(Oreo the Cat, with his inverse widows peak)As the owner of several cats (yes, I crossed that threshold of owning more than two cats, which qualifies me for the title of "weird cat person"), I have a theory about how cats view the universe. Now this could be based on things I've read, experiences, etc., but it goes something like this:
Cats only see three different kinds of living things in the universe -
1. Prey - These are things that the cat would like to kill and eat...well the eating part would only happen if they were hungry; otherwise, they would just kill. This includes insects, rodents, birds, rabbits, etc. Mostly anything smaller than the cat that isn't a cat itself.
2. Predators - These are things that could harm the cat, like most dogs.
3. Other Cats - This is anything else on more or less an equal footing with the cat.
I put humans in category #3 in that I think most cats see their "owners" as being nothing more than really big cats. I know that there's the purring issue to deal with (that cats really don't, as far as I know, purr around each other....well I think kittens do when they are around their mothers), but I still think that cats view us as other cats. A cat may also view a human as being a predator, by virtue of its size. This is probably how wild or mis-treated cats view us. Maybe they view us as substitute mother cats to them, which also solves for the purring issue. I do know this: having more than one cat enables you to see what there are definite social orders in the world of cats, which is interesting for an animal that isn't known as a social creature. For the record, all my cats are male, which makes the social thing even more interesting, as male cats are supposedly known as loners.
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