Speaker 1: Guess what. Well, what's that, Mango? So I was looking
Speaker 1: online and I found this description for a job that's
Speaker 1: definitely not for us. Professional cat cutler. Yeah, I'd have
Speaker 1: to agree with that. And first of all, why is
Speaker 1: that a job? So? I have no idea. And this
Speaker 1: posting is from late January this year and it was
Speaker 1: put up by a cat's only veterinary clinic in Ireland.
Speaker 1: But here's a list of some of the questions you'd
Speaker 1: have to answer to see if this job is right
Speaker 1: for you, and these are all real. Are you a
Speaker 1: crazy cat person and love cats already? I'm thinking that's
Speaker 1: all right. Does catitude come to you naturally? So I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say we have high cattitude levels? Have you counted
Speaker 1: kittens before you go to sleep? Do you feed stray
Speaker 1: cats in your locality? Does pett and cats make you
Speaker 1: warm and fuzzy? I mean, I gotta be honest, Mango,
Speaker 1: I can't say that any of those sound like me.
Speaker 1: So I can't think of a job you're less suited for.
Speaker 1: And the job basically involves calming down skittish cats and
Speaker 1: Mr me doggying them into a zen like space so
Speaker 1: the vets can see them. But one of the biggest
Speaker 1: criticisms of our show has been that we're not kind
Speaker 1: enough to cats on the program. You are, of course
Speaker 1: scared of them, and I have let's call it a
Speaker 1: healthy respect for them. So I thought it was time
Speaker 1: for a cat intervention, or a cattervention. We're gonna increase
Speaker 1: our empathy of cats and try to understand them a
Speaker 1: little better and maybe even call out some of their achievements,
Speaker 1: and perhaps by the end of this all you and
Speaker 1: I will be begging for that cat cuddling job. Well
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I see that happening, but let's dive in.
Speaker 1: Heay their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 1: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 1: friend Man Guesho Ticketer and sitting behind that soundproof glass
Speaker 1: surrounded by cat themed music albums, and there are far
Speaker 1: more of these than I expected from him. But he's
Speaker 1: got cat power. Cat Stevens, I think Latigre Acoustic Kitty
Speaker 1: and I didn't see the album cover for this, but
Speaker 1: I swear is that Garfields smooth Jazz I hear playing
Speaker 1: in the background. It is so Tristan was showing me
Speaker 1: this earlier. It's all Garfield inspired music, but my favorite
Speaker 1: is that is where it's at, you know, because Garfield
Speaker 1: needs a lot, right Thanks for explaining that that guy
Speaker 1: has the best taste and novelty albums, and that of
Speaker 1: course is our friend and producer Tristan McNeil, now Mango.
Speaker 1: As you know, we've gotten some criticism about not being
Speaker 1: cat friendly enough on the show, and I have to
Speaker 1: be honest, it's a little bit surprising how much we've
Speaker 1: heard from listeners about this. Yeah, I mean it was
Speaker 1: really shocking to me too, and I actually love all animals,
Speaker 1: or at least most furry animals. And you know this,
Speaker 1: but maybe some listeners don't. There was a long period
Speaker 1: of my life where I've dreamed had become a vet.
Speaker 1: And also, for the record, we had cats on a
Speaker 1: bunch of covers of Metal Flass. Plus the first story
Speaker 1: I wrote on metal fast dot com was about a
Speaker 1: cat piano, so I had no idea where he came
Speaker 1: across this anti cat's right, you wrote about what was
Speaker 1: it called the cats and Clavier. It was this musical
Speaker 1: instrument that I think it was. It was inmitted to
Speaker 1: cheer up a prince or something. Is that right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it was like a piano, but instead of strings,
Speaker 1: you just put kittens in a box behind each key
Speaker 1: and it was supposed to gently prod the kitten to
Speaker 1: yaw in tune. And there was this modern version of
Speaker 1: it that was made with toy cats all tuned to
Speaker 1: different notes with this dude playing over the rainbow on
Speaker 1: them by squeezing them in order. I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: video this on YouTube, but all that mewing isn't exactly music,
Speaker 1: but it's also not not music either. I have definitely
Speaker 1: seen that video a few times and it's pretty great.
Speaker 1: And you know, it is interesting how polarizing cats are.
Speaker 1: And for the record, I should say I don't hate cats.
Speaker 1: I just happened to be terrified of cats. When I
Speaker 1: was growing up. I was across the street from Triplet Boys.
Speaker 1: They had a family cat, and not intentionally but just
Speaker 1: by being Triplet Boys, they tortured this cat, and the
Speaker 1: cat decided to take out all of its anger on
Speaker 1: me for some reason and attacked me every time I
Speaker 1: came over there. So I just wanted to put that
Speaker 1: out there. But it has been really weird as we
Speaker 1: just make these little jokes about cats on the show.
Speaker 1: These I guess we think of them as like throwaway comments,
Speaker 1: and then the angry letters that we hear from people
Speaker 1: about I don't know if I can listen to this
Speaker 1: show because you guys hate cats. But this we, we
Speaker 1: apparently are not alone in this polarizing world of cats.
Speaker 1: I actually found this quote by the American writer Carl
Speaker 1: van Vechten, and he wrote a book called Tiger in
Speaker 1: the House, which is really all about house cats. And
Speaker 1: here's how he talks about people's strong feelings about cats.
Speaker 1: And I actually really like this quote. So he says,
Speaker 1: one is permitted to assume an attitude of placid and
Speaker 1: difference in some matters elephants, cockatoo's h g well Sweden,
Speaker 1: roast beef, puccini, even Mormonism. But in the matter of cats,
Speaker 1: it seems necessary to take a firm stand. The cat
Speaker 1: himself insists upon this. He invariably inspires strong feelings. He
Speaker 1: is indeed the only animal who does well. It is
Speaker 1: true that cats definitely inspire strong feelings. And when we've
Speaker 1: joked on the show about not being cat lovers, people
Speaker 1: have written in and said, uh, you know who also
Speaker 1: hated cats? Hitler and also Napoleon and Mussolini, and I
Speaker 1: looked this up. It's true they were cat hitters. Like
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure all three of them also hated
Speaker 1: like broccoli and homework, So it doesn't really mean that
Speaker 1: much like a lot of people, just like a lot
Speaker 1: of things. But I was intrigued by the comments, so
Speaker 1: I looked up other famous cat hitters in history. And
Speaker 1: it's not a good look for us to be perceived
Speaker 1: this way. And so in addition to Napoleon and Mussolini,
Speaker 1: you've got Genghis Khan Stalin also hated cats. Caesar Alexander
Speaker 1: the Great, Eisenhower, for some reason, is on the list,
Speaker 1: but frankly, I'm a little surprised at Polpon and Daman
Speaker 1: aren't on there as well. To round out the limbs,
Speaker 1: a lot of terrible people, I mean, aside aside from Eisenhower,
Speaker 1: who we love for building highways and infrastructure, of infrastructure.
Speaker 1: I love infrastructure. But you know, I think what's worse
Speaker 1: than the list of horrible people is when cat fans
Speaker 1: tell you about all the great people who were obsessed
Speaker 1: with cats. You've got Abe Lincoln, who was notorious for
Speaker 1: his love of cats, and his wife Mary Todd once
Speaker 1: said that cats were his only hobby. Also, they've got
Speaker 1: the prophet Mohammed, Nicola Tesla, St. Francis of ASSISI, Mark Twain,
Speaker 1: Florence Nightingale, Catherine the Great, Charles Mingus, and all of
Speaker 1: the Brontes, all the Brontes, even Brandwell Bronte I checked
Speaker 1: up on this mango. They got Brandwell Well. Obviously, of
Speaker 1: those two sample sets, i'd I'd rather be associated with
Speaker 1: the cat lovers and the cat hitters. But I was
Speaker 1: trying to figure out why it is that dictators and
Speaker 1: world conquerors don't like cats. And here's one theory about
Speaker 1: it that I found that's popular on cat sites, and
Speaker 1: it goes like this quote. It might just be that
Speaker 1: cat people who have dreams of dominating the world can't
Speaker 1: get used to the idea that cats won't submit to them.
Speaker 1: So is the idea that like, cats are just too
Speaker 1: independent minded for dictators or what exactly? And truthfully, that's
Speaker 1: also a big part of what cat people like about cats.
Speaker 1: They're total independence, right, Like people are always saying cats
Speaker 1: have more personality than dogs and that they're less needy
Speaker 1: and they're like a little more badass and rock and
Speaker 1: roll or something. And in fact, this is a little
Speaker 1: off topic, but one of the cat origin stories I read,
Speaker 1: and this is an Islamic tale I believe, is that
Speaker 1: Noah was on his arc and during the storm, he
Speaker 1: became really afraid that the mice on board would eat
Speaker 1: all the food, or even worse, that they'd nibble through
Speaker 1: the floors and create these holes in the arc, kind
Speaker 1: of just like putting all the other animals and jeopardies.
Speaker 1: So he prayed for a solution, and God answered his
Speaker 1: wishes by having a lion sneeze, and out of both
Speaker 1: nostrils from that sneeze emerged two cats, which is I
Speaker 1: guess how cats came to be. And I mean, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a sweet origin story in terms of myths,
Speaker 1: But I feel like you can interpret the story in
Speaker 1: two ways, right, Like cats are either God's gift to humanity,
Speaker 1: like what adorable little God bless you they are, or
Speaker 1: no one needed a ruthless killing machine on the ship
Speaker 1: and God provided cats. I think I'm might lane towards
Speaker 1: the latter of it. I'm gonna be careful. I don't
Speaker 1: need any more hate mail about this, but I have
Speaker 1: a different question here. Mago like, how useless is every
Speaker 1: other animal on the arc, Like why couldn't any of
Speaker 1: the owls on board pitch in for this effort? I know, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, the truth is cats are incredible hunting machines.
Speaker 1: And I read this crazy story in the New York
Speaker 1: Times from five years ago, and that's when the Smithsonian's
Speaker 1: Conservation Biology Institute teamed up with the US Fish and
Speaker 1: Wildlife Service to do some research on cats, and they
Speaker 1: wanted to identify how much wildlife these cats were killing
Speaker 1: every year, so they used cameras and create this new
Speaker 1: math model, and basically they were stunned by the results.
Speaker 1: So listen to this between feral and domestic cats. The
Speaker 1: domestic ones, you know, are the ones that get to
Speaker 1: roam outdoors while sleeping indoors. Together, they kill about two
Speaker 1: point four billion birds every year. And also they killed
Speaker 1: twelve point three billion mammals a year, and most of
Speaker 1: those those things like shrews and chipmunks and bowls, along
Speaker 1: with mice. I kind of want to know how they
Speaker 1: came up with that estimate of twelve point three billion mammals,
Speaker 1: but either way, it's insane and terrifying. So I don't
Speaker 1: understand like, why would this make me like cats? More
Speaker 1: so we've talked about this on the program before, but
Speaker 1: those mousers are also keeping places like Disney parks and
Speaker 1: houses and also city streets more free of vermin. And also,
Speaker 1: I I've read this thing about how they're all these
Speaker 1: cat islands in Japan that are super popular as tourist destinations,
Speaker 1: just places where they're all these feral cats, And initially
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like, who wants to go to these islands?
Speaker 1: But one of the arguments I was reading online that
Speaker 1: I had actually never thought about was most people can
Speaker 1: go to a cat island and not be terrified because
Speaker 1: these small feral cats aren't going to bother you. They
Speaker 1: just don't care about you. But you know, if you
Speaker 1: went to a wild dog island and they were just
Speaker 1: wild packs of you know, feral dogs there, you'd be terrified,
Speaker 1: like you want to call animal control because roaming packs
Speaker 1: of wild dogs aren't fun. But you know, the cats
Speaker 1: don't have that herd mentality. I mean, that's an interesting point.
Speaker 1: But to be fair, if you put the word feral
Speaker 1: in front of any animal, like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be near those and I have no desire to hang
Speaker 1: out with I don't know, like Australia's feral camel population
Speaker 1: or any of these other animals, but you know, you
Speaker 1: started talking about cat origins and and killer cats, and
Speaker 1: you were talking about how cat lovers tend to love
Speaker 1: the animals independence And actually I had a story that
Speaker 1: I wanted to share just real quick. So while freethinking
Speaker 1: critters might be great for pet owners, they're not great
Speaker 1: for filmmakers. I was reading this interer you with the
Speaker 1: Cohen brothers about filming inside Lewin Davis, and they were
Speaker 1: talking about how hard it was to shoot the cat
Speaker 1: in the movie. So here's a quote from an NPR
Speaker 1: interview that Ethan Cohen did, and he says, the whole
Speaker 1: exercise of shooting a cat is pretty nightmarish because they
Speaker 1: don't care about anything. They don't want to do what
Speaker 1: you want them to do. As the animal trainer said
Speaker 1: to us, a dog wants to please you. A cat
Speaker 1: only wants to please itself. It was just this long, painstaking,
Speaker 1: frustrating day shooting the cat, which to me is a
Speaker 1: little refreshing. You know that cats don't want to be
Speaker 1: seen as film stars, but you know, I've seen Lewin Davison.
Speaker 1: I loved it, But how do they get all those
Speaker 1: shots eventually? Like, I'm guessing they didn't use c g I. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, they used a lot of cats, and
Speaker 1: a cat trainer told them specifically to use a marmalade
Speaker 1: orange tabby because it's easier to get a lot of
Speaker 1: them on hand. So they had three or four cats
Speaker 1: ready for each scene, and essentially they had to find
Speaker 1: cats that had a predisposition for doing whatever it was
Speaker 1: that they were looking for. So, like, if you needed
Speaker 1: a fidgety cat to jump out of someone's hand ends,
Speaker 1: you have to find a cat that tends to do
Speaker 1: that all the time and hates to be held. So
Speaker 1: you get that type of cat for one angle. But
Speaker 1: then you know, if you want them to rub against
Speaker 1: the table or run down a fire escape, you need
Speaker 1: to find the cat that wants to do that naturally.
Speaker 1: And even then when they had those cats on hand,
Speaker 1: the cats rarely did what they wanted. The Cohen Brothers
Speaker 1: actually compared the experience to having to film a vulture
Speaker 1: in True Grit. They said the vulture was awful, and
Speaker 1: they said that was even by vulture standards, And even
Speaker 1: though the experience was really frustrating. They'd take filming a
Speaker 1: vulture scene over a cat scene any day, so that
Speaker 1: that is ridiculous. And I do love that story. But
Speaker 1: here's the thing, and maybe it's something that will increase
Speaker 1: our own empathy for cats, But I don't actually think
Speaker 1: it's a cat's fault that they're so independent. And why
Speaker 1: is that? Because there's a theory that cats aren't actually
Speaker 1: domesticated animals. They've never had to be domesticated. But even
Speaker 1: more than that, the theory goes, these clever, adorable beasts
Speaker 1: have over a thousands of years, actually domesticated us. But
Speaker 1: before we talk about that, let's take a little break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, and we're talking cats.
Speaker 1: So a mango. I know you're going to tell us
Speaker 1: about cats and domestication, but before we talk about a
Speaker 1: cat in the household, let's talk about cats breaking up households.
Speaker 1: And you know that totally unfair reputation they got for
Speaker 1: causing divorces in America. So I obviously know people are
Speaker 1: attached to their animals, but I've never heard about this trend.
Speaker 1: So what's the scoop? Well, this comes from Natalie Zarelli
Speaker 1: at Atlas Obscura, and she reports that once the Married
Speaker 1: Women's Property Act took hold in America, there was actually
Speaker 1: an uptick in the number of divorces, and essentially unhappy
Speaker 1: couples weren't doomed to stay together, but you still had
Speaker 1: to have someone at fault and it had to be irreconcilable.
Speaker 1: So a big strategy from the nineteen tens going forward
Speaker 1: where couples that they just started blaming their cats. That's
Speaker 1: pretty crazy. I've never heard of that, you know. I
Speaker 1: actually remember one of our friends from college had a
Speaker 1: grandmother who got divorced, and he told me that the
Speaker 1: couple staged her walking in on him with another woman,
Speaker 1: and it was purely so that they had a traumatic
Speaker 1: story to tell. The New York Chorus. But you know,
Speaker 1: just blaming a cat would have been so much easier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say that would have been a lot easier.
Speaker 1: There's actually a story from this piece in nineteen o
Speaker 1: three where a man told the judge this horror story.
Speaker 1: He says, a cat met him at every turn with
Speaker 1: an angry and a chorus of blood curdling mews. Apparently
Speaker 1: he find cats in his bed sheets and when he
Speaker 1: tried to escape them. He was too scared to leave
Speaker 1: the bed, you know, lest he should expose his bare
Speaker 1: feet to the claws of numerous pussies and provoke a
Speaker 1: melody that would ring in his ears for the rest
Speaker 1: of the day. So that feels so dramatic. Well, he
Speaker 1: really had to sell it to the judge. And you know,
Speaker 1: if the judge asked why the husband didn't just get
Speaker 1: rid of the cats, often there'd be some story about
Speaker 1: his wife being involved in like the A s p c. A,
Speaker 1: which I guess felt virtuous or something. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: there were lots of these stories. Oh, there's tons of
Speaker 1: these stories that There's actually also a Civil War veteran
Speaker 1: who claims he could never sit in his easy chair
Speaker 1: because the cat was always there hissing at him. There
Speaker 1: was another there was a wife that said she didn't
Speaker 1: mind her husband's profanity, but it was too much when
Speaker 1: he heaved the family cat at her. And looking at
Speaker 1: that case, apparently she wanted twelve hundred dollars for the
Speaker 1: humiliation of being beamed by the family cat. Just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: There was also another dude who was upset that his
Speaker 1: wife kept fifty cats around the house and gave them
Speaker 1: more attention than him. Well, I mean, fifty cats would
Speaker 1: need a lot of attention. Well, in court, she testified
Speaker 1: that she only had fifteen cats. But you know, since
Speaker 1: her husband didn't come home most nights, they were both
Speaker 1: interested in splitting up. And you know, most of these
Speaker 1: stories were either made up or just greatly exaggerated. So
Speaker 1: how long did this cat blaming go on for? According
Speaker 1: to the article, cats were scapegoats for really about a century,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until nineteen sixty nine, when no fault
Speaker 1: divorce laws started becoming adopted by states that suddenly all
Speaker 1: the cat blaming disappeared from the newspaper stories, which is
Speaker 1: pretty insane. And uh, you know you feel sorry for
Speaker 1: the cats. I know it's it's true. It's weird to
Speaker 1: say that, but I actually do feel a little sorry
Speaker 1: for them. But you were going to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about this idea that cats aren't really domesticated. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: you know, aside from that lion sneezing theory about cats,
Speaker 1: researchers have actually found cat bones near human bones for
Speaker 1: a while. There's a New Yorker piece on this, but
Speaker 1: in China, by analyzing the bones and teeth of cats
Speaker 1: skeletons from about five thousand years ago. Scientists can actually
Speaker 1: show that cats were eating rodents and grains as well
Speaker 1: as leftovers from human meals. And basically cats were opportunistic, right, Like,
Speaker 1: they realized that rodents were plentiful around these farmers stores
Speaker 1: of grain, so they ingratiated themselves. And people were opportunistic.
Speaker 1: They were us that cats would kill off the disease
Speaker 1: carrying vermin for them, and it was relatively little investment,
Speaker 1: Like they didn't actually have to train the cats. All
Speaker 1: they had to do was give them some shelter and
Speaker 1: like a little extra food to eat, and then just
Speaker 1: lean on their natural instincts. It was totally symbiotic. But
Speaker 1: you know, cats were never bred for traits the way
Speaker 1: dogs or cattle were. Like, you know, you look at
Speaker 1: a docs and then you see how that dog was
Speaker 1: bred to go after badgers, right, it was supposed to
Speaker 1: chase badgers down badger holes and it's fearless, but it's
Speaker 1: also shape for that, with that sort of long noodle
Speaker 1: like shape. And uh, you know, cat reading is a
Speaker 1: relatively recent phenomenon by the comparison, So I mean, are
Speaker 1: there ways to prove out this theory that cats are
Speaker 1: only semi in domesticated. Yeah, there definitely are. So there's
Speaker 1: this geneticist at Washington University in St. Louis named Wesley Warren,
Speaker 1: and apparently he and his colleagues looked at DNA from
Speaker 1: wildcats and breeds of domestic cats. And this is from
Speaker 1: the New Yorker again. The research showed that genetically cats
Speaker 1: have actually diverged far less from their wildcats ants sisters
Speaker 1: than dogs have from wolves. You know, you can kind
Speaker 1: of see this in the wild, right, Like house cats
Speaker 1: are better hunters than dogs. They can they can also
Speaker 1: fend for themselves in the wild. And according to the piece,
Speaker 1: feral cats have even routinely bred with their wildcat cousins.
Speaker 1: And according to Warren quote it's not the true differentiation
Speaker 1: you see between wolf and dog by comparison. His belief
Speaker 1: is that the modern cat isn't fully domesticated. That is
Speaker 1: pretty interesting, and to be honest, it kind of explains
Speaker 1: why I don't fully trust them and I do still
Speaker 1: almost feel sorry for them, though, well you shouldn't feel
Speaker 1: too sorry for them, because some people like to joke
Speaker 1: that these wildcats have actually domesticated us, and you know,
Speaker 1: they've obviously stayed aloof while we keeping them shelter and
Speaker 1: putting scratching posts in our houses and allow them to
Speaker 1: go to the bathroom indoors. But the biggest argument for
Speaker 1: them having trained does is that they have conditioned humans
Speaker 1: to feed them on demand with something called solicitation purring.
Speaker 1: So this comes from the journal Current Biology. But scientists
Speaker 1: Karen McComb from the University of Sussex analyze the acoustic
Speaker 1: structure of cat purs and she actually realized that cats
Speaker 1: dramatically exaggerate their purs all to elicit this emotional response
Speaker 1: from humans. Apparently it's the same frequency that babies cry at.
Speaker 1: And it isn't all cats that do this, it's just
Speaker 1: cats that have one on one relationships with humans. That
Speaker 1: is pretty manipulative. I mean it's impressive, but it's pretty manipulative. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, they've got us on a tight leash. And
Speaker 1: also they have a behavior where they rub up against
Speaker 1: our legs. As you know, we pull a can out
Speaker 1: to get their food, and that's supposedly rewarding us for
Speaker 1: being good to them. But there's one more thing that
Speaker 1: people site as felines clever control over humans, and that's
Speaker 1: that we actually taste test their food for them. You know,
Speaker 1: I know we talked about humans taste testing dog food before,
Speaker 1: but I can't remember, like, why do they do that again?
Speaker 1: So this comes from a Brock University study from Canada.
Speaker 1: But basically, the pet food industry has noticed over the
Speaker 1: years that cats are fussy eaters and they're quote unreliable
Speaker 1: expensive test subjects in the pursuit of more appealing cat
Speaker 1: food flavors, and the study basically showed that human taste
Speaker 1: panels are you know, a much more cost effective way
Speaker 1: to test can cat food. Apparently, the paper lists of
Speaker 1: methodology for human testers to quote profile the flavor and
Speaker 1: texture of a range of cat food products, including evaluating
Speaker 1: meat chunk and gravy to gel constituents gross you know. So,
Speaker 1: you know, if we're gonna keep keeping our feline masters happy,
Speaker 1: more people are going to have to get into the
Speaker 1: cat food tasting business. Well. I definitely have come away
Speaker 1: with some understanding of why cats act the way they do,
Speaker 1: and and maybe even a little admiration for how they
Speaker 1: manipulate it. But why don't we talk about how cats
Speaker 1: became so popular in the first place. Let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break first, welcome back to Part Time Genius where
Speaker 1: we're talking cats. All right, Mango. So obviously we know
Speaker 1: that the Internet has done a lot for cat appreciation,
Speaker 1: and you know, you had grumpy cat Little Bob ruling
Speaker 1: the internet for a while, and all that I can
Speaker 1: has cheeseburger memes being such a big thing for a while.
Speaker 1: But but actually, looking back, Time Magazine kind of predicted
Speaker 1: this trend way back in nineteen eighty one, right, that's right,
Speaker 1: And you and I found an old Time magazine cover
Speaker 1: story from nineteen eight one that declared that cats were
Speaker 1: the hot new thing. But uh, I'd almost argued that
Speaker 1: the thing that truly brought cats to the level of
Speaker 1: popularity and endearment there at now isn't the Internet or
Speaker 1: Morris or even Garfield comics, which are some of the
Speaker 1: things that are in this Time article, and I do
Speaker 1: think we should talk about them, definitely. But one of
Speaker 1: the things I saw that writer Paul Ford points to
Speaker 1: is the rise of kitty litter, which is actually a
Speaker 1: relatively recent invention. I didn't realize this. It only came
Speaker 1: about in ninete so what were people doing before then?
Speaker 1: So I had the same question, and basically they had
Speaker 1: sandboxes outside they'd let their cats go in the yard. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the story is pretty interesting and Ford wrote this up
Speaker 1: for Medium. But basically, this woman's sandbox for a cat
Speaker 1: was frozen, so she came to buy some sawdust from
Speaker 1: a local mill in Michigan. And the guy's name was
Speaker 1: at Low. He had been working for his dad's mill
Speaker 1: at the time, and when she described what she wanted
Speaker 1: for her cat, he gave her an alternative. He had
Speaker 1: this kil and dried granulated clay that they just started
Speaker 1: using for grease spills at the mill, And when she
Speaker 1: came back for more, he started labeling a kitty litter
Speaker 1: and tried marketing it. But what's amazing is what a
Speaker 1: business it became. So, according to his obit in the
Speaker 1: New York Times, he sold the product to Ralston Purina
Speaker 1: for two d million dollars. And listen to this, he
Speaker 1: owned twenty two homes, a private railroad, a stable of quarterhouses,
Speaker 1: and an entire Michigan town. Isn't that incredible? So so
Speaker 1: basically kitty letter changed how we interacted with cats. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: like all cats were indoor outdoor cats until the advent
Speaker 1: of kitty litter and then slowed more and more cats
Speaker 1: game house bound. But it's also starting to think about
Speaker 1: how much kitty litter we use. So according to Ford's research,
Speaker 1: about twenty companies strip mind about four billion pounds of
Speaker 1: the necessary clay each year, four billion pounds. And and
Speaker 1: by comparison, Ford sites the Great Pyramid of Giza only
Speaker 1: ways thirteen billion pounds. I like that, that's the comparison
Speaker 1: to you. So all right, so then you're saying, with
Speaker 1: three or four years of work, you could actually build
Speaker 1: this impressive pyramid of kitty letter then, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: But all right, well let's talk about this time article
Speaker 1: that because it is pretty fun blind for it. So
Speaker 1: this piece basically argued that the nine eighties were this
Speaker 1: time that really primed the world to love cats, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And here's just a few of the indicators they show
Speaker 1: that cats were on the rise. So the point you
Speaker 1: made earlier, these cat litter boxes in the eighties were
Speaker 1: now oder proof and kick proof, and that made keeping
Speaker 1: a box where your cat poops in the house far
Speaker 1: more appealing than it previously was. There were also three
Speaker 1: different Garfield books on the best seller list which cat
Speaker 1: humor had truly arrived. I'm not sure what it says
Speaker 1: about the taste of people in the nineteen eighties that
Speaker 1: three of them were on the bestseller list. And then
Speaker 1: California suddenly there were a cat everything's. You could find
Speaker 1: a cat resort at, a cat department store, a cat
Speaker 1: rest home, a rent a cat agency, a cat dating service.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what that is, but it was
Speaker 1: one of the things. Cats psychics, cat acting coaches, and
Speaker 1: of course a special annual contest to judge cat's meouse.
Speaker 1: And then at that time you had Mars, the cat
Speaker 1: who was officially declared a celebrity cat, you know, essentially
Speaker 1: the feline Burt Reynolds, if you will. And then, as
Speaker 1: the story reported, cats were quickly gaining on dogs. According
Speaker 1: to the article, thirty four million cats had worked their
Speaker 1: way into homes, which was a fifty increase over the
Speaker 1: last decade. Now if you look at those numbers, now
Speaker 1: some reports have cats that closer to nine billion cats
Speaker 1: in homes, you know, plus the thirty or forty million
Speaker 1: feral community cats that you know, they're the ones that
Speaker 1: keep rodents at bay. Yeah, yeah, I guess for all
Speaker 1: the jokes about this cat trend like, cats have really
Speaker 1: grown on us as a culture. And while you and
Speaker 1: I might not be cat people yet, I do think
Speaker 1: we have to grudgingly admit that they're pretty amazing creatures.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not sure I'm there just yet, but
Speaker 1: maybe after a few amazing facts. So let's start the
Speaker 1: fact off. Do you know that jazz musician Charles Mingus
Speaker 1: trained his cat Nightlife to go on the toilet. In fact,
Speaker 1: he even wrote a step by step manuel called the
Speaker 1: Charles Mingus Catalog for Toilet Training your cat. Well, there
Speaker 1: is at least one thing you cannot train a cat
Speaker 1: to do, and that's hold a candle for you. According
Speaker 1: to the folks at Qui, Dante desperately tried teaching his
Speaker 1: cat to hold a candle for him so he could
Speaker 1: write at night, but to no avail, I mean, stupid Dante, Like,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you just get a candle holder? Doesn't make
Speaker 1: it never occurred to him for some reason. So you know,
Speaker 1: I I know if you will always talk about cats
Speaker 1: incredible ability to land on their feet, but did you
Speaker 1: know that cats can survive falls from sixty feet? Now,
Speaker 1: obviously this isn't a suggestion for listeners to go test
Speaker 1: this out on their cat. Far from it. But uh,
Speaker 1: in a study on cats that had fallen from tall buildings,
Speaker 1: apparently of them survived, though they did have injuries. And
Speaker 1: this comes from our old pal bill domain. But the
Speaker 1: study found that cats that fell from heights of seven
Speaker 1: to thirty two stories were less likely to die than
Speaker 1: those that fell from two to six stories, which makes
Speaker 1: no sense. So the scientists know why this is. So
Speaker 1: there's actually a lot of theories and and there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of research into it. And part of it
Speaker 1: might be that because cats bodies act as a bit
Speaker 1: of a parachute, and part of it might be that
Speaker 1: cats relax once they've fallen a certain distance. And you know,
Speaker 1: the reason babies and stuff men often survive accidents is
Speaker 1: that they bounced because they don't tense up their muscles.
Speaker 1: I mean, I always love that buttered cat paradox, you know,
Speaker 1: because cats always land on their feet and butter bread
Speaker 1: always lands face down. So like if you tie a
Speaker 1: piece of buttered bread to a cat's back and then
Speaker 1: drop it, well the cat just like hover above the floor.
Speaker 1: I love that. So here's a quick one about cats
Speaker 1: making the world a better place. So in two thousand
Speaker 1: seven the New York Times. Before that, Thailand was shaming
Speaker 1: wayward cops. You know, these were the officers who were littering,
Speaker 1: or parking in the wrong place, or even showing little
Speaker 1: abuses of power. And they did this with an unusual method.
Speaker 1: They started making them wear pink Hello Kitty arm bands. And,
Speaker 1: as a police chief told The Times after the policy
Speaker 1: came out, police were scared, it will be very embarrassing
Speaker 1: to walk around with Hello Kitty on your arm. What's strange, though,
Speaker 1: is that this is actually the second variation on this
Speaker 1: arm band technique. So there was a previous iteration where
Speaker 1: they gave bad cops plaid arm bands. But unfortunately the
Speaker 1: they were seen as like gestures of pride or something,
Speaker 1: and they started taking them home and treating them like metals.
Speaker 1: All right, well, here's a strange bit of science. According
Speaker 1: to News, scientists, cats don't understand the cause and effect
Speaker 1: of tugging on a string. You'll have to explain what
Speaker 1: do you mean by this. Well, there was a study
Speaker 1: at Canterbury christ Church University in the UK and there
Speaker 1: was a team of researchers and what they did was
Speaker 1: they attached fish or biscuit trees to the end of
Speaker 1: one string, and then they put another string with no
Speaker 1: treat attached. And according to the researchers, the cats couldn't
Speaker 1: see the cause and effect. The story states, chimps, parrots, ravens,
Speaker 1: they all understand that tugging on one end of a
Speaker 1: string will bring a treat closer. But cats don't, and
Speaker 1: there aren't alone. So pigeons and human infants also don't
Speaker 1: pick up on this, and for the record, neither do dogs.
Speaker 1: So speaking of cats and dogs, did you know that
Speaker 1: if your dogs overweight, there's actually a good chance you'll
Speaker 1: be overweight too? And in two thousand and ten, the
Speaker 1: journal Public Health Nutrition published a study from Amsterdam that
Speaker 1: showed that there's a significant relationship between overweight dogs and
Speaker 1: the b m I of their owners. But if your
Speaker 1: cat is overweight, it's not a good predictor of whether
Speaker 1: you'll be overweight. It's because you and your cat are
Speaker 1: just you know, on your own, living your best lives.
Speaker 1: Is that what it is? Okay? All right, Well here's
Speaker 1: a strange one. So Japan is obsessed with cats, right,
Speaker 1: and that's that's no surprise. Obviously, it's the land of
Speaker 1: waving porcelain cats that sit in stores and responsible for
Speaker 1: Hello Kitty, and I think it's where cat cafes started.
Speaker 1: But but now also they have cat bars and cat
Speaker 1: cafe train cars, so they are definitely cat obsessed. There's
Speaker 1: even a hand lotion that's now cat paw scented, so
Speaker 1: your hands can smell more like the bottom of your cats.
Speaker 1: I don't know why people want this, but it is
Speaker 1: available now. But you know how cats make biscuits in
Speaker 1: the morning, right, Yeah, that's when they kind of like
Speaker 1: wake you up and gently need on owners chests in
Speaker 1: the morning for attention. So the craziest story I read
Speaker 1: is that there's a spa in Japan where they offer
Speaker 1: these cat treatments as back massages. You can actually pay
Speaker 1: to have a cat need your back. It was really
Speaker 1: hard for me to even just say that. Stapid so
Speaker 1: ter It's both amazing and terrifying to me. So do
Speaker 1: you know that hats aren't actually the only creatures they
Speaker 1: get hairballs? Cows and rabbits get them too. That's weird alright.
Speaker 1: So here's one about Mark Twain, the notorious cat lover,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned earlier. Now, one thing he truly enjoyed
Speaker 1: was giving his cats strange names. So here are a
Speaker 1: few of them. He had Appollinaris, Beasel, bub blather, Skite, Buffalo, Bill, Satan, Sourmash,
Speaker 1: Soapy Sell, Pestilence, and Bambino. And actually I have one
Speaker 1: more fact about Twain. Apparently Bambino escaped one day and
Speaker 1: Twain was so worried that he did what any cat
Speaker 1: lover would do, and he put an ad in the
Speaker 1: New York newspapers and offered a five dollar reward for this.
Speaker 1: It was a large and intensely black cat. Now, Bambino
Speaker 1: showed up on his own in a few days, but
Speaker 1: putting an ad in the paper was a huge mistake.
Speaker 1: Years later, people were still using it as an excuse
Speaker 1: to try to meet Mark Twain. They would just show
Speaker 1: up at his door with like random cat that they claimed,
Speaker 1: we're definitely Bambino. Well, you know, I thought I had
Speaker 1: you with my Hello Pitti fact, but I think you
Speaker 1: best to meet with that Mark Twain one too, So
Speaker 1: I'm actually gonna give you the Cat Fact Trophy today. Wow,
Speaker 1: it is truly an honor, And listeners, I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's list of facts about cats. If we have
Speaker 1: forgotten any great fact, please send those to us. We'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Part Time Genius and How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. You can also call our fact
Speaker 1: hot line one eight four four pt Genius or hit
Speaker 1: us up on Facebook or Twitter. I hope we have
Speaker 1: redeemed ourselves a little bit with all the cat lovers
Speaker 1: out there with today's little vote. I have a bit
Speaker 1: more respect for cats now. But thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
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Speaker 1: begin to understand. CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing. Noel
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Speaker 1: Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gave Louesier is
Speaker 1: our lead researcher, with support from the research Army including
Speaker 1: Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff
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Speaker 1: do we forget Jason? Jason who