Cat Prints

Cats are interesting and intriguing creatures. God must have really been laughing when He created cats. Cats can exhibit curiosity, fear, stubbornness, anger, determination, playfulness, and all other range of characteristics. When playing with a cat they can go from neutral to sadistic then to masochistic and end up disinterested in about 10 seconds. At times I think that they are part of the curse of a fallen world. At other times part of the blessing.

So my daughter decides to do her school science project on cats. Not just cats in general. She wanted to know if cats have "finger prints". We all know cats have paw prints, but she wanted to know if they have "finger prints" on their paws.

Now if you know anything about cats you know that you don't just walk up to the cat, ink their paw and press it on a piece of paper. First of all when the cat sees you coming to them without food they immediately assume the worst and make a run for it. After all, they know they are so obnoxious that humans would not voluntarily seek them out to play with them. So the chase begins.

Now once you catch a cat, what do you do? You have a twisting fur ball with a heart rate of something like 300 bpm that is trying to wrest itself free from your grasp. So it takes two humans to control one cat. Already this is a bad trend.

Well, suffice it to say, you can, with enough gentle... persuasion... convince the cat that you will not kill it in the process. Though you may kill it later as a result of the process and their reactions. However, eventually you can calm the cat down enough to take a paw print.

Now once you get the print, you are so relieved you release the cat. And off it goes, leaving one black paw print on your carpet. That is why you tell your daughter she needs washable ink because you foresaw this eventuality.

So then you look at the print. You got the paw pads, and fur, and smudges, and a scratch, and blood, and you need to get the cat for round two, then three, then... well, you get the picture.

In the end my daughter managed through this process and our two cats were no worse for the wear, though they both lost some fur in the process. It seems that when you freak a cat out, they tend to shed fur. I think they must have some kind of squid complex and try to leave a smoke screen of fur.

So her conclusions? Cats do indeed have some kind of finger print though she realizes that it would take thousands of prints to even begin to determine if they might be unique. And in typical kid fashion, she completed her display board the night before it was due. Some things never change I guess.

Still, I am glad that days of just doing a volcano are gone and the kids are encouraged to do something a bit different. I think I may convince her next year to do something that does not require bloodshed and live animals. Maybe she can do cold fusion :-)


Copyright 2005, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)