What Is It With Cats?

Introduction

I haven't written anything feline-based for three months, but almost every day that I am out I encounter some cats and sometimes get photographs of them and sometimes they ignore me and just will not pose, lying in the bottom of windows in a furry mass, or just running away.

I wasn't sure what to write about although I have two Pantoums planned for posts number 1939 and 1945.

This was my last piece.

So ....

What Is It With Cats?

I have friends with many types of pets, including snakes, birds, dogs, fish, and of course cats. Some cats are pure house cats but even they like to wander out of doors when they feel like it.

Birds are usually caged, snakes in tanks, sometimes allowed the run of the house and it is different for all types of pets. I am thinking of the ones you usually find in an urban setting, the majority of those are cats and dogs.

The thing is cats seem a lot more self-confident than dogs, if a dog sees something across the road, in most situations it will run across whether there is traffic coming or not. I'm always uneasy when I see a dog on a main road that is not on a lead. In all my walks I have only ever seen one cat on a lead, though the odd time I see cats running across a main road, but they do seem aware of traffic.

Cats often use vehicles to sit on or use as shelter from bad weather, they know how to adapt to situations.

Dogs that don't know me often just bark a lot, I don't know if they are protecting their and their owner's territory, or they just don't feel that friendly towards me. The other thing is that unless they are on a lead, dogs are always moving, which is why I seldom take any pictures of dogs, it would have to be video or nothing.

This is a little guy that I see quite often, usually on top of a bin or under the car. Today he was just sitting at the front of the car, glaring at me. I often get this sort of glare from cats, as though to say "How Dare You Photograph Me", but they don't move, so I assume they are alright when I snap them.

This is another one that sat and glared while I took his photograph. Sometimes I do see a lot of cats, but recently, due to cold weather, rain, and high winds, not many have been out so a lot of the photographs have been of cats in windows, like this one.

When they are in a window, I know they are safe and warm and I assume they know that as well. It's not very often that I see a dog in a window, but cats often use windows to frame them in a photo opportunity.

This is a guy I saw in Washington when I went for a rehearsal for my mate Jim's sixtieth birthday gig.

He looked a little surprised but didn't run away.

I don't seek out cats on my walks but they sometimes appear and if they do I take the opportunity to share the pictures on social media, usually with the #CatsofVocal and #CatsInNam hashtags and the is the Cats of Vocal page on Facebook.

This guy looks a little startled but is just one of the many that I run into on my walks and wanders.

I hope you have enjoyed the ones I have shared with you. Feel free to follow those hashtags on Instagram and Facebook if you want to see the cats that I see.

Thank you so much for reading.