Gracey, The Tiniest Tiger says ~Purr it up for our Parent’s health~
Indoor Cats Are Much Safer Than Outdoor Cats
Friends, I know how lucky I am that my parents rescued me and that we now share the same habitat. I am an indoor-only cat. That is alright with me too. I don’t even want to go outside when I have everything I need right here in my house. Well, except for access to the freezer where the vanilla ice cream lives. But to be honest, there are too many scary things outside like cars, kids on bicycles, garbage trucks and even people that do not like Cats. I know, that is hard to imagine but it is true. There are infectious diseases and bugs, like fleas, and even other members of the animal kingdom that could attack me. So I am content to be an indoor-only cat and I feel lucky to have a safe and loving home.
Cat Parents Are 40% Less Likely To Die From Heart Attacks
Our parents are lucky to be sharing their habitats with us Cats too. Did you know that humans that live with a cat are 40% less likely to die from heart attacks than those that trudge through their lives without a Cat? It is true! Dr. Adnan Qureshi, I call him Dr. Q, professor of neurosurgery and neurology at the University of Minnesota, extracted data from 4500 Americans aged 30 to 75 over a ten year study and found that we felines may have special health sustaining qualities.
If we assume that sharing your habitat with a Cat can bring about health benefits, the most logical reason could be that Cats relieve stress and anxiety and thus reduce the risk of heart disease. Now here is where it gets even more interesting. Dr. Q’s next question is whether living with a cat directly reduces the risk of heart disease, or if people who live with cats have personality traits that protect against heart disease independent of sharing a habitat with a cat. What do you think?
The Power of the Purr
Dog owners did not benefit from the protection from heart disease, even though dog folks get exercise walking their dogs and jumping up and down to let them in and out to do their business. It seems that the one thing we felines do that no dog can or will ever do is purr.
Humans still don’t understand why we purr and let’s face it, they probably never will because we Cats like to be a bit mysterious. We can hypnotize our parents to do all kinds of things for us through the power of the purr. If they understood how we did this, ~shiver~ it is too frightening to think about, we might lose our power over them. This will not happen, we Cats are not talking. It is a secret Cat Code.
Dr. Q and his team are going to keep studying the purring phenomenon. He wonders if it is the purring alone that matters or the mere presence of the cat or a combination that reduces heart disease. In the mean time, Dr. Q isn’t taking any chances; he shares his habitat with a Cat named Ninja.