"Paws for Thought"

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After Hazel's popularity on Sunday, I shall stick with the 'cat theme' today.

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Here's a song from 1932. Once again, the words are not worth bothering about.

A lot of these tunes were really written for Dance Bands and the words were sometimes added just to enable the dancers to sing along whilst dancing. It is described as a Comedy Song Waltz.

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Are your cats, right handed or left handed?

My ginger tom, Wesley, always gives me his right paw to hold (with my left hand), when I comb him, using my right. He never holds up his left. Hazel, 'on the other hand' keeps both paws firmly on the 'deck' when she has her grooming.

However, if I play with Hazel, she will always use her left paw to respond.

So either I have two very awkward pussy's or there is no truth in this bit of 'research' I came across over the weekend?

Psychologists found that females cats are much more likely to prefer their right paw while tom cats have a strong tendency to use their left when faced with difficult tasks.

Two researchers at Queen's University Belfast recruited 42 pet cats for the study.

Although the animals could use either paw for simple tasks they reverted to their favoured side for more complex tasks, the researchers found.

In one particularly difficult task – fishing a piece of tuna out of a small jar – all 21 females used their right paw.

But 20 of the 21 tom cats used their left while one of the males appeared to be ambidextrous.

In simpler games, involving grasping a toy mouse being dragged along on a string, they showed equal preference for either paw.

The researchers likened the pattern to the way in which humans would use either hand for a simple task such as opening a door but one or the other for writing.

"The more complex and challenging (the task), the more likely we're going to see true handedness," Dr Wells was quoted in New Scientist as saying.

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This is a rather old picture of a cat I once had, called Kopi.

Every Christmas she would remember where the tray of nuts was placed and would knock them off, onto the floor, with her left paw and then continue to 'bat' them all around the room for play.

I was always finding nuts under furniture for weeks after Christmas!

She must have done this at every one of her eighteen Christmas's.

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