The Secret Life Of Cats was an interesting and informing read. A great book for cat and animal lovers alike. I learned more things about my cat than I thought I would. Kip is my cat and has been a part of my life since a little before my teenage years. Here I am twenty three years old and we've lived together for all these years and I thought I knew just about all there was to know about him.

I'm a pet owner and enjoy reading about my animals from time to time. Some of the book is fact, some is speculation, some of it is absurd and some of it is just humorous. Overall it was a pretty balanced read.

The book itself seemed well written and a fairly easy read. There were only a few words I wasn't exactly familiar with, but I got the gist of what was being said. Such as, they named the membrane that coats the eye of a cat. It was called tapetum lucidum and it's the reason why a cat's eye reflects light and kind of glows in the dark.

A great thing about this book is it only took me about two days to read it, even with all the interruptions in between. If your time is limited like mine can be, you'll still find enough time to squeeze this book in. The book is 97 pages long and not too intimidating. I know thick books kind of discourage me from picking them up. I'm more the type to ask where the movie version is. I know, it's terrible of me. I just haven't the time, concentration, or ambition. Having A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder) probably doesn't do wonders for me either.

Technical Junk:

The book's author is Arline Bleecker. Peter Warner gets credit for the cover illustration. I didn't pay for the book myself because it was a gift from my grandmother. On the cover it has a price printed though, which says $2.29. Like I said before, it has only 97 pages.

Table Of Contents (Seeing as factotum disliked this so much in my last book review I just HAD to make sure I added it again this time. Aren't I a sweetie?!)

The Cats In Our Lives...7

Feline Philosophy...12

Oh, Those Crazy Cats!...34

Cat Chat...54

Cool Cats...82

Cat-anatomy...87

My Likes:

There were many things to like. I especially liked the fact that the author would draw from her own experiences and incorporate it into the book. She talks about her cat Little Guy and how he is Top Cat in her multi-cat household. She explains how cats are very territorial and that they live in a type of hierarchy society.

The author includes sources that back-up her findings. She used author and anthropologist Elizabeth Marshall Thomas as a source to support the hierarchy in the cat world finding. Thomas describes a cat hierarchy as a wheel. The highest ranking cat is at the center while the others are arranged around the rim. Within this well-ordered structure, each cat measures itself against the top cat, but not necessarily against each other. I just took that last part straight out of the book to give an example.

I learned other interesting things about cats as well. One was that cats usually work on a time share-plan. What I mean by that is whether or not they are indoor or outdoor, if they live among other cats they have to share paths. In order to do this and live in harmony they work out a time-share plan. They come to an understanding of who will pass and when, and when one doesn't comply they might challenge each other and fight it out.

By the way, cats aren't color blind. No sir, they can distinguish between certain color variations. The author describes it as cats seeing the world around them in dull shades of blue and green. She does admit that they can't see red.

Their vision is blurred around the edges and they see best at six to twenty feet. They don't miss a twitch though and see movement with ease. Contrary to popular belief cats cannot see in total darkness and their daytime vision is fair. Their semi-darkness vision however is much better than ours. They can distinguish brightness seven times better than we can.

The book also touches down on how cats like to eat grass and other green things that grow. The book includes a list of plants that are toxic to your kitty and what reaction your cat will have to them. Some reactions can be quite serious.

The book also warns of how feeding dog food to your cat is a no-no because it lacks taurine which is important in your cats diet because of their sensitive eyesight. In other words, a steady diet of dog food could make your cat go blind.

Cat's ears are pretty incredible as well. Cats have thirty muscles that control the outer ear, while us humans only have six. Between this and cats ears being able to rotate independently 180 degrees, a cat can collect sounds without moving its head. Imagine if our ears were like that.

Did you think your cat only claws at your furniture out of spite? The answer is no. My cat is pretty mature and that is no longer a worry in my house, but he does like to claw at the carpet on occasion. The book explains this as part of grooming. That the act of scratching is instinctive and that a cat is actually tearing off the ragged edges of the sheaths of their claws. Plus your furniture is about the right height. This is especially true of cats that are indoors.

The author then discusses how declawing your cat physically afflicts them and that you're actually maiming them, not to mention the psychological anguish. Cats have claws for a reason. Claws are there for your cat's balance, running, climbing, stretching, grooming and most importantly...defense.

The author even includes experiences from people who have written to her about their cats. One story was about a woman that had a cat that saved the family from being burgled. I thought this is something you'd only see a dog do, but a cat is actually capable of it as well. The cat was staring out the window one night when she started acting strange and meowing and such. The owners finally caught on to her warning and went outside to find someone who was going to steal something from the garage that had been left open.

Do you ever wonder if your cat loves and misses you? There was a story about a girl that went off to college and left her cat behind. The cat was left behind with her parents, which took good care of the cat. After say maybe a couple of weeks passed the cat started taking the stuffed animals from the girl's bed and placing them all over the house. This continued until the girl returned home. While the girl was home is didn't happen, but once the girl left again it started up again. Funny, don't you think?

There are just too many things I found of interest to even list here. Some of the things I will remark about but won't go into detail would be psi trailing (cats finding their way home from miles away), there being a complex organ in the inner ear that determines and transmits information to the brain about the position of the cat's head in relation to the ground, stories of cats copying their owners or other pets, cats rubbing their head or chin on you depositing and anointing you with their scent to say "this is mine", and the Jacobson's Organ (a cat's sixth sense).

My Dislikes:

I can't really say that I have too many complaints about this book. There were some things that maybe could have been improved.

Some of the stories were a little absurd. For instance cat space. They explained cat space as another dimension kitty enters and this is why sometimes you can't find your cat after looking high and low. I can see the humor in it a little, but it was kind of stupid.

Another thing that kind of bugged me is how a couple of the stories seemed so unrealistic. One would be the story about Inkspot and how they speculate that they thought Inkspot was smart enough to position and know that the mice would fall into the bucket in the laundry room closet. Not that it's impossible, but it seems so unlikely. I know cats are smart, but it seemed in some instances they might have been giving a little bit too much credit.

The other story that comes to mind that seemed absurd was how a woman went away for the first time leaving her 2 year old cat behind with her boyfriend and after two weeks of her absence she sent a picture in a frame. The cat showed interest in it and went right over to it, sniffed and tried to peer behind the picture. They speculated that maybe it was curiosity of a new object in the house, "but we cat lovers prefer to think that Freddie was trying to figure out where the rest of his beloved owner was". Some of the book was just a little bit too much I LOVE my cat and kind of over-the-top.

The last thing that I found ridiculous was the mention of cats watching television. That isn't so bad. I guess a cat might take an interest in television, but I kind of find it hard to believe that a cat would come running when it hears the vcr is turned on, or that your cat waits in the dark hoping that someone will turn the television on.

They even made mention to videos that have been made to entertain your pets. I'm not saying it's wrong to buy it for your cat, but I just find it again, ridiculous. To me it's taking a step too far. I'm not cold and unfeeling either. I let my cat sleep on the bed with me, I pet him, feed him, and I even give him a kiss on the top of his head. We're tight, but video buying. Come on! Next I'll be setting a place at the table for my cat.

Conclusion:

All in all the book was interesting, informing, and well balanced. It was fairly easy to read, but not juvenile and can easily be enjoyed by adults. There were facts and information along with real life experiences from both the author and some of her readers. There's also some funny quotes through out the book from writers and comedians such as Bill Dana, "I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It's not. Mine had me trained in two days". There's a few illustrations through out the book as well. I've learned quite a few new things about cats after reading it. Some of the stories made me laugh to myself, while others made me think of some of my own experiences and memories with my own cat.

Thanks For Reading! Especially For Those Of You That Aren't Interested In Cats. A Special Thanks To Category Lead arianej For Adding This Book To The Site!

Recommended:
Yes