Pearl Lorentzen
Last week, Chris Clegg, editor of South Peace News, wrote about one of The News’ office cats. It got me thinking about cats.
On my way to church the other day, a friendly feline crossed the road to rub against my legs. When I didn’t have time to pet him or feed him, he sat in the shade yowling like he was dying.
My sister’s cats make the same racket when she’s feeding them, even though they get fed every day. This might be because cats have a limited range of vocal expressions, or maybe they really feel like they are starving.
Purring is a pretty simple cat reaction to interpret, but depending on the cat they might attack your hand while you pet them, even though they appear to be enjoying it. Or in other cases, they have had enough and that’s their way of letting you know.
One of Clegg’s points last week was that those of us who have food every day and a safe place to sleep are lucky. Not everyone is as lucky. For example, the Town of Slave Lake has closed the homeless shelter despite having complete provincial funding for it.
In the summer, it’s not as big of a deal, but in July, we had a week or more of 30 C plus, which can be deadly. One of the reasons for the shelter is to protect people from freezing to death. With climate change, we may have to protect people from heat.
Humans (and cats) have always been connected to the weather, but we often think of ourselves as insulated from it.
A friend was house hunting at 30 C plus and was pleased with how cool an older house shaded by large trees was. Her spouse noticed the bugs in the house because of the trees.
A lot of how we react to life is perspective. A house cat might feel like it is starving to death when it hasn’t eaten for a few hours, but an alley cat could die if it can’t find scraps or kill a mouse.
Humans (like cats) are social creatures. Connection is a fundamental need, but our perception can threaten this.
I recently took a course called Trauma-Informed Care, which looked at the endocrine (hormone) system and our fight/flight/freeze responses. These hormones react exactly the same to real danger (a car speeding toward you), the memory of danger, and the idea of danger (a T-Rex lunging out of the bushes in movie).
Dr. Dan Siegel, a medical doctor, came up with the concept of a ‘window of tolerance’ for those times when people feel safe. If we are in our ‘window of tolerance,’ we can think things through, connect with others, and choose actions which make sense and are culturally appropriate. We can feel joy, peace, curiosity, etc. We can recognize danger and react appropriately.
However, when people are outside this window, we feel hyper aroused (fight or flight) or hypo aroused (freeze). In these states, everything feels dangerous.
Therefore, we have trouble making rational decisions and connecting with other people, cats, etc. We are in a constant state of fear, anxiety, anger (flight or flight) or numbness, depressions (freeze).
Therefore, people (and cats) bizarre actions might provide them some type of endocrine release (making them feel less threatened). You can use an understanding of the endocrine system to analyze your own responses. When something seems like the final straw, pay attention to how your body feels (heart rate, breathing, etc.). You are likely in a flight, fight or freeze response.