Word: cats
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...Cats, love 'em or hate 'em, are a hot number. Plain or fancy, pampered or ignored, barn mousers or apartment pets, they have captured the American imagination. They are becoming a national mania. In fact, cats are even gaining on dogs. Thirty-four million cats-often in multiples-inhabit 24% of America's households, an increase of 55% in the past decade. The dog population, meanwhile, has stabilized in recent years at some 48 million. In Washington, D.C., and New York, feline adoptions from animal shelters have zoomed 30% in the past three or four years. Cats...
Eighty percent of U.S. cats are common shorthairs and mixed breeds-"alley cats" of little dollar value. But the price for grand-championship-quality Abyssinian kittens and some others of the 33 recognized breeds in America can be as much as $3,000. Nearly 400 cat shows were held in the country this year, and some breeders believe the number may reach 450 next year. Last season the tony Empire Cat Show in Madison Square Garden-the "Westminster" of catdom-had to turn away thousands of enthusiasts...
...shouting and spending, the shows and services are lavished on an extraordinary mammal. Weighing in at an average of 10 Ibs., the cat has a uniquely flexible backbone. When dropped from a height of less than one foot in an upside-down position, it will land on its paws in an incredible 1.8 sec. Its whiskers transmit complex information about its prey and surroundings to nerve bundles beneath the skin. According to one parapsychologist, the cat may even harbor a trace of E.S.P. A feline named Pooh, for example, who wandered off before the owners moved some 200 miles from...
...cat's sensitive ears are precisely tuned to discern the scrabble of paws beneath the ground. It even has its own self-cleaning service: cat saliva may contain a deodorizing detergent-like substance. Asleep, a cat may resemble a throw pillow or a Kliban-style meatloaf, but, awake and hungry, the average feline, one of the most highly evolved predators in the natural world, is capable of dispatching a dozen mice at a brief sitting. Alarmingly, it tends to dawdle before administering the coup de grâce. Behavioralists believe this happens because cats are programmed by a primitive...
...brain structure and nervous system of the cat are also special. The divided feline cerebrum offers tantalizing clues to right-brain, left-brain investigations. The highly developed feline "flight-fight" mechanism may provide insights to the response in humans. So useful are cats that tens of thousands of them disappear into the nation's labs for experiments each year. Although researchers have studied cat brains with infinite care, none have discovered the secret of the cat's singular sound. The apparatus and meaning of purring remain a mystery of feline behavior, one of many unexplained traits that remain...