Talk:Cat

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Lead

The lead mentions the cat's role in extinction of bird species at least three times. Does anyone else think this is a bit heavy handed? The article on Homo sapiens only mentions extinction once in the entire article (and it is about other species of humans).

162.72.36.85 (talk) 04:22, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Behavior section

The RSPCA have some great content on understanding a cats behaviour

https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/pets/cats/behaviour/understanding BeckyAnimalLover (talk) 14:39, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. - FlightTime (open channel) 14:52, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Becky's correct that its a good source, and we could use more behavior info, even if most of it belongs in the presently rather skeletal Cat behavior article (hell, the WP:SUMMARY material at Cat#Behavior is pretty much the entire Cat behavior article, and in some ways better than it).

it's worth working up a solid behavior article and properly summarized section here, both for general encyclopedic purposes, and to diffuse the tendency for people to add behavioral stuff to breed articles when virtually none of it is breed-specific. We have a long-running problem in that regard; people are under the mistaken impression that cat breeds differ markedly in behavior and it's just not true, other than for a tiny handful of actually well-documented quirks that are statistically more frequent with particular breeds, the four most obvious being: vocalization in Siamese and related breeds, climbing and aggression in Bengals because they're part-wild hybrids, limpness in Ragdolls/Ragamuffins upon being picked up, and higher likelihood of playing fetch among Maine Coons and a couple of other breeds. Almost all other breed-specific behavior claims are unsourceable to anything but breeders' promotional materials, and backed by a grand total of zero actual science. If this article properly covers typical cat behaviors, we're less likely to have people trying to assert that particular breeds are typically affectionate with people, curious, sleep a lot, etc. It's a fair amount of initial work on this article, but it'll save time and effort in the long run.

Additionally, shows like My Cat from Hell – running for nine years and still going – and the plethora of books on resolving cat–human and cat–cat (and even cat–dog, etc.) behavior issues strongly indicates this is a topic of general public interest, and so is something we should cover in considerable detail (though without wandering off the WP:NOT#GUIDE path). I would think that using the dog behavior materials we have (aside from all the breed-specific stuff, which is legit – people have been breeding dogs for very specific behaviors for thousands of years now) would be a reasonable model, though we should look also at the horse articles.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:28, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Agreed, and proper citation from reliable and reputable sources is key here.

Referencing my earlier comment regarding merges, I feel the three individual articles I mentioned should remain separate and be better developed. (And rigorously cleaned of unsubstantiated bias—I can attest personally that male Siamese are the most vocal of the bunch, but my experience is hardly encyclopedic.) 73.252.40.55 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:53, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

second paragraph comparing cats to humans

the second paragraph compares cats to humans twice.

"Cats can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears...." this should be changed to something along the lines of....'Cats can hear frequencies of up to 64kHz."

"Like most other mammals, cats have poorer color vision and a better sense of smell than humans." It is my suggestion to eliminate this sentence entirely or placed in a different section comparing cats to humans/other animals.

In the Play Section:

"This behavior may be a way for cats to practice the skills needed for real combat....." The word combat means 'armed forces' which I don't think is actually associated with cat behavior. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.196.165.193 (talk) 11:04, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

As part of the lead section, the second paragraph is supposed to introduce the topic and summarize the main points made in the body of the article, so it's better to evaluate the Senses section first and make any needed revisions there, then come back to the second paragraph. (See MOS:LEAD for more information.) That said, I think that making these comparisons in the lead section is valid; they are discussed in considerably more detail later, and they seem important to know: our readers thus far are all humans, as far as we know, and many of them live with cats.

"Combat" doesn't mean "armed forces", although its primary meaning suggests their involvment. What wording would you suggest instead? Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 15:51, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Yeah. We do need reliably sourced data like "64 kHz" or whatever the real facts are. The comparisons to humans aren't invalid, they're just insufficient. They help provide context (especially to young or non-technical readers – who are probably more drawn to this article than grey-beard engineering professors are) for what something like "64 kHz" means experientially. But they're an afterthought, and they also shouldn't be in the lead oncee we have the Senses section in better shape, since the lead should summarize the real info not the derived, comparative ideas.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:03, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Allergies

Under the interactions with humans section, I think it is necessary to include a section about allergies and why humans are allergic to cats. It should be included that humans are not allergic to feline hair, rather, to the proteins in their urine, saliva, and/or dead skin cells, also known as dander, due to their immune system's sensitivity to these proteins. Allergies to cats, depending on the severity, can be treated with allergy medication, but may require more more serious medication if it is more severe than sneezing, itchy eyes, and other common symptoms. While there are no truly, 100% hypoallergenic, or non-allergic, cats, there are breeds which are less allergy-inducing than others. Some individuals may be less sensitive to the proteins in the bodies of certain breeds of cats, which allows them to be known as hypoallergenic . Jhijji (talk) 17:28, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

References