As we learn in NATURE, cats are dependent on their mothers from birth until about eight weeks of age. After that, they go off to lead solitary lives. But by giving domestic cats the food, shelter, and affection that their mothers once provided them, we extend cats' kittenhood on through the rest of their lives. In a way, adult cats even look at us as their mothers -- begging us for food, enjoying contact like scratching and stroking, and greeting us with purrs and body rubs when we walk in the door.

It is during these weeks that the degree of a cat's attachment to people is established. Unless a kitten is held, talked to, and fed by a human in that time, it will probably remain suspicious of people for the rest of its life. The cat's veneer of domestication is very thin, and it does not take much for a cat to return to the wild state from which it came. Cats that have reverted to a wild state are called feral cats.

Conversely, a scene in CATS in which a mouse mixes fearlessly with a litter of kittens demonstrates that socialization cuts two ways: a kitten who is introduced to a mouse at an early age as a friend, not a predator, will probably not grow up to be an efficient hunter.

A cat may learn almost every skill from its mother, but some things a cat is born with: its incredible senses of smell, taste and hearing; its nearly perfect sense of balance; the ability to judge distances, allowing a cat to leap from the floor to the top of a dresser without stumbling. The cat's most famous trick is an instinctive one as well: the ability to turn itself around mid-fall and land on its feet.

See a QuickTime movie of a cat righting itself during a fall.

QuickTime movie, 1.6MB. You will need the QuickTime plug-in to view this movie.