You CAN Train Your Cat: Secrets of a Master Cat Trainer - Softcover

Popovich, Gregory

 
9780312565282: You CAN Train Your Cat: Secrets of a Master Cat Trainer
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0312565283 ISBN 13: 9780312565282
Verlag: Griffin, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

Since the beginning of time, cats have convinced the world that they are untrainable so they can do whatever they want...but those days are over! Gregory Popovich is a professional cat trainer who's trained cats to perform amazing circus-style tricks for television and stage, and he's about to reveal his most closely guarded secrets so cat lovers everywhere can put an end to the most common problems:
- Stop bad litter box habits
- End early-morning howling
- Banish your cat from tabletops and countertops
- Prevent begging before mealtime
- Put an end to destructive clawing
- Make peace between rival cats

And so much more, including how to become an expert cat trainer at home and teach your cat to perform Gregory's favorite tricks, like jumping through a hoop or perching on your shoulders. This fun-to-read book also provides wonderful insights into the mysterious, complex feline mind, explaining why cats do the things they do so we can better understand them and enjoy a closer, more meaningful friendship.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Gregory Popovich

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Since the beginning of time, cats have convinced the world that they are untrainable so they can do whatever they want...but those days are over! Gregory Popovich is a professional cat trainer who's trained cats to perform amazing circus-style tricks for television and stage, and he's about to reveal his most closely guarded secrets so cat lovers everywhere can put an end to the most common problems:

    Stop bad litter box habits End early-morning howling Banish your cat from tabletops and countertops Prevent begging before mealtime
    Put an end to destructive clawing
    Make peace between rival cats

And so much more, including how to become an expert cat trainer at home and teach your cat to perform Gregory's favorite tricks, like jumping through a hoop or perching on your shoulders. This fun-to-read book also provides wonderful insights into the mysterious, complex feline mind, explaining why cats do the things they do so we can better understand them and enjoy a closer, more meaningful friendship.

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You CAN Train Your Cat

Secrets of a Master Cat TrainerBy Gregory Popovich

St. Martin's Griffin

Copyright © 2009 Gregory Popovich
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312565282
YOU CAN TRAIN YOUR CAT
Part I
Laying the Groundwork for a Long, Happy Life Together
1
The Connection Between Humans and Cats
Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this.
--ANONYMOUS
 
 
 
 
 
 
The feline we know as the domestic cat or housecat has cohabitated with humans since long before the dawn of recorded time. Whatever it is that sustains the mutual attraction that first spurred this partnership, it has continued to this day. Perhaps the explanation is that humans and cats were made for each other.
There is evidence from a genetic study that the direct ancestors of today's domestic cats broke away from their wild counterparts and began living with humans more than 100,000 years ago. The study's coauthor, Stephen O'Brien, chief of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the National CancerInstitute in Frederick, Maryland, remarked about the housecat's special character. "The felidae family is well known as a successful predator--very deadly, very ferocious, very threatening to all species including humankind," he said. "But this little guy actually chose not to be that. He actually chose to be a little bit friendly and also was a very good mouser."
Good news for it. The bearlike saber-toothed tiger has been extinct for thousands of years. The clever little housecat is thriving. Estimates indicate there as many as 600 million of these creatures in the world today.
A question arises: Who made the first move in the bonding between cat and human? What drew this curious subspecies of feline toward the fires and shelters of human settlements?
Knowing the independent nature of cats, it is likely that they initially sought out the company of humans, not vice versa. And what, exactly, did these upright, two-legged, rather naked creatures have to offer their much smaller, four-legged and furry, fellow mammals?
The explanation is simple: farms. Early agricultural settlements were infested by rodents attracted by grain stores. The mice and other vermin, in turn, attracted cats. And the cats--being lethal hunters--garnered the gratitude of the farmers. The partnership deal likely was sealed by the cats' openness to establishing permanent residence in the farming communities, partaking of shelter and food offered by human settlers in return for their mouser duties. But we shouldn't ignore two other appealing qualities: the relative ease in caring for pet cats, and cats' affectionate manner toward their human providers.
ONCE THE DOMESTIC CAT had made its move to live alongside humans, it has been this unique animal's fate to have been venerated as well as vilified, depending on the period of history.
In Egyptian civilization, founded on the grain harvest, the cat gained godlike stature. Many Egyptians owned cats, and when a pet cat died, families customarily shaved their eyebrows in mourning. Cats were mummified and buried in special cemeteries. Killing a cat was a capital offense, even if done accidentally. The sight of a dead cat could cause people to flee from the scene--fearing they'd be implicated in the crime. Egyptians were so fond and jealous of their cats that they sent missions to neighboring lands to buy cats that had been illegally exported. But such programs could not contain the popularity of cats inside any one nation's border; the animal's usefulness in catching rodents, as well as cats' suitability as pets, guaranteed their eventual spread around the globe.
The Romans, conquerors of Egypt and much of northern Africa, southwest Asia, and Europe, discovered that cats were more effective at controlling vermin than the ferrets the empire builders had been using. And so the Romans introduced cats throughout their expanding realm. Sailors and traders found cats to be perfect for controlling populations of rats on ships--and so cats traveled the oceans and seas to more distant lands.
As in Egypt, cats gained status in many religions. But that proved a liability to this popular pet as Christianity took hold in the Roman Empire. Church officials wanted to abolish paganism. Their efforts made cats a target for a crusade to change people's perceptions about these widely worshipped animals. By the middle ages, the popular perception of catshad shifted from veneration to vilification; common folk considered cats to be cunning creatures, and associated them with witchcraft. Strays were hunted and killed under the belief that they could be used in pagan rites, or even be witches in disguise. The lingering superstition that a black cat brings bad luck stems from this medieval belief. In some locales, the killing of a cat became part of an official public holiday program, to symbolize the banishment of the devil.
Throughout the ages, cats have proved useful to humans in numerous ways--including as mousers, companions, and even objects of religious devotion. They also have been targets of superstition.
A woman, full of anxiety, approached a well-known dermatologist and asked, "Doctor, is it true that you can make warts disappear forever by burying a black cat in a cemetery under a full moon?"
"Hmm," said the doctor, adopting a pensive look, chin in hand. "Well, yes. This result would be a certainty--providing the warts were on the cat."
Fortunately, such inhumane cruelty is rare in modern times. Today, cats' age-old function as mouse hunters continues in agriculture. Researchers have calculated that in one year, one mouse-hunting cat can save ten tons of grain from mice. Science may have no better substitute as a controller of vermin. But cats' usefulness to humans has extended beyond being rodent killers. Some people ardently believe that cats are psychic.
Reports have come from around the globe of cats predicting natural disasters. For example, officials ordered the evacuation of Haicheng, China, in February 1975 following reports not only of seismic activity but peculiarly anxious behavior of cats and other animals. A magnitude 7.3 temblor struck a few days after the evacuation of the city of 1 million. Stories have been recorded of cats hiding or trying to escape the house, or of mother cats dragging their kittens to safer spots, before humans were aware of impending storms, floods, or volcanic eruptions. A legend from World War II (never confirmed by scientific study, as wartime resources were needed elsewhere) holds that cats could predict air raids by their fur standing on end before a siren wailed.
But scientific explanations surely can be discovered for why cats may be able to sense incoming aircrafts, earthquakes, or thunderstorms before their human masters know what's coming. In relation to sirens, perhaps cats hear distant sound waves or feel vibrations before we humans do. As for storms, electrical discharges in the atmosphere can send electromagnetic waves that saturate the air with positive ions, and which can act on chemical substances in the brain. (Some people suffer headaches during these periods.) Cats may be more sensitive than we are to these ions. Similarly, cats may be more attuned to gases that emanate from a volcano before it...

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Verlag
Griffin
Erscheinungsdatum
2009
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0312565283
ISBN 13 
9780312565282
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
240
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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