CHILDREN’S WORLD - PETS - DOMESTIC CAT

DOMESTIC CAT We see it everywhere: in houses and apartments, in our and other people’s courtyards, in bushes, on trees, on lawns, in fields and on roads – shortly, everywhere where animals should and should not be found. For domestic cats there are rarely any natural barriers and places they can not reach. They are equally at home in urban and rural areas, regardless of the fact whether they have owners who feed them or they survive on their own feeding themselves on smaller rodents or, pitifully, searching litter containers. Mostly, they are very resourceful, very quick and limber and extraordinary devote to their owners and the space they inhabit. From all cat breeds domestic cat is the most wide-spread population in the world. It is presumed that on our planet there live between 600 and 700 million domestic cats; and domestic cat is also among the most favoured pets. From the historic point of view, domestic cat (Felis silvestris, forma catus) has lived close to people for more than 3500 years, and has developed by domesticating the African wild cat. Domestic cat can have diverse coloured eyes and fur, as well as diverse tail and hair lengths. Its head is most often in harmony with the size of its body which is balanced and muscled, while it varies in size. Through numerous mutations from domestic cats there developed long-haired, no-haired or no-tail cats that further developed into different today known cat breeds. It is well known that many peoples throughout history celebrated cat as sacred animal, especially Egyptians, Chinese and some Muslim peoples. However, if we observe cats through different historic and geographic periods, we can notice that they have not always had the fortune to be celebrated and glorified as special beings connected to Gods. Thus, in Middle Ages cats were massively killed in Europe because they were brought in connection with Satan and considered the incarnation of evil. Still, those times are behind us and the cat has regained its position next to man as a pet and useful domestic animal.