Tame That Pussy

Who'd a thunk? Turns out cats are trainable.

The Cat Whisperer
Will she be the next TV star animal trainer? She certainly had the right diagnosis for my cat Thompson, a biter. 

Mieshelle Nagelschneider is a cat behaviorist who is in no way affiliated with Cesar Millan, the trainer-star of the television phenomenon "The Dog Whisperer." Nagelschneider is, however, working with a major television network to develop an upcoming cat behavior show of her own. She can't reveal too much about it yet, since the network people are still hashing out the details. Alas, it probably won't be called "The Cat Whisperer." But given that there are 13 million more pet cats than pet dogs in this country, she may very well be poised for Cesar Millan-style fame and glory.

…
In their study, Driscoll and O'Brien concluded that domestic cats evolved from the wildcat Felis silvestris in the Near East, probably around 10,000 years ago. The way they see it, cats domesticated themselves. Wandering humans were settling down in the Fertile Crescent and establishing agriculture. Cats were drawn to the settlements to feed on mice that had shacked up in the grain stores. Natural selection favored the tamer cats, which could take better advantage of the spoils produced by our budding society. "They chose humans at the right time and the right place," O'Brien said.
…
So now I know what I'm up against: a solitary hunter who doesn't play nicely with others, and who, for thousands of years, has been evolving a skill set designed to take advantage of me. But at least my foe is predictable. According to Nagelschneider, most cat behavior problems fall into one of a handful of predictable categories. Not surprisingly, some of her most frequent complaints involve cats that take issue with the litter box. (When Nagelschneider mentioned the cat that urinated at night on his sleeping owner's face, Thompson's problems suddenly seemed very minor indeed.) In any event, aggression is also fairly common, and Nagelschneider has turned around her fair share of violent cats. She was optimistic that Thompson could be fixed.

Which will come in handy should this kind of thing be a problem.