Pets

My cats

I like cats, because they are lovely. Each time after eating something, they will clean their mouth, feet themselves, they also clean their bodies all the time. They keep their place quite clean. They go to the same place to leave their dirt and urine. They like very much the small house I’ve made for them to sleep. I put some soft cloth there, so it seems warm and comfortable to them. The like to play with me, bit my feet and hands. Cats like women, very sensitive and lovely, while dogs are similar to men in behavior.

I began to love cats some time in April 2011, when my little dog died and when I came across a baby cat at the foot of the Laoheshan mountain when I was descending the steps after an one hour climbing or so. I brought it home and bred it for a couple of weeks and then let her free. I don’t keep cats long at home and prefer to release them after several months’ living together with me, when they are grown up enough that they can and shall live independently and seek their partners and happiness. It is cruel to keep them home always.

I love cats very much, and I always feel happy to find a cat on road, in home or in fields. I myself am a naive guy, with very young heart like a child and a baby cat, and I am sure I share some common points with cats, and I admire the cats very much.

My cats were also very happy with me, keep very close contacts with me. They sleep with me, and if I don’t allow them to sleep with me, they will try their best to climb to my bed and sleep outside my mosquito net蚊帐 so that they can stay close to me when I was sleeping. They always long after me. When I came home from outside, they welcome me at the door, jump up to me, kiss me with their tongues, and scrape me with their little hands – I called their paws and feet hands.

Cats are home bound and will not leave your home unless you dispel them. But if you don’t treat them well, they will leave you as well. There were one or two of them who felt mistreated by me and when I walked them out, they didn’t want to return home and instead stop at my neighbors and peeped at their home and were reluctant to follow me home.

There was also a cat who was abandoned by someone in the same building and felt very sad and cried on the stairs for hours. I first mistook it as a cat outside our building and then I walked out and found it on the stairs and picked it up and brought it to my home, and she felt so happy that she touched me uninterruptedly the whole day, jumped from here to there. It was the happiest cat I have ever seen in my life.

The cats, according to my experiences and observations, are simply the most tender and lovely creatures on the earth, and if they are the governors of the world, it will be certainly a nicer world.

After arriving at Huzhou, soon I tried to find more cats to live with me. The one I carried with me from Hangzhou was soon freed to the outside world. And pretty soon, I found out there are much much more chances to find a cat in Huzhou than in Hangzhou, as Huzhou is still a small city, close to farm land and with plenty of old buildings. Cats love to live in old buildings with many hidden caves and shelters here and there. In newly built houses, though, there are fewer places for them to find shelters and there are also fewer places to find rubbish bins where they can find some foods for them.

Breeding cats, as breeding any other creatures incl humans, has its bright side as above mentioned, but also has its dark side as well.

You need to care for their urination, their bites, their dirty which may scatter across all of your lodging, their foods of course, their health – from time to time you need to walk them on the outside streets, not just keep them indoors -, and time to play with them for cats love play very much.

And you need to keep an eye of any viruses and illnesses they may bring with them. For example on July 10, 2011, less than 2 months in Huzhou, I found out that there were red stains(erythema ) 红斑 on my body, which I guessed was caused by the fleas 跳蚤 from cats. The erythema appeared from my feet, then spread to other parts of my body. See my record below on July 12, 2011: (前几天感染了猫的细菌，并受到跳蚤的叮咬，首先从脚上开始出现大量斑疹，然后向其他部位扩展。这几天得以抑制。).

On July 10, 2011, I was biten by a cat and I have to rush to the hospital and have them vaccined me at a cost of RMB 200+, a basic vaccination only. A full vaccination will cost me more than RMB 12000 Yuan, but I denied it.前天被小猫咬了，去医院花了200多打疫苗。 Since coming to Huzhou, I am earger to breed a cat and therefore I am running all over the city to catch one. As a result I was bitten by some cats, and bleeding. Nevertheless I could get one as my hard efforts. That proves that persistent and hard working are the key to success, regardless what you're trying to do.

My cat-loving story continued and on November 19, the same year, I further declared that I like cats, because they are lovely. Each time after eating something, they will clean their mouths and feet themselves, they also clean their bodies all the time. They keep their place quite clean. They go to the same place to leave their dirt and urine. They like very much the small house I’ve made for them to sleep. I put some soft cloth there, so it seems warm and comfortable to them. They like to play with me, bit my feet and hands tenderly and softly. Cats are like women, very sensitive and lovely, while dogs are similar to men in behavior.

Fleas are always problems – and perhaps the biggest problem in feeding cats at home. One year later, I was again caught by fleas and I noted on June 16, 2012 that跳蚤 fleas are troubling my life at home again. Last year I had the experiences already, and this year it appeared again, after I have bred several cats at home for a short time. They left the fleas after they were all gone and began to attack me instead of cats. They bite me from feet to top and make my sleep very difficult. It’s very difficult to get rid of them, as they are everywhere and anywhere. Before I thought when the cats are gone, fleas follow them as well. In fact, the fleas survive very long after the absence of the cats. They are feeding on my blood.  I have tried very hard to kill them all – with pesticide, and mosquito repellent incense, and only after one week or so, they can be put under control, but my full recovery from flea bites took longer. 

But regardless of all these nuisances, cats are lovely, and to live with them is fun and happy, and to see their life is benefiting to ours as well. Their life and society are more humanitarian and kind, their relations are tighter and their happiness is more long lasting. We may learn a lot from them, for example:

Mother cat and baby cat have very close relations, and they care for their babies no less than wo humans do. One time in June 2012, a few weeks ago I’ve got a baby cat, and on request of the person who gave me the cat, returned it the next day to her. When the baby cat saw her mother, it miaoed (called) her baby very much like our human voice. The voice was so tender and motherly I was so moved that I dared never to separate a cat and her baby. It is cruel like it is cruel to separate a human mother and her baby – that is why I came back home to live with my mother for ever and ever.