2017-08-04 09:19 A cat in a jumper
Y (Kuma's owner)
This winter isn't so cold and I don't have much chance to use the wood-burning stove, however one of my cats, Moko-Nyan, is getting old and seems to not tolerate cold weather. I think Moko-Nyan is about 14 years and 6 months old.
He had a beautiful coat when he was young and looked like a pure blood Maine Coon cat. Now, his coat looks thin and looks so cold and I decided to buy a jumper for him. I don't like to dress a cat but I thought that if he was able to be warm wearing a jumper, it must be good.
Long ago, I bought a harness for one of my cats. He got cancer and he loved to walk around the house. He needed to take medication and I didn't want him to go outside alone. Therefore, I bought a harness and put it on him and walked him every day. One day, I put the harness on Moko-Nyan and knew that he didn't care for it at all. So, I thought that he wouldn't care for a jumper as well.
I was not going to dress him in a jumper if he didn't like it, and the result was my expectation was correct. He doesn't care for the jumper at all. I don't know if the jumper has an effect or has no effect. I hope that at least it makes him a little warmer.
The season that he doesn't need a jumper is coming soon.
2017-08-02 00:52 What kind of creature am I?
Y (Kuma's owner)
One day, one of my Twitter friends wrote about DNA testing. It is a test that can examine genetic diseases, carrier status, traits and so on. It also can find genetic links.
I have been having an interest in biology and palaeontology. I like reading books such as how birds became birds from dinosaurs, and my interests were always about animals. I had never had an interest in myself biologically.
However, this time my interests went to myself. I wonder what kind of creature I am?
I'm getting interested in DNA testing. Maybe I should try. I think it's a good opportunity to know if there are diseases that I'm going to be suffering from in the future. If I could know the disease beforehand that is likely to appear, it would help to prevent it.
Every student in Japan learns about ancient people who lived on Japanese Islands. Honestly, I wasn't interested in these kinds of subjects and I don't remember what I have learnt well. Therefore, I searched for information of ancient Japanese who are called Jomon people on the internet.
The Jomon period started about 14,000 years ago, it depends on research, some researchers say it started about 16,500 years ago, anyway it was long long ago. The people who lived in that period are called Jomon people and I think they are my ancestors.
I had been believing that Jomon people came from the current Chinese territory but one Japanese researcher found using the latest technology, Jomon people carried a specific genetic marker that people who live in the current Chinese territory don't carry much. It's Haplogroup D. The current Japanese have Haplogroup D. The interesting thing is people who live in the Andaman Islands and Tibet have the same Haplogroup D. So, Andaman people, Tibetan and Japanese are biologically close. How interesting!
The reason that people who live in only these three areas keep Haplogroup D is not clear. Some researchers think that the people who carried Haplogroup D were driven out of the land by other people where they lived and the place they reached was the mountain area and islands where the other people could not reach or which were not good places to live in.
There is a more interesting story I found. Professor Jon Erlandson of Oregon University studies ancient marine people of the circum‐Pacific earthquake belt. He thinks that Jomon people came from Japanese Islands to the American continent by boats. There are similarities of DNA between native American and Jomon people. If that hypothesis is correct, native Americans' old ancestors and Japanese' old ancestors are the same.
I haven't had an interest in archaeology but I'm changing my mind as it seems to be an interesting study. The latest technology of genetics may reveal facts that we couldn't find out.
Fact is stranger than fiction.
2017-07-30 03:04 Things don't go the way I expect
Y (Kuma's owner)
Do you have pets? If you do, I'm sure you know what I'm going to write on the blog below now.
I have been keeping cats and I have three cats now. I want them to enjoy their life in my house and I bought cat toys for them. I bought stuffed toys of mice, a long fluffy string, several balls, kick toys and so on. To cut a long story short, I spent money on them and some of it was wasted.
When I began to keep cats, I was unsure if they would enjoy playing with a ball. My impression of playing with a ball is a dog, it wasn't a cat. I found soft balls which were selling as "cats' toys" and I bought some just for a trial. As a result of having bought balls, my cats enjoyed them. Yes, they did but only for a few days. Unfortunately, it didn't last long.
On the other hand, there is a different story about toy balls. Several years ago, my neighbour gave me a small Christmas tree and ornamental balls.
I was happy displaying it in the living room, and what happened was my cats hit the balls with their paws and they were very excited to play with them. The unbelievable thing was they enjoyed Christmas tree balls more than toy balls that were sold as cats' toys. My little Christmas tree was losing balls day by day and became a miserable appearance. I'm very sure that my cats enjoyed Christmas.
I sometimes realize the different ideas of toys between cats and humans. I always try to pick up toys that my cats seem to favour but I'm not succeeding. The toy balls I bought were ignored but they love Christmas tree balls.
A kicking toy hasn't attracted the cats' attention but my husband's sneakers are very popular to play with. One of my cats loves to play with the curtain in the study. Things don't go as expected.
One day, I was searching for a T-shirt on the internet and I found a funny printed T-shirt. One American cartoonist drew pictures of cats. There were two pictures on the T-shirt. The first one indicates that a cat's owner seems to be satisfied buying a cat tree for her cat. The second picture seems to show several hours later after she put the cat tree together, and the cat was having a good time in an empty box that had contained the cat tree. What an irony! But this would happen. I think every cat's owners experience it.
Now I found out that my cats love to play with a ball which I crumple from a newspaper. From my experience of living with cats, I maybe make cheap cats' toys without spending lots of money.
However, the simplest method of getting the right toy is going shopping with a cat. If I could I would like to go shopping with my cats and ask them what toy they want.