Pros and Cons of having cats

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i hope your son can learn to be gentle with them.

right now, the con of having a cat in my house is that she is urinating on furniture and rugs (she is going to the vet tomorrow to rule out bladder infections). the pro of having a cat in my house is that she brings joy into my daughter's life. also my mom willed the cat to my daughter so there is an emotional tie involved.

Con; risk of toxoplasmosis infection.

This is only regarding indoor-cats

Pro: they are fluffy

Con: Cathair everywhere
Con: Cat litter everywhere
Con: Cleaning of cat toilet
Con: They wake you up in the middle of the night
Con: They hiss and scratch
Con: They are hungry almost all the time
Con: They make it impossible for a cat allergic person to vistit you
Con: They walk on your kitchen furniture and spread bacterias
Con: They need someone to look after them and feed them if you go on holiday

some cats are capable of developing emotional attachments to their owners. my late father's cat mushi, after his death, would go into his old bedroom and jump on his bed and howl.

Thanks. We have strict rules of respect for the cats in our house--but he still has a problem being loud and picking them up (and they don't like it.)

But yesterday he was so proud, he ran in and told me "Mom! I petted [our cat's name], and she laid down on me and closed her eyes!! !" He was so happy.

This morning he reported, "she was sleeping on me when I woke up."

Maybe all the explanations on cat behavior are paying off.

^^^
and if you learn how to scratch their jowls [the area between their ears and their mouth] with a fast firm scrolling motion of your fingers, they will love you forever. they especially like when you scratch around the boundaries of their ears, as a lot of 'em have itchy mite bites there that need scratching.

Pro: Purring and lap sitting
Con: Yard full of dead voles

Pro: No mice or rats scurrying around
Con: Dead rat under the couch

Pro: They do zany, silly things like chasing each other around
Con: The not-quite-dead bird in the bathtub

I have three cats whose mother was feral and they are all expert hunters.
I once had a cat whose parentage was rather domestic and he caught a mouse once and couldn't figure out what to do next.

Pro: They have soft fur
Con: They have sharp edges

Pro: They keep mice away
Con: They drag dead mice inside

Pro: They purr when you cuddle
Con: They purr when you try to sleep

Pro: They are comforting when you are sad
Con: They sit on your newspaper when you read

Pro: They keep your cardboard boxes useful
Con: They jump into your boxes before they are empty

Summary: I love cats

Con: beware learning how to scratch their jowls right; you'll be a scratcher 24/7 forever. Like me. Ever seen that crazy woman sitting on the park bench at 2 am with a line of stray cats awaiting turn for a jowl scratching? That was me.

Ahhaa! You are the crazy cat lady, how nice to meet you.

the secret is to do it vigorously, firmly, with a scrolling motion of each finger in term in waves of movement, from finger to finger. vigorously so the cat will KNOW it's being scratched good and hard and will get its fill in a short time.

Oh, I see!! They indeed seem to prefer more vigorous, but I never dared. But can you explain more in detail what you mean by "a scrolling motion of each finger in term in waves of movement, from finger to finger"?

you can tell if they like it or not if they push their head into your hand as if to say "HARDER!" the scrolling motion means you look at your individual fingers like a cascade of motion, first your pinkie finger curls into position and scratches, quickly followed by the ring, middle and index fingers, all in a row, over and over. that is what i mean by "scrolling motion." not all at once, but one finger at a time starting with pinkie then ring middle and index, in that order. they don't seem to like it as much if you do it backwards, from index to pinkie. if you're doing it fast enough it should be 4 or 5 scratches per second. does this explantion make sense to you? you use this scrolling motion on the jowls, neck, throat, chin, forehead and around the ears where the ear mites like to bite 'em and make 'em itch and scratch.
p.s., some cats like it harder, others softer, trial and error.

Thank you soooo much, auntblabby!! !! I have NLD so I require very precise instructions and only verbal, and your explanation is just perfect! I've copy-pasted them to my Cats file and as soon as they finish eating I'll start practising.

a little clarifying note is in order here- when i said "4 or 5 scratches per second" i meant the whole of 4 fingers having gone through their cascade of motion 4 or 5 times per second, for a total of 20-25 total finger-movements per second. does THAT make sense?