Why Do Cats Bury Their Poop?

Why Do Cats Bury Their Poop?: More Than 200 Feline Facts, Fallacies and Foibles Revealed
By Margaret H. Bonham and D. Caroline Coile, PhD

The real title to this book should be: Why Do Humans Ask Such Silly Questions? Even the authors must agree with me, because some of their answers are downright snarky. For example: “Can cats pull a sled? No, and anyway, why would you want them to?” Or the ever-popular, “Why does clumping litter clump?” (They reply, “You really have too much time on your hands if you’ve been wondering about this one.”) But no matter how dumb the question, the humans who wrote this book have the patience to give a more detailed answer. (The sled query goes into the difference between fast and slow-twitch muscles; the litter reply discusses how absorbent clay works.) After all, there are some questions that may sound stupid to us cats, like, “Why do cats swish or lash their tail?” or “How does a cat know how high to jump?” but are actually something of a mystery to humans. (Incidentally, we swish our tails because you are annoying us and we know how high to jump because we are apparently much better at gauging distance than humans are.) And of course, there are questions such as “Can vaccines give your cat cancer?” and “Should you let your cat roam?” that require (and get) thoughtful replies (short answers: some have to the former and absolutely no to the latter).

This is a fun and often informative book of cat trivia, and even humans who think they know something about cats are bound to learn some new facts. And by the way, if you’re wondering why cats bury their poop, I’ll give you a hint: have you ever smelled the stuff? Maybe I should turn the tables and write a book called, Why Do Humans Flush Their Poop? It’s something we cats have been wondering about for a long time.

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