Kevin Drum's Readers Are Wrong

A couple days ago Kevin posted a graph showing price changes over time: one line was for cat food, the other dog food.  He asked his readers (cat fans, I assume, because of his Friday feature) which was which, specifically which had had the greater increase in recent years..

The "best" comment threads uniformly guessed cat food, offering good and valid reasons (cats eat meat, dogs eat more varied diets).

The answer, however, was dog food had increased; cat food is actually cheaper today than it was in 1985.

I have no idea why the difference. Possibly we underestimate the changes in the price of meat over the last 30 years?  Or possibly something else.

Recession, What Recession, Not for Dogs and Cats

This extension piece on careers servicing "companion animals" reports current spending of $50 billion, with an increase of $12 billion in the last 5 years.  That's roughly a 25 percent rate of increase in hard economic times.

I can believe it: we have two aging cats in the household, one of which will be amazingly costly over the rest of her life span.  I keep surprising myself that I love her that much, because she was mean (feral mother) as a youngster. 

Condolences: Kevin and Inkblot

Kevin Drum is my favorite political blogger, because he mostly agrees with me. 

He suffered a loss, and I express my condolences.

Cats Contribute to Scholarship

From an obit of a young scholar:

" Her cats, Gandalf and Thea, assisted greatly in the writing of her dissertation by destroying staplers, knocking over stacks of research, and disappearing at the whisper of a stranger’s entrance."

Mother Love

Via Kevin Drum, see the video of mother and kitten.

Temptation

My wife and I have two cats, the senior of which was recently put on a special renal diet, or rather two renal diets: one of canned food, the other of kibbles.  This means keeping the two cats separate during meals, because the younger cat, Ginny, likes the kibbles, while Carrie likes the food she was used to having, the food Ginny still gets. 

Because neither cat cleans their plate(s), we often have to pick up the plate with the remaining food and stick it out of reach of the cat who wants it (but isn't the cat who should have it). Upon occasion, a cat outsmarts us.  Upon occasion, a cat succumbs to temptation, as shown in the slide show at this album, when the plate with kibbles was placed on top of an old popcorn popper.

Stealing a Comment on Cats

From Ta-Nahesi Coates blog, his free-for-all comment thread:
by anibundel:

Today in felines:
There are people coming over. The cats don't actually know that. What they know is the following:
The vacuum monster ate the cat hair they so lovingly placed all over the stairs. It was traumatic.
They were given cat nip.
Roomba came out to play, give kitty rides and generally be undaunted by being pounced at.
Their favorite couch blankets all mysteriously disappeared, giving them free reign to shed on the couch proper.
There was bacon for stealing. There were latkes to sniff and generally be confused by before being swatted down from the counters. There were treats.
They then considered the concept of out-of-doors, but after one paw was placed outside by the bravest, and the snow sniffed suspiciously and then horror-of-horrors, gotten on her nose, there was general consensus that this was a Bad Idea, and cat condos were retreated to.

Currently cat toys are being cuddled, and general uproar seems to have died down.

Instead of stealing it I really (cross my heart) would have linked to it, if I could figure out how to in Disqus

Friday Cat Blogging

For some reason, I don't do as good photos as Ann Althouse and Kevin Drum do. I've done one previous Friday cat blog--this is a recent photo of our older cat (the no. 1 entity in the household) in a thoughtful mood. Cats are above and beyond our human messes, so this is appropriate for this week's news.

Whose Property?

Shankar Vedantam in the Post wrote about property yesterday and Tyler Cowen and Ross Hanson links to it. Research seems to show that those people who decorate their cars with bumper stickers, regardless of the sentiment, are more aggressive drivers than those milquetoasts like me who have an unadorned car (almost put a Gore sticker on in 2000, but didn't) and who just fume inside when someone cuts me off or tailgates or whatever.

The researchers' explanation is people have difference senses of "property"--our sense of possession of our bedroom is "private", whereas walking down a city street is "public". So the theory is people who decorate their cars consider them to be private, or privatish, and take more offense when their property is impinged on. (Reminds me of a cartoon I saw yesterday, although I can't get the punch line right: it was someone in a sort of vehicle, explaining to the bystander it wasn't their new SUV, it was their new house.)

I was struck by the sense of property idea. One thing I've noticed, living in a townhouse cluster where one's yard extends about 3-6 feet from the house and the rest is common, my sense of property doesn't match my neighbors, or rather, it took a good while for me to adjust. In the country our farm was a bit isolated, so anyone appearing on one's land was sort of automatically an intruder, suspicious, perhaps a hunter, perhaps a city person, definitely someone whose business you'd want to know. (Didn't want hunters mistaking cows for deer or city folks scaring the cows and cutting their milk production.) This might fit with the imperialistic image of farmers, who don't want anything except the land next to theirs. And, of course, reinforced by the need for fences. Anyhow, it's a different sense of property than I see in Reston. There's no property markers evident.

I thought of that yesterday, but got interrupted from posting it. Then this morning I got reminded of how we are just animals, after all. Petting our older cat, whose mother was feral and who still retains a bit of edge, everything was fine until she decided to jump into her cardboard box and bulge over its sides and I continued to pet her. Wrong! For her, when she's in a box or a paper bag, that's her property and she defends it, even when the hand approaching the box or bag harbors only good intentions.

Bottom line: Cats own property too.

Friday Cat Blogging

Here's our two cats getting about as close as they ever do--watching something, probably a bird or squirrel, outside the window. They remind me of bureaucrats in different agencies, very protective of turf, quick to take offense, but sometimes willing to share space, particularly if there's some common focus.



Note the badly patched screen--Ginny, the cat on the left, still believes she's an outdoor cat and refuses to listen to our warnings about Mr. Fox.

Initial Friday Cat Blogging

The first time I've added a photo to my blog. (Takes us old people time to get caught up with new-fangled ideas. Coffee is vital to me so I wear out coffee carafes. Carrie decided the box the latest one came in was just the right size for her: