XPost: alt.cats
From: mmontcha@OregonVOS.net
On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, Joe Bernstein wrote:
|Newsgroups line snipped.
Okay, so how much bandwidth do you think you saved?
|I remember Kay Shapero from the debate mentioned below, and am inclined
|to assume she's reading this thread from news.groups; I'm quite sure
|the person she quotes is. alt.cats is not carried by Panix, so I don't
|think I can post to it.
You could still try. (The worst case scenario is a dumping of the
supposedly 'malformed' article at the wayside, courtesy an over
ambitious filter.)
|A post that looks off-topic, but surprisingly enough, isn't entirely.
|
|In article ,
|Kay Shapero wrote:
|
|> In article 100000@lab.oregonvos.net>, mmontcha@OregonVOS.net says...
|
|> > Cats should be bred for strength, and resistance to germs.
|
|> I know someone who's doing that - and also for intelligence and,
|> lately, one of the polydactyl traits. (Intelligent cats with
|> thumbs...) See my sig for some of the stories she's told me...
|
|My mother bred for polydactyly, along with tiger markings.
The vertical up/down stripes of a tiger are there for helping the
animal blend into its surroundings. I have a long story about how
my (outdoor domestic) cats survived, and at that, probably for the
way their coats helped them blend into the hazelnut 'brush' that
is native to the area where I live. (Dogs picked out and killed
off our more conspicuous animals.)
|But her life was far too chaotic to even take the first step toward
|what she sometimes said her goal was, establishing an actual breed.
Punctuated evolution occurs when that one special feline finds
herself in a perfect niche, and her many kittens find it agreeable
as well.
|More often she referred to it as a genetics research project done
|cheaply; she had been a geneticist until about the time DNA was
|decoded, and had never adapted to the union of genetics with
|biochemistry that followed.
Were we to transfer genes from one cat species to another, that
sort of thing might be a very useful thing. Owning a domestic cat
with a gene transplanted from another feline species, and having
the pedigree to prove it, might be much more than just a 'status'
thing.
|In reality, I think she just liked having kittens around. We gave most
|of them away at shops and kept those who weren't taken.
|
|I was the last in the family to keep a cat of that line; she died
|late last October. She had neither polydactyly nor tiger markings.
An unusual coat, shall I suppose?
|She was also neither as stupid as some of the cats in the line
|(her grandmother was profoundly stupid, including but not limited
|to abandoning both the litters she bore) nor as smart as others
|(her mother, for example, was fairly bright).
I have wondered why some mothers lack the maternal instinct to stay
be their kittens.
|Just to complete the set, I'll note that she was presumably germ-
|resistant (she died of hyperthyroidism, and I don't remember any
|infections despite, among other things, two or three periods of flea
|infestation), but not especially strong. Oh, and contrary to the
|ignorant assumption of someone up the thread in a cross-post I don't
|want to perpetuate,
That cats should be bred for strength, and resistance to germs.
(Of course, anyone wishing to breed a cat, can breed it for any
reason they want to. If all you want to go by, is the color of
the coat, there are many unusual looking cats at your local humane
society, most of them available for adoption.) -Geeze, Joe, it's
not like I was suggesting an exclusio unius est exclusio alterius.
There can be lots of reasons to breed a cat. All of them involve
pushing the "breed boundary." Pedigrees are probably good things,
documenting a cat's genetic heritage can be an interesting thing,
but why limit yourself to "purebreds" when there are a whole lot
more genes out there than you might first realize?
|she was, like me, both unusually small and unusually reserved.
Shall I ask myself if I am supposed to comment on you, or on the cats
you have?
|I have the strong impression that this post will lead at least one
|person to flame my mother, and perhaps also me.
Your mother had a good heart, and good intentions, so what's wrong with
that?
|Amusingly, both the cats I've ever kept have been, arguably, rescue
|situations: the older, from my mother's house and its fleas; the
|younger, as it turned out, only briefly, while my landlord adapted to
|the idea that he was stuck with half a dozen cats courtesy of his
|daughter (if I remember right). (He took that cat back when he evicted
|me, six years back, and put her in his shop, where she was perfectly
|happy the last time I saw her.) I mentioned this in the debate that led
|to the creation of rec.pets.cats.rescue and I was praised for it, which
|was somewhat preposterous, so I guess it's only fair that flamage come
|my way now so as to zero the karmic balance. But of course if it
|*does* come my way, it'll serve as additional evidence of why this group
|might be a good idea, and some hint as to whether it need be moderated.
If the proponent had thought it necessary to have a moderated newsgroup,
that would have been mentioned in the RFD.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
|
