do you know that cats.... a page dedicated especially to all cat owners as well as other pets owners...

• Cats, not dogs are the most common pets in America. Approximately 66 million cats to 58 million dogs, with Parakeets "flying" a distant third at 14 million.
  

• The domestic cat is the only species able to hold its tail vertically while walking. Wild cats hold their tail horizontally, or tucked between their legs while walking!
  

• cats sleep about fourteen hours a day.
  

• Lions are the only truly social cat species, and usually every female in a pride, ranging from 5 to 30 individuals, is closely related.
  

• Philip Gilbert Hamerton, English art writer and landscape painter, noted, "If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering, outspoken, honest fellow — but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much."
  

• A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
  

• A cat uses its whiskers to determine if a space is too small to squeeze through. The whiskers act as feelers or antennae, helping the animal to judge the precise width of any passage.
  

• A cat's jaw can't move sideways.
  

• Ancient Egyptians believed that "Bast" was the mother of all cats on Earth. They also believed that cats were sacred animals.
  

• Catnip can affect lions and tigers as well as house cats. It excites them because it contains a chemical that resembles an excretion of the dominant female's urine.
  

• Cats can make over 100 vocal sounds, while dogs can only make 10.
  

• Cats have no ability to taste sweet things.
  

• Purring is part of every cat's repertoire of social communication, apparently created by the movement of air in spasms through contractions of the diaphragm. Interestingly, purring is sometimes heard in cats who are severely ill or anxious, perhaps as a self-comforting vocalization. But, more typically, it is a sign of contentment, first heard in kittens as they suckle milk from their mother. In adults, purring is heard in domesticated cats when they are petted, and in feral cats during sexual or other social contexts. Like submissive posturing among dogs, purring may be a signal of appeasement to other cats or to people, a way to communicate that the purring cat need not be threatened. As with many behaviors in dogs and cats, the original presumed purpose of the behavior may not be directly relevant in a pet home. But we do believe that, when our healthy pet cats purr, they are happy and at peace.
  

• Actor John Barrymore became an eccentric animal collector in his later years. His beloved menagerie consisted of 300 different birds, dozens of Siamese cats, and 19 dogs, of which there were 11 greyhounds, several St. Bernards, and a few Kerry blue terriers. Barrymore also had a monkey, a few opossum, and mouse deer.
  

• Napoleon suffered from ailurophobia, the fear of cats.
  

• "The cat has too much spirit to have no heart." - Ernest Menaul
  

• "In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats." - English proverb
  

• "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." - Albert Schweitzer
  

• "There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast." - Unknown
  

• "No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens." - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
  

• "One cat just leads to another." - Ernest Hemingway
  

• "People that hate cats will come back as mice in their next life." - Faith Resnick
  

• "You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats." - Colonial American proverb
  

• "As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat." - Ellen Perry Berkeley
  

• "Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function." - Garrison Keillor
  

• "Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia." - Joseph Wood Krutch
  

• "Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow." - Jeff Valdez
  

• "Cats aren't clean, they're just covered with cat spit." - John S. Nichols
  

• "Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want." - Joseph Wood Krutch
  

• "Dogs come when they're called; cats take a message and get back to you later." - Mary Bly
  

• People suffering from sinus disease are allergic to cat fur - submitted by Syafizan
  

• Cat fur is not the allergen: cat dander is!
  Mother cats purr while nursing, thus encouraging purring in their satisfied kittens...
  If a cat has trouble with hairballs, smear a little butter or margarine on the front paws, and the problem will soon disappear! - submitted by Lisa (DESTINY51)