Vancouver Vets: Healthy Pets Series

People have associated with cats for thousands of years. Cats were first domesticated in Egypt between 1600 and 1500 BC. Even earlier, they were worshiped as gods; the Egyptian gods of fertility and war were given feline personalities. Feline images can also be found on early Greek and Roman vases, statues, and coins.

Wild cats (such as tigers, leopards, civets, and bobcats, for example) are among the best hunters in the animal kingdom. Domestic cats share these characteristics and are still valued “mousers” around barns, granaries, and warehouses. However, most cats in the United States and Canada are primarily pets that provide companionship, typically with few demands then are associated with dog ownership.

The population of pet cats in the United States and Canada has steadily increased since the early 1970s, rivaling and now exceeding the number of pet dogs.

Like dogs, cats look very different from people but share many of our body’s characteristics, such as a circulatory system, lungs, a digestive tract, a nervous system, and so on.

There are many different breeds of cats, including Abyssinian, Himalayan, Main Coon, Manx, Persian, Scottish Fold, and Siamese, to name a few. The Cat Fanciers’ Association, which is the world’s largest registry of pedigreed cats, recognizes about 40 distinct breeds.

The most familiar cats are the domestic shorthair and the domestic longhair, which...