I Love Cats!

Are you a cat lover? Do you have a pet cat at home (or would you like to eventually own a cat or a kitten)? The fall season is very important for recognizing cats of all shapes, sizes, and colors…September 1 is National Ginger Cat Appreciation Day, and October 16 is National Feral Cat Day AND Global Cat Day!

Hello, my name is Miss Sara and in this blog, I will provide many fascinating and educational facts about cats, including a link to an article detailing their eyesight. Also featured is the endearing story of “Grandpa Mason” ~ a famous and loveable feral cat. One of our main CCPL children’s databases, National Geographic Kids, is linked as well as some adorable stories about cats and kittens from our CCPL catalog.

Important Resources:

Below are educational (and interesting) facts about cats:

Cats have been domesticated (tamed) for nearly 10,000 years. Domesticated cats who live on farms to keep rodents away are called farm cats. Feral cats are domestic cats that live away from humans. Cats are one of the most popular pets in the world…they are kept by humans for hunting rodents and for companionship. There are about 60 cat breeds. Domestic cats are found in shorthair, longhair, and hairless breeds. Cats that are not specific breeds can be referred to as ‘domestic shorthair’ (DSH) or ‘domestic longhair’ (DLH).
Unlike human arms, cat forelimbs are attached to the shoulder by free-floating clavicle bones. These allow cats to pass their body through any space through which they can fit their heads.
Cats are active carnivores, meaning that in the wild they hunt live prey. Cats are extremely fast, but only over short distances. Their main prey is small mammals (like mice). They will also stalk, and sometimes kill and eat, birds. Cats eat a wide variety of prey, including insects such as flies and grasshoppers. Their main method of hunting is stalk and pounce.
Cats use many different sounds for communication, including meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling, squeaking, chirping, clicking, and grunting.
Cats can fish. They use a flip-up movement of a front paw, which, when successful, flips the fish out of the water and over the cat’s shoulders onto the grass.
Cats sweat through their paws. Because they are covered in fur, there are very few places where they can sweat. Most of their sweat glands are on their paws.
A cat’s ears are controlled by more than 20 muscles and the nose ridge of a cat is as unique as human fingerprints.
To aid with traveling and feeling, cats have dozens of movable whiskers (vibrissae) over their body, especially on their faces. These whiskers tell the cat how wide the passageways they travel are, and the location of objects in the dark. The whiskers sense air currents and objects that they touch. Whiskers also cause the blink reflexes to protect the eyes from damage, much like a human’s eyelashes do.
Cats have excellent night vision and can see things in very low light compared to humans. This is partly the result of cat eyes having a tapetum lucidum, which reflects any light that passes through the retina back into the eye, increasing the eye’s sensitivity to dim light.

Web site source: https://kids.kiddle.co/Cat

Below is a link to an article from AllAboutVision.com, detailing the eyesight of cats:

Cat Eyes and Vision: How Cats See The World

cat

National Feral Cat Day is a worldwide call to raise awareness for and celebrate these special cats who exist everywhere and live outdoors. Oftentimes feral cats aren’t socialized to humans, and some of them can’t be adopted.

Perhaps one of the most famous feral cats was “Grandpa Mason.” In October 2016, he was brought to Tiny Kittens, a rescue group located in Langley, British Columbia, Canada. He had spent most of his life surviving as a feral cat, and at the time of his rescue, he was old and very sick (suffering from terminal kidney disease).

He was fearful of humans and wouldn’t let anyone get too close to him. However, the rescuers saw something special in this cat and were determined to save him. Everything changed when they brought him foster kittens to serve as companions. He became very affectionate and sweet, and he loved those kittens more than anything in the whole world. He let them nurse on him, he styled their fur and he taught them important ‘Grandpa secrets’ about how to be a cat.

For more details about Grandpa Mason and his kittens (including videos!), click HERE!
To read more of Grandpa Mason’s legacy, click HERE!

National Geographic Kids

Engage kids and young students to broaden their educational horizons with reputable, special, authoritative, and age-appropriate digital content that brings them the world in a way they have never seen before. National Geographic Kids will take them on amazing adventures in science, nature, wildlife, culture, geography, archaeology, and space.

*CCPL Staff picks are chosen by CCPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We’d love to hear your ideas too, so write to us and tell us what you’d recommend!*

*All book cover photos are from Goodreads/all title descriptions are from the CCPL COSMOS website.

You may also check out our CCPL catalog for super adorable stories of fluffy cats and kittens, such as:

Cat Knit by Jacob Grant

Cat and Yarn are the best of friends. They have so much fun playing together, the two are inseparable. Until the day Girl takes Yarn away. When Yarn Returns, he is completely changed, no longer Cat’s bright and rolly friend. Cat is mad! Soon, Cat begins to miss his best friend, and he just might realize that a little change isn’t so bad after all.