Christina Websell wrote:

As I said, I'd never heard of them until a few days ago.
I won't get one of course, but for someone who is used to dogs (like myself)
it wouldn't be such a culture shock to have a cat with that temperament ;-)

I wonder about that. Not for you, but for me. One thing I like about cats
is the way they come and go, and don't focus on me all. the. time. I think
that might drive me a little crazy. A friend of mine had a cat like that
(regular old moggie, he just had a very needy personality), and he never
let her get anything done. He was constantly on her for attention. Needy
dogs might sit there and whine, but at least they can't jump on the desk.
You can't get away from a needy cat.

Roxy is a very affectionate cat. When she's in the mood for a cuddle, she
throws her whole self into it - sitting on me, near my face so she can rub
noses with me frequently, purring, sometimes kneading (a lot less than she
used to), giving me head rubs and just generally being adorable. And she'll
hang with me like that for quite a while. (Sometimes she falls asleep in my
arms, and can stay like that for an hour or two.) But when she's done, she
gets up and leaves. She has a life. And so, it turns out, do I.

Licky is a little more needy, but I attribute that to the fact that he's
often so skittish and suspicious that he's chronically deprived of pettings
and cuddles. Not that I don't give them to him whenever I can! But if he
weren't such a scaredy cat, I think he'd be like Roxy - come, get his pets,
and then go off to attend to other cat business.

Besides that, it would panic the neighbours to see what looked like a small
lynx passing through their garden and I think they would call the police. A
work colleague had a big (very big) Bengal boy - she kept him in for ages,
two years ISTR but he was so destructive in the house and vocal about going
out that she eventually let him do it. Within a few days the police were
out looking for an escaped leopard.

LOL! I find that amazing. Maybe a bengal cat has markings that are vaguely
like a leopard's, especially if you're not looking too closely or you don't
quite know what a leopard's fur looks like. But I don't understand how someone
can mistake an animal's *size*. Surely you can tell the difference between
a 130-lb/59 kg leopard and even a large domestic cat, which probably doesn't
weigh more than 20 lbs (about 9 kg). People make that mistake all the time and
it always puzzles me.

--
Joyce

audiophile, n:
Someone who listens to the equipment instead of the music.