Dominant Cat Picture and Info

Dominance hierarchies or subordinance hierarchies are formed to avoid or mediate aggression between cats due to competition for resources in groups of cats. Cats form groups and become social animals when there is a suitable food source. Group living has benefits. Mates are on hand. The downside is that competition is close by too. Hierarchies help to keep the peace in groups.

Competition for food for feral cats and even for litter boxes for the domestic cat are sources of aggression between cats. Dominant cats in a hierarchy can control a subordinate's access to the food source. Sometimes higher ranking cats may threaten lower ranked cats for no immediate reason or hog the food source while not utilising it.

A subordinate cat gives way to a dominant cat based on past experiences of interaction. You will only get simple linear hierarchies in small groups of five or less and they are rare. Large groups of cats have complex partially linear hierarchies¹, which can also change.

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What are the signs of a cat showing subordination to a cat that shows dominance? Subordinate cats:

• walk around dominant cats;
• wait for the dominant cat to pass before moving into an area;
• back off when when the dominant cat approaches;
• avoid eye contact;
• show a hunched, crouched posture;
• roll onto their back
• stick their tails 'to either side of their thigh'¹
• turn their ears down and back.

The dominant cat shows the following signs and behaviors:

• block subordinate cat movements;
• bat at the subordinate with their paws;
• chase the subordinate and sometimes mount the subordinate cat;
• hold ears up and rotated them to the side;
• arch the base of the tail;
• stare at the subordinate cat;
• when encountering the subordinate cat: hind legs are extended and stiff with base of tail elevated and ears stiff and erect and rotated laterally while staring at cat.

Dominance displays are toned down between cats that get on in groups.  Dominant cats can make life stressful for subordinate cats. In well balanced hierarchies there are rarely fights. Where there is an unresolved dispute as to who is dominant they might fight over the matter. What elese!? Regarding the photo on this page, red or ginger cats tend to be leader cats based on information that I receive.

Source: 1. The Welfare of Cats ISBN 978-1-4020-6143-1 - excellent book by the way.

Live Kittens Fed to Snakes

Yes, live kittens are fed to snakes as a regular diet. Sounds gruesome. Do we care? This has been brought to my notice by Gahame, a regular visitor of PoC. He picked it up on the internet. People advertise "kitten free to good home" and Mr Macho Man with his large snakes rings up...that is it. He convinces the irresponsible cat owner who has allowed her cat to breed that he is a suitable candidate to provide loving lifetime care for this little vulnerable kitten. As soon as he has collected the kitten and returned home, he joyously chucks it into the snake's enclose and watches. You know, kittens put up less of a struggle than puppies which makes them popular with these horrible people. But puppies are used as well.

I seems that the normal snake food is raw prey type food that has been bred, pre-killed and frozen and then sold (mice, rats, rabbits etc.). But for some people this sort of food is not good enough. It has to be live for these macho monsters and Craigslist is an excellent source as it is probably the world's largest, online, free advertising agency.

There are probably lots of ads for cats on Graigslist although I read somewhere that at one time they prohibited the advertising of cats on their website. Is this still the case or have they relaxed their rules? Graiglist is a USA based website. This problem seems to be more prevalent in the USA than elsewhere. Americans do have a penchant for keeping exotic pets. This includes tigers etc. See Joe Exotic's story.

In the UK it would have to be animal cruelty under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to fed live kittens to snakes as it must cause unnecessary suffering.

The whole thing disgusts me. But the snake owner will say, what is the problem? There are too many cats without homes that have to be killed at cat shelters because no one wants them. And live mice are fed to snakes and it seems few people find that objectionable. We eat rabbits, cows and sheep etc. What do you think? Please leave a comment.

How many cats in the UK?

From 7,200,000 to 10,300,000 at about 2007 is the number of domestic cats in the UK. The point is we don't know an exact figure because no one is counting! These are estimates and as you can see the figures relate to four years ago (today's date: 23rd Nov. 2011). There is a general slow climb in the numbers of cats and dogs as the population increases in the UK. Therefore the figures will be slightly higher for 2011.

There are an almost equal number of dogs in the UK. The general view is that there is a similar number of feral cats as domestic cats I don't believe that is the case in the UK. In the USA it is probably true that there are similar numbers of feral and domestic cats (about 80m each).

The figure of 7.2 million comes from a research document entitled: Number and ownership profiles of cats and dogs in the UK by J. K. Murray et al from Department of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, Langford House, Langford, Bristol BS40 5D.

The 10.3 million figure comes from Pet Food Manufacturers Association - PFMA. You can see a page on Ownership of Cats in the UK.

How many cats die a day?

144,000 cats die each day in the world. 14,600 die a day in the USA and 1,800 die a day in the UK. These are my estimates based on average lifespans. They are for domestic cats (not including feral and stray cats) for the USA and UK and for the world the figure is for both feral and domestic. Wild cat deaths would not make a significant difference to these figures as the proportion of wildcats to domestic cats is small.

These figures have not taken into account the approximate 1 million domestic cats (i.e. not feral) cats that are deliberately killed each year at shelters nor the cats shot and abused. Factor that in and the figures will be higher by a considerable percentage.

 The calculation is based on this model: If there were 15 cats in the world and all fifteen where born on separate years and all the cats had a lifespan on 15 years, one cat would die per year which is one-fifteenth (6.67%) of the total. So 6.67% of all cats die per year. If you find fault in that please tell me in a comment and I will correct the maths. The figures are set out in the spreadsheet below:


The figures above are for natural deaths with an average age of 15 years. If we recalculate for feral cats at an average life span of say 4 years we get these figures: 54,000 feral cats per day die in the USA, 6,800 die a day in the UK and 205,000 die a day in the world.