Book Review: Cat Sense by John Bradshaw

 

I don't read enough cat non-fiction, despite them being my favorite domesticated animals. So here we go.

In this book, Bradshaw delves deeply into the subject of cats. Aspects addressed include: evolution, domestication, behavior, breeding, how to train them, outside vs inside cats, body language and the like. 

This was a book I had a very good time reading. I don't agree with everything said here (we'll get to that later) but overall I haven't had this much fun reading a non-fiction in a while. I've actually seen some reviewers complain about the "heavy" early chapters on the evolution and domestication of cats, but those were ironically my favorite chapters. I love history, I love cats, I love evolution and domestication. So learning about all these subjects all at once was fascinating and those chapters held my attention the very most.

The rest of the book was pretty damn good as well, with lots of insightful information. A lot of it I already knew (I've followed a paraveterinary worker study for a while which taught me a lot of this information), but still I also learned quite a few new things. The writing style I also really liked and could get into, though I will admit that I became just a tad less interested after the first few chapters on the history of cat domestication were over, just purely because those were my absolute favorites. The rest is great, too, but it just didn't peak my attention quite as much as those early chapters.

Now, where I vehemently disagree with the author: outside cats. I am one of those cat owners who is of the opinion that cats should be inside animals, the same way you don't let a dog roam outside unsupervised. Bradshaw does pose some arguments as to why he is pro-outside cat, but they just don't hold enough ground for me personally to change my stance on this. 

Outside cats are an invasive species, like it or not. They hunt smaller wildlife, which can be convenient for us humans sometimes (e.g. mice) but also be devastating for the local wildlife (e.g. small birds). And even if you are selfish enough not to care about your cat killing the local wildlife, there's so many other factors that could happen when you let your cat roam outside freely. Cats can be hit by cars. They can be killed or injured by local predators (e.g. foxes, coyotes). Cats can be killed or injured by dogs. They can eat something poisonous. They can be kidnapped. They can get lost or just plain run away. They can get sick from contact with other cats or animals carrying diseases. This isn't rocket science.

And you're willing to take all of these risks for your cat just because you feel it "needs to be able to hunt"? Sorry but you're just kind of a bad cat owner at that point if you ask me. "But my cat gets bored inside!" Then get it some damn enrichment? It's your responsibility as an owner to take care of your cat and make sure it's safe and happy. Both of these. Letting your cat roam outside freely like that is just irresponsible and Bradshaw didn't make good enough arguments to even reconsider my stance on this. And you can let your cat go outside if you really want to, but, you know, put some effort into it. Get a catio or cat-proof your garden so the cat can't leave. Or leash-train your cat. There are options but they take effort or cost money that a lot of cat owners just aren't willing to take. 

Also, the way he strawmans inside-cat people (like me) wasn't cool, by heavily implying that all anti-outside cat folks are cat haters. I love my cat and cats in general and I would never want a cat of mine to be an outside cat. That's because I love them, I want to keep them safe so none of the aforementioned doom scenarios happen and the local bird population stays in tact without an invasive species hunting them. I'm sure there's cat haters that don't want to see cats outside, but there's a shitton of cat lovers who keep their cats inside for the exact reason that they want to keep them safe. They're being responsible pet owners and they shouldn't be straymanned as "cat haters" for that.

As an aside, there's also a brief mention of a blatantly wrong fact: the author insists that melanistic (black) lions exist at one point in the book. Yes, certain big cats can be melanistic, but lions are one of the few where it has explicitly not been confirmed. Those pictures on Google you see of black/dark gray lions? Yeah, those are photoshopped. The rest of the book holds up pretty well but this was something that just made me raise my eyebrows. Many felines can be melanistic but not lions.

So, yeah, I overall really loved reading this book, especially the early chapters, I just vehemently disagree with the author's stance on letting cats roam freely just because they should be able to hunt. It's not like house cats need to hunt even, because they're fed by their owners. So I unfortunately had to take off half a star for that as I don't think the author presented enough swaying arguments to convince me that cats do belong outside.

Rating: 4.5/5