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Even people who live with cats and have good reason to know better insist that cats are aloof and uninterested in relating to humans. Janet and Steven Alger contend that the anti-social cat is a myth; cats form close bonds with humans and with each other. In the potentially chaotic environment of a shelter that houses dozens of uncaged cats, they reveal a sense of self and build a culture—a shared set of rules, roles, and expectations that organizes their world and assimilates newcomers.
As volunteers in a local cat shelter for eleven years, the Algers came to realize that despite the frequency of new arrivals and adoptions, the social world of the shelter remained quite stable and pacific. They saw even feral cats adapt to interaction with humans and develop friendships with other cats. They saw established residents take roles as welcomers and rules enforcers. That is, they saw cats taking an active interest in maintaining a community in which they could live together and satisfy their individual needs. Cat Culture's intimate portrait of life in the shelter, its engaging stories, and its interpretations of behavior, will appeal to general readers as well as academics interested in human and animal interaction.
Customer Review: This book is a MUST read
This book is a wonderful combination of intelligent information and a loving tribute toward our warm, furry companions and intimate friends. The entire book is the sign of personal, cognitive, and emotional experience that leads to the raising questions about cats' existence as sentient beings. The book clearly establishes the fact that our furry friends are capable of emotional expression and their sensitivity is not a matter of mere affect but an aspect of growing awareness. The wonderful point this book makes is that to be appropriately sensitive to other beings' way is to experience them as real, breathing, and living entities. This book ultimately gives a direction by showing that the wonderful bridge of connectedness of human and other beings is possible through direct and deep experience. It is wonderful to realize that compassion is the way to learn and love.


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