The Domestic Cat

Chapter Eighteen.

Hints upon Breeding and Rearing Cats for Exhibition, and a Word about Cat-Shows

At nearly all the cat-shows which I have visited of late, I have been invariably impressed with this one idea: here, in these shows, we see pussy as she is in the present day – the live mouse-trap, the barn cat, at best the fireside favourite – but, at all events, the animal, of all our domestic animals, that is least cared for, and the only animal we possess, whose improvement in condition and species we have never cared to study. What this animal – the domestic cat – can become, the perfection to which she may attain through judicious selection and careful breeding, it is for future years to show.

Other nations – such as the Persians and different other Asiatics – know far more about the domestic cat than we do, and quite put us to the blush with their splendidly-bred and high-blooded animals.

It is one of the many popular fallacies current in this enlightened land of ours, that there is in the cat a certain number of bad qualities – a certain spice of the devil, so to speak – that never can be bred out. This is simply absurd, for there is no animal that lives and breathes on God’s fair earth but is susceptible of improvement, both physically and morally; for, remember, a cat, little as you may think of her, has a mind and a soul, as well as you have. She has thought, and memory, and reasoning powers; she can love and she can fear, can be happy and gay, or sad and sorrowful, and she knows something too of the mystery of death.

With all these qualities will you tell me that she cannot be improved? I say she can; even as to race; for what can be accomplished with individual cats, may be accomplished with the whole race. I can introduce you to dozens of cat-fanciers in this country, who have made the peculiarities of pussy’s nature their study, and who find that they can, at will, not only improve the physical condition of their cats; but even, by careful training, occasional gentle correction, kindness, and good-feeding, raise them from good to better, and wean them from the ways which are so objectionable in other, or merely half-domesticated cats. And, look you, the progeny of such animals – by a law well-known to all breeders – take after them, or inherit the good qualities of their parents. Hence, I repeat, if you can improve the individual cat, through time you may improve the genus. That time may be long in coming – granted; but that the lovers of cats, in this country, have boldly seized the bull by the horns, and are taking a step in the right direction, is a positive fact which admits of no denial.

Now, to those who are fond of cats, and would fain improve the particular breed they have a fancy for, and probably win prizes at our great shows, I beg to offer the following hints: —

First. Having made up your mind as to what particular breed you mean to go in for, stick by that breed for a time, at least, and go in for no other.

Secondly. Be careful in your selection of parents. For instance: we will suppose you mean to breed pure white Angoras; well, purchase at a first-class show a Tom kitten and a queen kitten from different litters. Choose the liveliest, biggest, and most healthy-looking kitten of each litter, not, as in choosing pups, the heaviest and sleepiest-looking. The funny kitten turns out the best cat, and is more easily trained than a sulky or frightened one.

Having gotten your purchases home, remember that the royal road to a kitten’s affection is straight through its stomach. Be, yourself, then, the first to present pussy with a saucer of warm, creamy milk.

Thirdly. How to get size. This is accomplished by the quantity and quality of pussy’s food, and the regularity with which she gets her meals. Whatever you give a young cat, and a growing cat to eat, do not let it be too abundant. Never let her gorge herself; give her little and often. Don’t let her want for a saucerful of pure water, to which she can always find access. Let her allowance of milk be put down to her and taken up again when she has had all she wants; what she leaves had better be given to the pigs. Bad milk is a fruitful source of diarrhoea, dysentery, and some forms of skin disease. A little sulphur – about as much as will lie on a fourpenny-bit – should be given at least once a fortnight, or half that quantity once a week.

Train your cats early to habits of cleanliness. Don’t forget the flower-pot saucer; and remember that, if the cats you wish to take prizes with, belong to any of the finer breeds, they must be parlour cats, and not kitchen-bred brutes.

If you want your cats to grow large, let their food be nourishing but not stimulating; boiled cow’s or sheep’s lights they can eat their stomachs full of; but avoid beef, it is too gross and heating, and don’t patronise the cat’s-meat man.

Kittens and growing cats, in order to grow large, must have plenty of exercise and fun. Leaping exercise is best. Teach them to jump through a hoop, and keep them at it. They ought to have a ball as a toy, or a hare’s foot; and ridiculous as it may seem to many, it is a positive fact, that cats – especially queen cats – thrive best who have a looking-glass conveniently placed to admire themselves in, and to wash and dress in front of.

“Ilka little maks a mickle,” is a good old Scotch proverb, and believe me it is attention to little matters, to minutiae, which makes one successful in properly rearing any animal.

Fourthly. How to get Good Pelage on a Cat. The feeding of course has much to do with the length and gloss of the coat. Fish I have found is good for the coat, and a mixed diet generally, with not too much vegetables to scour them. But your sheet-anchors, after all, are the brush and the comb. The comb must be fine, and not too close in the teeth, and it should be used gently, after which brush the coat briskly all over with a long-haired soft hair-brush – a baby’s brush in fact. The comb is not only a gentle stimulant to the skin, but it prevents matting, while the brush removes dust, and gives a nice glitter to the pelage. Both together act as a charm.

Fifthly. In cats other than white you will find that certain kinds of food strengthen the colours of the pelage. I am convinced, for instance, that boiled bullock’s lights do, and so does sheep’s blood. This fact is perhaps worth knowing. I am making experiments with other foods and some condiments, but am not yet in a position to state results.

Sixthly. Breeding for colour. No matter what colour your parent cats are, you will occasionally find waifs and strays in a litter that you will wonder to find of a different colour. But do not be discouraged; stick only to the true colours, and you will find in time that such anomalies will become few and far between. Be careful to avoid the possibility of any litter of kittens having more than one father.

Seventhly. In young cats, which you are breeding to take prizes with, begin to look out for symptoms of the queen’s getting gay, any time after six months, and on the first signs lock her up for a week, or until she becomes herself again. Do not think of breeding from a cat you mean for the show-bench until she is at least eighteen months old, else you will spoil her for size.

Some people fancy that to manage cats properly, and guide their breeding to the Tom you desire them to, is very difficult. I have not found it so. There is a little trouble, certainly, but you are amply rewarded, when you find on the birth of the kittens that you have been successful. The only thing you’ve got to do, is to watch the queen well, and lock her up for a night or two with her own lord in an outhouse. Then afterwards keep her prisoner by herself for ten days. The danger is quite past then.

Eighthly. About a week before any important show, be more than usually careful with the grooming, etc, of your cats, and feed them up a bit; give them an extra allowance of milk and cream, and boiled rice and sugar, and occasionally mutton and mutton-broth, but take great care not to induce diarrhoea.

Ninthly. Send them to the show in a basket lined with flannel and a cushion, and pretty collar or ribbon to match the colour of the coat. Let the colour of the cushion be also effective, and in keeping with pussy’s jacket.

As to cat-shows themselves, I have nothing but good to say. All prosperity to their promoters and patrons! They are in general, indeed almost invariably, well managed, and the cats are carefully caged, properly tended and fed, and no lady need apprehend the slightest danger to her feline favourite, in being sent to any of our great shows. It is seldom, if ever, that a cat is lost, the baskets containing the pussies never being opened, until inside the building, and then only with the greatest care. Indeed, one needs to be pretty cautious in handling a strange cat. Your well-bred beauties, in particular, make it a rule to stand no nonsense.

The cats are fed morning and night, and regularly supplied with the best and sweetest milk which the town can afford. Indeed, altogether, the poor things appear quite as happy as they are at their own firesides. If it is a four-day show, they soon come to know and welcome with gloved hand, the girl attendants every time they pass. There is no head-splitting noise and din as there is in a dog-show. Peace and quiet and serenity reign everywhere in a cat-show.

At nearly all the shows – at all events at all the great shows – Mr Sillet, the well-known naturalist of Southampton, has the arrangement of the pens or cages for the pussies. And very well he does his work too. Every cage is supplied with a box for sand at the back, and in the fore part with a beautiful soft cushion. The boxes are emptied daily, and disinfectants are also used, so that everything is sweet and clean. The entries at some of our national shows, such as the Crystal Palace and Birmingham, number between three and four hundred, and every year I trust the numbers will be increased.

You see then, reader, that no danger can accrue from sending your feline favourite to a show, and I may tell you also that if she is anything like good at all, she is almost sure of finding herself placed. Cat-shows are only in their infancy, and anyone who chances to have a good cat, may nowadays take prizes. In future years, there will be no chance work about the matter at all, and those only who study the breeding and rearing of cats in a scientific and sensible manner will be the winners.

When you send your entry form up to the secretary, be careful you have placed your pussy in the right class, not only as to breed but as to sex, whether male, female, or gelded. As to breed, you must attend to the colour and also to the length of the coat.

There are classes for all kinds of cats, and a class for anomalies besides.

I am often sorry, when judging at shows, to have to disqualify many a beautiful specimen of the feline race, because it has been carelessly entered in a wrong class. If people only will read with some degree of attention the description of each class, given in the schedules, they need never make this mistake.

To such clever and energetic managers of shows as Mr Wilson, of the Crystal Palace, who seems to have adopted the motto of the Cameron clan, “Whatever a man dares he can do,” or sensible Mr Chaplin, of Birmingham, or Mr Brown, of Edinburgh, or Mr Martin, of Glasgow, I have positively nothing to suggest. Let anyone who wants to get up a cat-show take a lesson out of the books of either.

To amateur managers I may say this: Be very tender and gentle with the feline property entrusted to your care; remember not only that cats are extremely nervous and sensitive creatures, but also that numbers of them have a value in the eyes of their owners far above money and above price.

Feed with Spratt’s Patent Cat Food. This ought to be used at all shows; it has the advantage of being cleanly, handy, and wholesome. A small allowance of boiled lights may be added.

Use chloride of lime, not too much of it, as a disinfectant.

Fill the utility boxes with plain garden mould or sand, but never put charcoal in it. That soils the fur, and doesn’t give a white cat the chance of looking well.

Never put sawdust in a cat’s cage. It gets into the milk and spoils it, and if they lick it it will make them ill.

Do not receive a cat that is suffering from illness of any sort.

If a cat should appear to be ill any time during the exhibition, have her carefully removed and sent home.

Finally, if possible, have beautifully ornamented prize cards, and send them home neat and clean to the successful exhibitors. These cards are greatly valued, and generally framed and hung in a conspicuous place.

No one, except the initiated, can have any idea what an important little creature a cat becomes that has once taken a prize. She is then more than ever the valued pet of her owners, and an object of interest even to the neighbours.

Chapter Nineteen.

On Cruelty to Cats

I am fond of cats, and am never happier than when I am writing about them; nevertheless, it is with feelings the very reverse of pleasant that I commence the present chapter. Were I to consult my own comfort, I should avoid the subject of cruelty to cats, and it is only with the hope, that I may be the means of doing some little good to poor harmless pussy, that I approach the matter at all.

I am not a sentimentalist by any means, yet I abominate wanton cruelty. I am fond of animals, yet not maudlinly so. I am not a vegetarian; and, although I neither believe that all animals were made for man’s use, nor that man was made for theirs (as, you remember, was the opinion of the pampered goose), still I think we are right to kill and to use them as food. So I am fond of fishing, and fond too of shooting, and I can see nothing in the Bible against either practice. The very reverse, indeed, and everywhere in nature we observe that God permits one animal to prey upon another; and can the Lord Himself do wrong?

Yet, albeit I love sport and shooting, I do not think I am cruel. All my animals love me. My fishes know me, and come to be fed; my birds flutter their wings with affectionate excitement when I approach their cage; my white rats run to me when I call; my cat certainly never rushes up the chimney when I enter the room; and when I am dead I know my dogs will miss me.

Now, what I particularly object to is wanton and unnecessary cruelty. If we have to, and must, put the lower animals to death, in order that we – the higher animals – may live, we ought to do so as humanely as possible; and never, on any account, should we torture animals for mere sport. Hence I object to cock-fighting, pigeon or sparrow-shooting, and ratting – all mean and cowardly employments, and quite unfitted for men above the rank of the commonest navvy. I see no harm in deer-stalking in Scotland, where the deer are as wild as the hare or coney; but I do see very great cruelty in what is called stag-hunting in England. The stag in England is a domesticated animal, and I do not see that there is greater pluck or courage needed in hunting it, than there would be in chasing a decent old Alderney cow. I had travelled pretty nearly all over the world, and had shot in Africa, India, and Greenland, before I witnessed the first English stag-hunt. If my sympathies had not been all with the poor stag, I should have been highly amused indeed. The first stag wouldn’t move at all; he looked upon the matter as too good a joke. “No, beggar me,” he seemed to say, “if I’ll budge an inch, to please anybody!” And he didn’t. Yet this stag-hunting, they will tell you, seriously, keeps up the national courage. Believe me, reader, English courage requires no such keeping up, and it will be a poor day for this country when it does. Besides, it is only gentlemen (?) who hunt; and, well as our army is officered, it is, after all, the men who do the fighting; and it has always struck me that good beef and mutton, together with a determination to do their duty, are the mainstays on which our soldiers depend in the day of battle.

A great deal, I think, of the cruelty which is inflicted on the poor cat, is done through ignorance of pussy’s nature and constitution; done unwittingly, and with no real intention of doing the animal an injury.

It is very cruel indeed to starve the creature, with the idea that you will induce her to catch more mice. When a cat is hungry the system is weak, the mind is dull, and the nerves so far from being well-strung that she will do anything sooner than hunt. A well-filled stomach gives pussy patience, and that is much wanted for mouse-killing; besides, you must not forget that cats kill mice as much for the sport as anything else.

Another very common form of cruelty is that of turning the cat out every night. Cats need their comforts, and enjoy them too, more than any other domestic animal we possess. Leaving her out at night not only exposes her to colds, inflammations, and various diseases, but it leads her to contract bad habits; and she eventually gets trapped or killed, and no wonder; is she not, through your carelessness, a nuisance to the whole neighbourhood?

It is cruel not to feed your cats with regularity. They expect it, and need it; and, if they do not get it, what else can you expect but that your cat will become a thief?

What is called “wandering” cats is extremely cruel. A man has no further use for his cat, so he “wanders” her. I assure you it would be far more humane to drown her at once. How would you, yourself, like to be wandered – to be taken abroad somewhere, and placed down in the centre of savages; hungry and cold, and longing and pining for the home you left behind you; and in danger every moment of being cruelly slain? Don’t you think that speedy dissolution were more to be desired than such a life?

It is cruel, when your cat has kittens, to permit more to live than you can find decent homes for. It is a shame to a poor little kit, after it has opened its eyes to the wonders all around it, and begun to get happy and funny. Always keep one or two kittens for sake of the mother, and try, if possible, to find some one to take them. But the worst form of unintentional cruelty is that of leaving your poor favourite at home, when you go to the seaside, or to summer quarters. Often and often, on the return of the family, the unhappy cat is found lying in the empty hall, dead or dying, and wasted away to a mere handful of bones and skin – this in itself testifying to the sufferings she must have undergone for the want of food and water. Such gross carelessness ought to be made penal. I do not know whether the Society has ever yet prosecuted anyone for thus cruelly starving a cat, but I should think it would have little difficulty in obtaining a conviction.

I come now to mention some cases of intentional and specific cruelty, and shall be as brief as possible.

Some men, both young and old, think that a cat is a fit subject for torture and cruelty of all kinds; hence they never miss the chance of shying a stone after pussy’s retreating figure. Cases, too, are continually cropping up in the police courts, of men having tortured cats to the death with dogs.

Cat skins are considered of some value by the furriers. At a sale not long since in London, there were some three thousand cat skins. Where think you, reader, do these come from? That is a question unfortunately only too easily answered. In almost all large cities there exists a gang of ruffians – you cannot call them by a milder name – who eke out a sort of livelihood by stealing cats by every available means and method. But worse than this remains to be told; it is darkly whispered, and I have some reason to believe it may be but too true, that many of those poor cats are skinned alive, in the belief that the living skin thus procured retains the gloss.

In Greenland I have seen young seals flayed alive by the score. That was a sickening sight enough, but skinning alive a poor harmless cat must be many times worse. I wish I could say that it was only the lowest class of ruffians that ill-treat poor cats to the death, but – and I know this for certain – there are men who pass as gentlemen, who night after night set traps for cats that stray into their gardens, and kill them in the cruellest manner; and some of these fellows, too, keep neither poultry, pigeons, nor rabbits, and haven’t a flower in their gardens worthy of the name, only they hate cats. I know one gentleman (?) who thus traps and kills cats because he has a passion for fur rugs, which he thus indulges on the cheap.

Little boys, and those too, sometimes the sons of respectable parents who ought to have taught them better, are often dreadfully cruel to cats, stoning them wherever found, and setting dogs to worry them to death.

A lady, a friend of mine, once attracted by the heartrending cries of a cat, found two young fiends, with a pretty pussy tied in an apron, gouging its eyes out with a nail!

A common form of cruelty to cats, in some rural districts of England, is that of tying two of them together by the tails and hanging them over a rope or pole to fight to the death.

Such cases as that of cutting cats’ tails off for wanton mischief, burning or boiling cats alive, though not unknown, I am happy to say are very rare.

Now, considering how very useful an animal a cat is, I think it is high time the law interfered to protect her from violence and ill-usage.

I should like to see a tax imposed upon all cats, and a home for lost cats, precisely on the same principles as the home for lost and starving dogs, only with this difference, that there should be no reward offered for bringing a cat to the home. Remember this, that a stranger or starving cat will come to anyone who says a kind word to it, so policemen would have no difficulty in catching them.

The revenue from the imposition of even a small tax would be very large, and it would not only help to clear the country of a whole army corps of thieving, prowling, homeless cats, but give to the cats of respectable people a greater value in the eyes of the law, and a greater chance of taking their walks abroad without being molested.

We have a law to protect even our wild birds, why not one for the protection of my friend the harmless, useful cat?

In conclusion, let me assure lovers and owners of cats, that, as the law stands at present, the only way to keep their favourites alive, and free from danger, is to be kind to them, feed them well and teach them, as far as possible, to keep to the house at night.

We think that men who kill, and trap, and injure our cats are exceedingly cruel. And so they are, and I hope they will in time learn to be a shade more merciful. At the same time, don’t forget that the temptation to take revenge upon a cat for vines destroyed, beautiful flowerbeds torn up, favourite rabbits murdered in their hutches, and valuable pigeons torn and eaten in their dovecots, is a very great temptation indeed. You see, reader, there are two sides to every question.