Lessons Learned From Rocky, The King of Cats

This last couple of weeks interacting with so many of y’all has really given me some insight into what tightly wrapped creatures you hairless monkeys are.

This last couple of weeks interacting with so many of y’all has really given me some insight into what tightly wrapped creatures you hairless monkeys are. I kind of feel bad for you.

So I was thinking about some lessons I learned from Rocky, my predecessor as FFL spokescat.

Here’s some of what we cats know about humans so far:

1. You smell funny.
2. You pee in your water. It’s weird.
3. You assume we want you to pat us on the head when you never go around greeting each other by patting each other’s heads.
4. You can be warm to cuddle with.
5. You never seem to catch anything, and yet still you just have great stuff to eat. (Oh wait, that’s me too.)
6. You don’t get spayed nearly as early or as often as you advocate it for us and, frankly, I’m not sure that’s been such a stellar plan for you.
7. You will stare at a screen with pictures of a cat on it for hours instead of petting the actual cat in the room.
8. You generate stress—basically stuff you make up in your head—and then you become your own worst enemy.

One of you has figured it out. The rest of you should listen to him.

Dr. Robert Sapolsky in Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.

He says,

“Stress kills slowly, putting us out of homeostatic balance, suppressing the immune system, shutting down growth, and eroding memory and the ability to learn.”

Dr. Robert Sapolsky

Even zebras handle stress better than you. Here’s what he says… Let’s say you’re a zebra, and a lion has leaped out, ripped your stomach open… (this counts as being put the f out of homeostatic balance, I’d say.)

For a zebra, though, stress had an extremely short if potentially deadly span; it was “three minutes of screaming terror” after which the animal was either dead or once again roaming the savannah and feeling safe. 

Y’all replay crap in your heads and make up stuff to worry about that will never really happen.

And the expert hairless monkey in the field says,

“If you think you’re about to be knocked out of homeostatic balance and really aren’t, and this happens on a regular basis, we get sick.”

Dr. Robert Sapolsky

So you get it. Stress is bad. But maybe you don’t know how to have less of it.

I’m here to give you some tips from the animal world to help you out. You’re welcome.

Some of these are trade secrets so be cool, y’all.

1. …And I can’t emphasize this enough…Sleep. I get 22 or so hours a day. Maybe you can’t get that much. But if you can possibly make a choice between starting a new project at midnight or getting some sleep… sleep, you big anxious, hairless monkeys.
2. Eat. (Bonus if you can get someone to serve it to you like I do.) Don’t starve yourselves or brag that you are so productive you forgot to eat. Do you think Darwinism ever favored any species that ‘forgot to eat?” Not adaptive.
3. Quit worrying about what people think about you. In the words of the immortal poet Taylor Swift, “Haters gonna hate.”
4. Get some sun. Seriously. I know you all have dermatologists now and you can lather up with sunblock, but find a sunny spot and lie down in it for a while. You think those rays keep the planet alive by accident? No. Get you some.
5. Bathe in public by licking your…nevermind. You’re not ready.
6. Find a friend. Some of you talk about adopting us.  But I’m thinking you may want to adopt each other a little too. You know, bring each other a snack, take a nap together just hang out and watch dogs do goofy stuff—which, near as I can tell, is all dogs do.
7. You knew it was coming–adopt one of us and get a stress coach. We lower your blood pressure, reduce depression and even make you emo-humans feel better. You can still listen to your Tori Amos. Who doesn’t love her? But feel better doing it. All for the price of an adoption fee, we give you unconditional love (ok, a few conditions). We bring structure to your life, help you get exercise and we actually extend your lifespan. You’re freakin’ welcome.

(and Dude, adopt us from a program that has a program that would have saved a guy like me. I am only around to lead this movement because Friends For Life (1) takes animals from the public, not just other shelters (2) is not willing to off a guy just because he’s a kitten or even when he is older but was returned from an adopter who had her life crash (3) has a very advanced behavior department committed to saving spicy a holes like me.

Yep, it’s like Shark Week for us all the time, otherwise. There you have it. The Rocky and Quilty Guide to not breathing like a hamster. Unless you are a hamster. Then go for it, bro.  

So until next time, just simmer down. 

— Q