Incredible expanding, contracting cats
BY NICK BARNETTNo, I'm not writing about cat obesity again. Today it's all about a strange ability that cats seem to have: they're shape-shifters.
What got me thinking about this profound issue was finding a trove of old photographs at the weekend. Not in a dusty box rediscovered in a wardrobe, but in a laptop that hasn't been used for years and which my partner expertly got running again.
(Weird how a 10-year-old computer can be like an archaeological site, yielding up wonders, embarrassments and opportunities for time-wasting and blog-writing.)
On the laptop's drive were a couple of photos of my old cat Pierre, who I've written about many times, including a blog post on his last weeks and hours.
Well I thought I'd seen all the photos that existed of Pierre, but here were a couple of poignant surprises. One was the only photo I'm aware of that shows me holding Pierre, and the other was, I think, the last photo ever taken of him.
That last photo caught Pierre in his last year, when despite his 17 years his coat bloomed and thickened to get him through one final winter. The picture is a record of that last eruption of health and sheer cuddliness.
It makes Pierre look vast, like a scarily chubby 15kg mega-cat. Yet he never weighed more than 6.5kg in his life. He was long and tall, with legs a supermodel's length.
Part of the effect is the out-fluffing of his lush coat, but the rest is the cat's (any cat's) talent at being either fat or thin, long or squat, round or flat as the situation requires.
The poet Rosalie Moore wrote about it:
Cats, when they sleep, slump;
When they wake, pull in -
And where the plump's been
There's skin.
Cats walk thin.
...
Cats sleep fat.
They spread comfort beneath them
Like a good mat,
As if they picked the place
And then sat.
You walk around one
As if he were City Hall
After that.
It's true, isn't it? Cats are malleable. Pierre could practically fit through a keyhole, yet also be a warm cannonball on your lap.
Merrick, my now-cat, is similar. Wide as a barn when he's lying on your calves, he takes stairs in a skinny flash and has been seen, once, stepping along our deck's railing like a trapeze artist, albeit with a terrified expression on his small face.
I suppose cats have to be both hunter and hedonist, beachball and beanpole, so their bodies just shift shape according to need.
Another reason why I wouldn't mind being a cat, if just for a while.
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Our cat Jenny loves being stroked firmly so much that she goes all flat, and starts to resemble a sting-ray! Cats can also seem to take up so much space especially when at full-stretch across the bed! But then manage to get in a window left only a crack! I wish i had their shape-shifting ability!
Our Cat EEk or Little Head as she often gets called, due to the small head she has and the large body, can look very fat at times due to the amount of fur she has but then she still amazes me when she slips through the gaps in our gate with great ease. When she lies flat she looks kind of like a beached whale with blubber exploding out onto the driveway. But boy is she quick, the dogs don't stand a chance at catching her after she has come in screeching at them to pay attention to her. Cats are clever and selfish but then when you least expect it they kind of let on that they do like having you around.
My cat Sid, who is also known as FatBoy (because he is - fat + very long fur) has this crazy ability to flatten himself out like a pancake - albiet a very wide pancake. I have a photo of him sitting on a chair like a fat old man with a huge potbelly. Every time I see it it make me laugh. His belly is big and soft, and seems to be able to expand and retract as required. Watching him run is a rare and amusing experience. He can actually go quite fast, he just wobbles a lot.
I've always thought cats might be related to sharks. They seem to have the very bendy cartilage only skeletons and then there's the teeth, the constant cruising for food and the casual contempt for humans.
I was recently reading a book edited by Peter Wells, it's titled "The Cat's Whiskers: New Zealand Authors on Cats"... In his introduction Peter Wells wrote : ‘it is the nature of a cat to coil into a room, then slither out like a shadow, leaving behind a changed atmosphere.’..I was reminded of this while reading your post.
redsfan: it's actually not so easy for cats. What about the inbetween hours when the owner is out to work? They have to guard the territory, get into cat fights.. hide from dogs.. it's a jungle out there!
Our cat, since we moved house 2 weeks ago,has taken to hiding in the smallest hidest places she can find. Including sneaking in under the bottom Dishdrawer while hubby was unpacking it...I said don't push the drawer in the cat is under there...our daughter got the cat food and coaxed her out but amazing how a fullsized can fit under there and squeeze herself into the back furthest spot! I am very careful with that drawer now!
Our cats do seem to change shape/size depending on how they position themselves. Mostly though, I'm intrigued by their spines. I saw a doco a few years ago where they took slow-mo footage of cats leaping - they can extend the cartilage between their vertebrae & lengthen themselves by about 40%. It acts like a shock absorber for when they land. Very impressive to watch.
Our cats aren't very people-oriented anyway. Most of their day is spent chasing the sunshine & finding new places to sleep. Or chasing crickets.
I stumbled across this article about cats and noticed the point about your cats collarbone being attached to the muscle which helps them get through tight spaces.
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Who wouldnt want to be a cat. Sleep all day, and probably all night. Guarenteed food twice a day (in my house anyway) and people that love and give you attention whenever required. Sounds fantastic.