For this edition of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap, we’re going to ask a “family question.” Maybe even call this “exploring a theory.”
We’re going to do this quietly, calmly because I believe that is how cats would want us to proceed with collecting our observations.
Our Demonstration Cats are (left) Cosmo of Maine and Chloe of New Jersey. (Yes, Dear Readers, you probably recognize Chloe, the Executive Director of our Eastern
Seaboard Bureau in Denville, N.J. Please read on.)
Here is the theory we will explore and I’m expressing it in question form: “Could ALL cats be related?”
As a longtime cat observer, readlarrypowell.com suspects they are all connected by a gene that promotes relaxed napping, i.e., catnapping.
[LARRY ASIDE: And, we have to wonder, of course, if a profit-motivated scientist somewhere is working on a way to adjust human genetic impulses so we can activate an app on our phones and nod off like a just-fed cat whenever we need to, i.e., frequently.]
Background: This edition’s Napping Cats are not blood kin. But, honestly, look at the very similar “curl up and nap” poses. You can’t teach that stuff — it’s got be inherited, not instructed.
These two happen to be cat-in-laws.
That debonaire fellow napping with one leg aristocratically extended is Cosmo. He may be the Cary Grant of Cats.
Cosmo lives in Yarmouth, Maine, with Al and Anne Fisher.
Our connection with Cosmo is this: He is the Catnapper in the home of The Fishers of Maine. And those Fishers are related to Andy and Annie, the Fishers on the Banks of Indian Lake in Denville, New Jersey.
That lakeside site is, as regular readers know, the location of our Eastern Seaboard Bureau helmed by Executive Editor & Senior Correspondent Andy Fisher, the veteran print/broadcast journalist. Yes, Andy and Al are brothers. Andy and Annie are the humans tended to by Chloe.
While these two cats may not be immediately linkable by scientific studies, a sincere observer of felines can certainly declare that they look like catblood relatives when they’ve nodded off. We have photographic evidence. Check out the curled up photos (Chloe's in the colorful basket left) and the stretched out paws photos.
The Indian Lake Fishers, Annie and Andy, got Chloe in October of 2016. Andy writes, “She was less than six months old. The shelter (911 Cat and Dog Rescue) said she was born on April 30 to a ‘trap savvy’ mom and dad who had still not
been spayed and neutered. The shelter worker who handled the adoption, Lori Bianchi, sent us these photos of an even younger Chloe, while she was still known as June Bug (how insulted she would be if she -- the full-grown pocket tiger -- were still called by THAT name!).”
That's Chloe taking it easy in the, of course, "easy chair."
Cosmo arrived at his home sometime around 2007. Andy explains, “Cosmo is a fomer feral and current indoor/outdoor cat. He looks a little like Chloe.” Al says Cosmo is “at least 18.”
You see a common catitude in Cosmo’s extended paw picture and Chloe’s photo of sleeping between cushions on a couch.
And in the curled up photos, there’s also a kinship among the cats when it come to catching a catnap.
Ultimately, we’ll just declare this: There's something extra about a comfortable cat — it’s catching. And, as a long time sleep-deprived human exists, we’ll just declare that we envy cats and their kinship of catnapping! Yes, that's baby Chloe -- getting ready for a nap?
[DEAR READERS: Send photos and bios of your sleeping dogs and napping cats and any other snoozing critters to dallrp@aol.com and we’ll post their stories on readlarrypowell.com in the weekly feature Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap. You’ll show someone they can enjoy life with a household commpanion and you give hope to insomniacs that someone, somewhere, is working on improving ways to sleep.]
— Offer tips or thoughts by clicking on ‘comment’ below or email dallrp@aol.com and put “PILLOW TALK” in the subject line. —-
