arm bands. And,

530
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 1: as a police chief told The Times after the policy

531
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: came out, police were scared, it will be very embarrassing

532
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:40,360
Speaker 1: to walk around with Hello Kitty on your arm. What's strange, though,

533
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 1: is that this is actually the second variation on this

534
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 1: arm band technique. So there was a previous iteration where

535
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:50,440
Speaker 1: they gave bad cops plaid arm bands. But unfortunately the

536
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:53,200
Speaker 1: they were seen as like gestures of pride or something,

537
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 1: and they started taking them home and treating them like metals.

538
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:58,160
Speaker 1: All right, well, here's a strange bit of science. According

539
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 1: to News, scientists, cats don't understand the cause and effect

540
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 1: of tugging on a string. You'll have to explain what

541
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 1: do you mean by this. Well, there was a study

542
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: at Canterbury christ Church University in the UK and there

543
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:10,200
Speaker 1: was a team of researchers and what they did was

544
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: they attached fish or biscuit trees to the end of

545
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 1: one string, and then they put another string with no

546
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:19,360
Speaker 1: treat attached. And according to the researchers, the cats couldn't

547
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: see the cause and effect. The story states, chimps, parrots, ravens,

548
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 1: they all understand that tugging on one end of a

549
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:29,399
Speaker 1: string will bring a treat closer. But cats don't, and

550
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 1: there aren't alone. So pigeons and human infants also don't

551
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 1: pick up on this, and for the record, neither do dogs.

552
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: So speaking of cats and dogs, did you know that

553
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 1: if your dogs overweight, there's actually a good chance you'll

554
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 1: be overweight too? And in two thousand and ten, the

555
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 1: journal Public Health Nutrition published a study from Amsterdam that

556
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 1: showed that there's a significant relationship between overweight dogs and

557
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 1: the b m I of their owners. But if your

558
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 1: cat is overweight, it's not a good predictor of whether

559
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 1: you'll be overweight. It's because you and your cat are

560
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:01,280
Speaker 1: just you know, on your own, living your best lives.

561
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: Is that what it is? Okay? All right, Well here's

562
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: a strange one. So Japan is obsessed with cats, right,

563
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 1: and that's that's no surprise. Obviously, it's the land of

564
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:13,000
Speaker 1: waving porcelain cats that sit in stores and responsible for

565
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 1: Hello Kitty, and I think it's where cat cafes started.

566
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 1: But but now also they have cat bars and cat

567
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 1: cafe train cars, so they are definitely cat obsessed. There's

568
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: even a hand lotion that's now cat paw scented, so

569
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 1: your hands can smell more like the bottom of your cats.

570
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: I don't know why people want this, but it is

571
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 1: available now. But you know how cats make biscuits in

572
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 1: the morning, right, Yeah, that's when they kind of like

573
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 1: wake you up and gently need on owners chests in

574
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: the morning for attention. So the craziest story I read

575
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 1: is that there's a spa in Japan where they offer

576
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: these cat treatments as back massages. You can actually pay

577
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:50,480
Speaker 1: to have a cat need your back. It was really

578
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: hard for me to even just say that. Stapid so

579
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 1: ter It's both amazing and terrifying to me. So do

580
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 1: you know that hats aren't actually the only creatures they

581
00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 1: get hairballs? Cows and rabbits get them too. That's weird alright.

582
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: So here's one about Mark Twain, the notorious cat lover,

583
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 1: as we mentioned earlier. Now, one thing he truly enjoyed

584
00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 1: was giving his cats strange names. So here are a

585
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 1: few of them. He had Appollinaris, Beasel, bub blather, Skite, Buffalo, Bill, Satan, Sourmash,

586
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: Soapy Sell, Pestilence, and Bambino. And actually I have one

587
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: more fact about Twain. Apparently Bambino escaped one day and

588
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:30,960
Speaker 1: Twain was so worried that he did what any cat

589
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: lover would do, and he put an ad in the

590
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: New York newspapers and offered a five dollar reward for this.

591
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: It was a large and intensely black cat. Now, Bambino

592
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 1: showed up on his own in a few days, but

593
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 1: putting an ad in the paper was a huge mistake.

594
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: Years later, people were still using it as an excuse

595
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 1: to try to meet Mark Twain. They would just show

596
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 1: up at his door with like random cat that they claimed,

597
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 1: we're definitely Bambino. Well, you know, I thought I had

598
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 1: you with my Hello Pitti fact, but I think you

599
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 1: best to meet with that Mark Twain one too, So

600
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 1: I'm actually gonna give you the Cat Fact Trophy today. Wow,

601
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 1: it is truly an honor, And listeners, I hope you've

602
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's list of facts about cats. If we have

603
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 1: forgotten any great fact, please send those to us. We'd

604
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:17,239
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Part Time Genius and How

605
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. You can also call our fact

606
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,800
Speaker 1: hot line one eight four four pt Genius or hit

607
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 1: us up on Facebook or Twitter. I hope we have

608
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 1: redeemed ourselves a little bit with all the cat lovers

609
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 1: out there with today's little vote. I have a bit

610
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 1: more respect for cats now. But thank you guys for listening.

611
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production

612
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several

613
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 1: brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even

614
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 1: begin to understand. CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing. Noel

615
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 1: Brown made the theme song and does mixy mixy sound thing.

616
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gave Louesier is

617
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 1: our lead researcher, with support from the research Army including

618
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff

619
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 1: Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.

620
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe.

621
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: And if you really really like what you've heard maybe

622
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 1: you could leave a good review for us. Do we

623
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: do we forget Jason? Jason who