“A kitten is the delight of a household. All day long a comedy is played out by an incomparable actor.” – Champfleury, The Cat Past and Present.
Portrait of a Kitten
Portrait: Short-haired Tabby Kitten (full body) | Medium: Pen & Ink | Size: 8 inches x 10 inches
My Ma says, I shouldn’t be telling you who I am because we shouldn’t brag. Ma says, calling yourself a cat or a kitten is bragging. Guess you’ve already met Ma. If you haven’t, you can read about her and also view the portrait of the short-haired Tabby Cat here.
We Kittens are little bundles of joy but of course, you already know that.
We are energetic, playful, and very alert, so it may come as a surprise to you that we are born deaf and blind. We are helpless little rag dolls and we depend on our moms for everything. For first few days we just make some odd noises and the only touch we recognize is mom’s. Gradually each of us in the litter develop a preference towards a teat and then we seldom change our suckling teat.
When we are about a week old, we open our eyes a little but it takes us about 2-3 weeks to open them fully. This is also the time when we begin to crawl. Then we stand on our fours and finally walk – we are quite like little babies actually. When we are a month old, we begin to run and play with mom and with our other siblings. This also help us build social communication skills and become confident and assertive. Until this age, we are totally dependent on mom’s milk but after this age we also start sampling other food.
In wild, little kittens wouldn’t survive without their mother’s guidance. She teaches them how to hunt for food. This begins when the mother brings home her kill and allows the kittens to practice. By the age of six months, the kittens become independent and begin hunting on their own.
Kittens that grow up in a human home can be weaned away from their mother’s milk with baby food. At two-months they are ready to take solid food that can be increased in their diet gradually.
It takes us about three months to get our permanent eye color and our permanent teeth. When we are six months old, most of us are totally independent. (Mom says, the same cannot be said of dogs.)
If you want to get a bigger dose of kitten-info, check out this wikipedia page on kittens.
If you’ve just got your first kitten and you are fretting over what you must and mustn’t feed her, read about feeding your Kitten here.
Why does a falling cat always lands on its paws? The Hyper-sensitive balancing Mechanism in Cats!
Ma says, we cats are magical. One of our magical tricks is that we always land on our paws.
Humans and animals are able to balance themselves because of the liquid that fills their internal ear. Any variation in posture is picked up as imbalance by the liquid, which SMSes the brain to make the muscles of the limbs move to regain the balance. In cats this mechanism is hyper-sensitive. The messages to the brain reach much faster than they do in humans so when a cat falls, in a fraction of a second a message is conveyed to the brain and then the brain messages the muscles of the legs and other parts of the body enabling the cat turn its body midway to prepare for a safe landing. In cats, all this is a split-second reaction and this is why a cat always lands right.
Cats who because famous because of their YouTube videos:
From a piano virtuoso to the chattiest cats on the Web, this site has rounded up some frisky felines made famous by their viral videos. Here is the link to ten cats that owe their fame to YouTube.
Pet Cats of Famous People
- Famous pet cats of United States Presidents and their families
- Famous pet cats of other famous people
Let me leave you with…
Cute pictures of Cute Kittens
Here are two Pinterest boards to bowl you over:
and
and also
Now this kitten is hungry and must run to Ma .
Shafali's Pen & Ink Portrait Art 