Be thankful cats sleep a lot... the alternative is a world of wickedness

If cats didn’t sleep for 20 hours a day, they’d rule the world. They’re certainly clever, wicked and self-serving enough to overthrow humans. It’s just that they’re mostly asleep. And four hours of consciousness is only really enough time to eat, stretch and behave badly around each other. Taking over the world might be within their capabilities, but they just don’t have the time to organize.

I didn’t realise, back when I became an accidental and reluctant cat owner, that having a cat would be a gateway to a whole feline community. Back in the halcyon days with The Dog, I don’t ever remember any other dogs calling around to the house or wandering into my kitchen uninvited to eat his food. The only time The Dog ever socialized with his own species was when we were walking in the park and he would tear off for a joyous game of chasing with some happy mutt or other. And in our own way, we were all perfectly happy with that state of affairs.

But cats are a whole other ball game. In the 18 months since Markie first walked into our lives, she has been followed by a succession of other feline visitors, some of whom just came for a single inspection and others who now appear for regular meals. I am currently feeding three cats, and while I would have to concede that my own is probably the one who dislikes me least, the other two actively despise me. One, the one we call Shadow, is so offended by me that she sometimes breaks off from eating the food I have just given her to flash me her fangs and hiss loudly in my direction. The only person she seems to dislike more than me is Markie, who she also hisses at while my cat makes an awful keening sound back at her. Yet, they are pretty much best friends. I know this because their daily encounters are marginally less unpleasant than Markie’s regular run-ins with Oscar, her arch enemy from across the road, who calls for her about three times a day and eats most of her food. Of Markie’s four waking hours, I’d guess she spends two of them obsessing over Oscar and plotting new ways to be even more awful to him, and then another one executing the plans by walking around the visiting cat, groaning at him and occasionally trying to murder him.

I can’t speak for Oscar, but if one of my neighbours clearly despised me and kept trying to kill me, I don’t think I’d call for them three times a day or spend so much time sneaking up their stairs. It’s not unusual for me to discover Oscar at my bedroom door. One morning, The Youngest opened her eyes to find him lying on her pillow, staring at her. Another time, I opened the door of the downstairs bathroom to find Oscar and Shadow behind it, screaming at each other. Disturbed, they turned their contempt towards me — while the more obvious target for their ire was asleep upstairs. The person they like least in the world lives in this house and as a consequence they cannot spend enough time here. That’s cats for you: all their relationships seem to be simultaneously hostile and incredibly close. They all seem to hate each other — but instead of avoiding each other, like humans would, they need to remind each other daily of how much they hate each other by effectively coming to live in each other’s houses.

Or maybe that’s just my cat and her mad, dysfunctional gang. Still, with that sort of steely outlook, if they could just get their act together a bit more, they’d be capable of anything. Think about it: cats can watch television, keep themselves clean and know not to defecate in the house without being trained. Is it such a stretch to imagine them wrestling the means of control?

But sleep is their stumbling block. The other day, Oscar and Markie were doing their slow dance of mutual disgust on our patio and they both fell asleep during it. I came upon the scene to find Markie on the table where she’d been staring down at her sworn enemy while he taunted her from below, and both of them were sleeping peacefully, dreaming, presumably, terrible things about each other.

Dogs need a lot of sleep because when they’re awake, they’re usually tearing round the place happily chasing balls and each other. Cats don’t expend any energy at all and yet they sleep even more than dogs do. Maybe it’s nature’s way of making sure they don’t take over. Maybe, it’s just as well.