UNDERSTANDING YOUR CAT

Kipling's Cat Who Walks by Himself is no fiction -- the cat is a solitary to begin with and one of his nine senses (as well as nine lives) includes a sense of direction -- therefore the recorded case of a feline who made it home, 465 miles in ten months. Dr. Fox who also wrote Understanding Your Dog has written a companion volume applying behavioralist insights (definitely not behaviorist -- any cat would give Dr. Skinner real trouble) about the cat who is fastidiously clean, aloof, self-domesticated with a sense of time (Dr. Fox's cat wakes him up three minutes before the alarm goes off every day). Broader sections deal with history, lineage and legend, with breeding and birthing, with the selection of a cat (the Siamese is the most ""doglike"" -- educable and dependent). Not all of this is altogether verifiable (Rhine's ESP experiments) if at all (do women living together have synchronized menstrual cycles?!?) but there's a lot here to satisfy your curiosity about your cat's care, conduct and impervious charm. One hundred photos, diagrams and pictures. It's sure to be on that household bookshelf where he's sitting.