Forest Tsar Cattery
Siberian Cats from Exclusively Russian Bloodlines
We are a small cattery located in St. George, Utah. Our cats--Mariasha, and Golubka--come straight from Russia, and Dobrynia was born here. They all are registered with CFA and TICA. We are friends with Volgskaya Krasa cattery of Saratov, Russia. You are welcome to visit their web page www.volgskayakrasa.com Please e-mail Forest Tsar (foresttsar@yahoo.com) if you have any questions related to that web page.
Mariasha, Dobrynia, and Golubka share a spacious two-room cattery, which is part of our house. When they are not being petted, brushed, played with, or fed, the cats occupy themselves by basking in the sun in front of huge glass doors and by watching people, squirrels and especially birds who pass by.
We never keep our cats in cages and will not sell our kittens to people who do. Our cats are part of the family, and we hope their kittens will become part of yours.
Forest Tsar Dobrynia's Pedigree
Above is the pedigree of Mariasha
Below are the pedigrees of Forest (Afanasyij) and Golubka
Below are the pedigrees of Forest (Afanasyij) and Golubka
Forest, the Self-Aware Cat by Ace G. Pilkington
There has been much discussion of late about the intelligence and self-awareness of animals and even robots. In the April 23, 2007, issue of Newsweek, for instance, Sharon Begley (in “Know Thyself—Man, Rat or Bot”) writes about rats who can tell whether or not they know the answer to a question. The rats are demonstrating an impressive type of introspection or “metacognition,” a thinking about thinking or a self-examination that suggests an awareness of the self being examined. Human beings (such as some of the college students in my classes) can occasionally have trouble making such distinctions on a test. They are not always aware of when they are guessing and when they are giving right answers, but the rats (who are admittedly answering much simpler questions) can tell. Begley even goes so far as to say that, “There are now computer systems that can reason about what went wrong in a calculation and consider whether to continue on their current path to a solution or switch to a new strategy—both of which, if a person did them, we would call introspection and self-awareness” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18108859/site/newsweek/page/2/.
All right. I had always accepted the conventional wisdom that cats (unlike humans and chimps) are not self-aware, though Roger Caras’s cleverly reasoned and carefully researched book A Cat Is Watching raised questions for me. Still, if rats and computer circuits can think about themselves in some ways, then what can cats do? At the same time I was thinking these thoughts and asking these questions, Forest, our young tom-cat, provided several answers within the period of one hour. I might even say (if I wanted to ascribe purposes and motives to cats that there is no proof they possess) that he set out to prove me (or at least the conventional wisdom I accepted) wrong. First, he looked at himself in a mirror that was hanging on a bathroom wall and then rubbed up against the frame. Now, I immediately discounted this because cats will rub up against almost anything and Forest showed no other signs of understanding what he saw in the mirror.
But what happened next was harder to explain away. Forest moved into the living room and discovered a toy tiger cub that was lying on the back of the couch. The stuffed toy was noticeably larger than Forest (who was then ten months old). Forest clearly recognized it as something important, and he seemed to be treating it as though it were another cat. He started toward it, climbed up onto the sofa, moved forward as though he were going to make physical contact, and then stopped in obvious hesitation. Maybe he was waiting for a sign of friendly recognition—which, of course, the toy could not give. Forest climbed down from the couch, watched from the floor, and then started upward again. By the time he gave up, still uncertain and looking backward over his shoulder, he had made his hesitant journey three times. He tried again the next day, but the signal he was hoping for (or the additional aggressive urge he needed to confront something so large) never came. Why was Forest so greatly affected by something that looked catlike but certainly had no other feline characteristics? Our two female cats—Mariasha and Golubka--have ignored the stuffed tiger cub or at the most given it a casual snuffle as though it were (as indeed it is) just one more random element in their environment. Perhaps the clue to Forest’s behavior comes in what he did next.
While my wife, Olga, and I had waited for the arrival of our three cats from Russia, we purchased a replica of a statue of the Egyptian Cat Goddess Bast. The replica is smaller than the original but larger than usual for such things—thirty inches from toes to ear tips. We thought it would make an interesting conversation piece, and we jokingly considered what the cats would think of it. We knew, of course, that cats do not understand statues, even if they are statues of Bast and, therefore, they would pay little or no attention to it. And then, Forest, having failed to make friends with the toy tiger, looked toward the fireplace and saw standing in front of it a tall, slender, golden statue. Forest was uneasy. This is a normal reaction for cats, who are curious but cautious, quite willing to leap but waiting to look first. However, uneasiness did not stop Forest this time. He moved forward, crouching as he crept, with a motion that looked a little like stalking and a little like genuflecting but which was really, I think, that cat combination of fear and curiosity where curiosity wins--but not by much. He moved closer and closer, still afraid but still determined. At last he was close enough to touch this large, strange catlike creature if he were to stretch out a paw or move his head (and nose) forward just a little. But he didn’t—at least not yet. He sat up, with his shoulders hunched a bit at first, and then he sat straight, looking up into the face of Bast for all the world as though he were a worshipper in an Egyptian temple. Then, he stood up and moved, with only a minimum of crouching, to his right, where there was a little floor chair, and he sat in that chair, again looking up at the statue of Bast with clearly positive emotions. Obviously, I don’t know what was going through his head, but I’ve never seen him react that way to any other inanimate object. Finally, Forest approached the statue of Bast and snuffled her feet. This appeared to relieve most of the tension, but it did not eliminate his interest. He did not leave immediately, and he has frequently returned to touch his nose to Bast’s feet and even to repeat (as late as yesterday while I was thinking about writing this article) his ritual of sitting before the statue and looking upward.
Now, I am not suggesting that Forest has religious sensibilities or that his attitude to the statue comes from Bast’s status as a goddess. What I am suggesting, in light of Forest’s reaction to the toy tiger cub, is that he is able to recognize the catlike qualities in some (two at least) human representations of cats. While Forest may not be able to pass the mirror test of self-awareness (more about that shortly) as chimps and humans do, he is to some extent able to deal with the abstract notion of cats or catness, though he deals with it in a very practical way. In effect, his reactions indicate that he can recognize something that looks like he does, surely as much of an indication of self-awareness as a rat’s ability to evaluate what it does not know. Forest’s particular cleverness (if it is particular--many other cats must be able to do it too) is that he sees this catness in human creations of cats, which are patterns by definition, abstractions by definition even though they are patterns and abstractions with realistic elements. So, I have had to conclude that the conventional wisdom about cats is very likely incorrect, but then, in the case of cats, how often has it been right? And, oh yes, I was incorrect too, but I did recognize my error fast enough to get pictures of the proof that I was wrong.
Here are two footnotes or additional examples of how Forest thinks:
(1) Like many Siberian tom-cats, he is a good father. After the birth of Mariasha’s kittens, he helped to clean her, and he cheerfully climbs into the box with the kittens, licking and comforting them when they cry and even holding them with his paws and licking them clean when he thinks they need it. There are photos in the Kittens section of this web site of Forest, Mariasha, and the kittens happily spending time together. Forest also looks after the kittens when Mariasha takes a break. (I should in all fairness to other males of whatever species point out that these breaks usually last about five minutes.) However, to begin with, Forest licked only the kitten that looked most like him, almost as though he were saying, “I am Forest of Forest Tsar Cattery, and I approved this kitten.” He now licks them all equally, and perhaps I am reading a meaning in here which the meager fact does not justify.
(2) The most common demonstration of self-awareness, at least in the popular media, is the chimpanzee who confronts a mirror and gradually realizes that the mirror is his or her reflection. Forest has not yet passed this test, in part, I think, because he does not understand two-dimensional images. If he could look at a hologram of himself…. In any event, this week we brought home a three-foot mirror from Target and leaned it temporarily against one of the bookshelves in the living room. Both Mariasha and Golubka looked into it, and then both of them looked around behind it to see the cat that must be there. Mariasha even searched the bookcase shelves. At this point in their experience, Mariasha and Golubka lost interest, but Forest was more determined. He clearly had done a bit of thinking. He had looked in the mirror and then checked behind it but had failed to find the cat. Next, he looked in the mirror again, followed the image to the right edge of the mirror and then moved much more swiftly to catch the elusive cat. Alas, for all his logic and speed, Forest was unsuccessful. He was equally unsuccessful a few days later when he tried his search by moving to the left edge of the mirror. He was also bobbing his head oddly as he looked at his reflection. I wonder what would happen if he had a mirror of his own to explore? Would he pass the mirror test before he broke the mirror?
Ace G. Pilkington is Professor of English and History at Dixie State College and Literary Seminar Director at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. Forest’s official name is Afanasij Volgskaya Krasa. You can find his pedigree on the “About the Cattery” page of this web site. This article is copyrighted. If you would like to use it, please e-mail us at foresttsar@yahoo.com for permission.
There has been much discussion of late about the intelligence and self-awareness of animals and even robots. In the April 23, 2007, issue of Newsweek, for instance, Sharon Begley (in “Know Thyself—Man, Rat or Bot”) writes about rats who can tell whether or not they know the answer to a question. The rats are demonstrating an impressive type of introspection or “metacognition,” a thinking about thinking or a self-examination that suggests an awareness of the self being examined. Human beings (such as some of the college students in my classes) can occasionally have trouble making such distinctions on a test. They are not always aware of when they are guessing and when they are giving right answers, but the rats (who are admittedly answering much simpler questions) can tell. Begley even goes so far as to say that, “There are now computer systems that can reason about what went wrong in a calculation and consider whether to continue on their current path to a solution or switch to a new strategy—both of which, if a person did them, we would call introspection and self-awareness” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18108859/site/newsweek/page/2/.
All right. I had always accepted the conventional wisdom that cats (unlike humans and chimps) are not self-aware, though Roger Caras’s cleverly reasoned and carefully researched book A Cat Is Watching raised questions for me. Still, if rats and computer circuits can think about themselves in some ways, then what can cats do? At the same time I was thinking these thoughts and asking these questions, Forest, our young tom-cat, provided several answers within the period of one hour. I might even say (if I wanted to ascribe purposes and motives to cats that there is no proof they possess) that he set out to prove me (or at least the conventional wisdom I accepted) wrong. First, he looked at himself in a mirror that was hanging on a bathroom wall and then rubbed up against the frame. Now, I immediately discounted this because cats will rub up against almost anything and Forest showed no other signs of understanding what he saw in the mirror.
But what happened next was harder to explain away. Forest moved into the living room and discovered a toy tiger cub that was lying on the back of the couch. The stuffed toy was noticeably larger than Forest (who was then ten months old). Forest clearly recognized it as something important, and he seemed to be treating it as though it were another cat. He started toward it, climbed up onto the sofa, moved forward as though he were going to make physical contact, and then stopped in obvious hesitation. Maybe he was waiting for a sign of friendly recognition—which, of course, the toy could not give. Forest climbed down from the couch, watched from the floor, and then started upward again. By the time he gave up, still uncertain and looking backward over his shoulder, he had made his hesitant journey three times. He tried again the next day, but the signal he was hoping for (or the additional aggressive urge he needed to confront something so large) never came. Why was Forest so greatly affected by something that looked catlike but certainly had no other feline characteristics? Our two female cats—Mariasha and Golubka--have ignored the stuffed tiger cub or at the most given it a casual snuffle as though it were (as indeed it is) just one more random element in their environment. Perhaps the clue to Forest’s behavior comes in what he did next.
While my wife, Olga, and I had waited for the arrival of our three cats from Russia, we purchased a replica of a statue of the Egyptian Cat Goddess Bast. The replica is smaller than the original but larger than usual for such things—thirty inches from toes to ear tips. We thought it would make an interesting conversation piece, and we jokingly considered what the cats would think of it. We knew, of course, that cats do not understand statues, even if they are statues of Bast and, therefore, they would pay little or no attention to it. And then, Forest, having failed to make friends with the toy tiger, looked toward the fireplace and saw standing in front of it a tall, slender, golden statue. Forest was uneasy. This is a normal reaction for cats, who are curious but cautious, quite willing to leap but waiting to look first. However, uneasiness did not stop Forest this time. He moved forward, crouching as he crept, with a motion that looked a little like stalking and a little like genuflecting but which was really, I think, that cat combination of fear and curiosity where curiosity wins--but not by much. He moved closer and closer, still afraid but still determined. At last he was close enough to touch this large, strange catlike creature if he were to stretch out a paw or move his head (and nose) forward just a little. But he didn’t—at least not yet. He sat up, with his shoulders hunched a bit at first, and then he sat straight, looking up into the face of Bast for all the world as though he were a worshipper in an Egyptian temple. Then, he stood up and moved, with only a minimum of crouching, to his right, where there was a little floor chair, and he sat in that chair, again looking up at the statue of Bast with clearly positive emotions. Obviously, I don’t know what was going through his head, but I’ve never seen him react that way to any other inanimate object. Finally, Forest approached the statue of Bast and snuffled her feet. This appeared to relieve most of the tension, but it did not eliminate his interest. He did not leave immediately, and he has frequently returned to touch his nose to Bast’s feet and even to repeat (as late as yesterday while I was thinking about writing this article) his ritual of sitting before the statue and looking upward.
Now, I am not suggesting that Forest has religious sensibilities or that his attitude to the statue comes from Bast’s status as a goddess. What I am suggesting, in light of Forest’s reaction to the toy tiger cub, is that he is able to recognize the catlike qualities in some (two at least) human representations of cats. While Forest may not be able to pass the mirror test of self-awareness (more about that shortly) as chimps and humans do, he is to some extent able to deal with the abstract notion of cats or catness, though he deals with it in a very practical way. In effect, his reactions indicate that he can recognize something that looks like he does, surely as much of an indication of self-awareness as a rat’s ability to evaluate what it does not know. Forest’s particular cleverness (if it is particular--many other cats must be able to do it too) is that he sees this catness in human creations of cats, which are patterns by definition, abstractions by definition even though they are patterns and abstractions with realistic elements. So, I have had to conclude that the conventional wisdom about cats is very likely incorrect, but then, in the case of cats, how often has it been right? And, oh yes, I was incorrect too, but I did recognize my error fast enough to get pictures of the proof that I was wrong.
Here are two footnotes or additional examples of how Forest thinks:
(1) Like many Siberian tom-cats, he is a good father. After the birth of Mariasha’s kittens, he helped to clean her, and he cheerfully climbs into the box with the kittens, licking and comforting them when they cry and even holding them with his paws and licking them clean when he thinks they need it. There are photos in the Kittens section of this web site of Forest, Mariasha, and the kittens happily spending time together. Forest also looks after the kittens when Mariasha takes a break. (I should in all fairness to other males of whatever species point out that these breaks usually last about five minutes.) However, to begin with, Forest licked only the kitten that looked most like him, almost as though he were saying, “I am Forest of Forest Tsar Cattery, and I approved this kitten.” He now licks them all equally, and perhaps I am reading a meaning in here which the meager fact does not justify.
(2) The most common demonstration of self-awareness, at least in the popular media, is the chimpanzee who confronts a mirror and gradually realizes that the mirror is his or her reflection. Forest has not yet passed this test, in part, I think, because he does not understand two-dimensional images. If he could look at a hologram of himself…. In any event, this week we brought home a three-foot mirror from Target and leaned it temporarily against one of the bookshelves in the living room. Both Mariasha and Golubka looked into it, and then both of them looked around behind it to see the cat that must be there. Mariasha even searched the bookcase shelves. At this point in their experience, Mariasha and Golubka lost interest, but Forest was more determined. He clearly had done a bit of thinking. He had looked in the mirror and then checked behind it but had failed to find the cat. Next, he looked in the mirror again, followed the image to the right edge of the mirror and then moved much more swiftly to catch the elusive cat. Alas, for all his logic and speed, Forest was unsuccessful. He was equally unsuccessful a few days later when he tried his search by moving to the left edge of the mirror. He was also bobbing his head oddly as he looked at his reflection. I wonder what would happen if he had a mirror of his own to explore? Would he pass the mirror test before he broke the mirror?
Ace G. Pilkington is Professor of English and History at Dixie State College and Literary Seminar Director at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. Forest’s official name is Afanasij Volgskaya Krasa. You can find his pedigree on the “About the Cattery” page of this web site. This article is copyrighted. If you would like to use it, please e-mail us at foresttsar@yahoo.com for permission.