• @[email protected]
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      9318 days ago

      The fact that you need to tell people not to intentionally give their cat salt water is telling of how far we’ve regressed as a society.

    • @[email protected]
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      18 days ago

      Still, that’s pretty impressive. Cats are absolutely incredible animals. I’m thankful the “worst behaved cats” still love me for whatever reason because I’ve been able to see some of the crazy shit they do.

      My parents have an entirely blind 18 year old cat. She can navigate the entire house eats fine, plays a bit. Hops up and down furniture, finds the sunbathing spots, uses the litter just fine. You do have to keep an eye out for her if your moving around as she can’t smell fast enough if you step in front of her path.

      • @[email protected]
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        1418 days ago

        I’m trying to imagine the world from this cat’s point of view. Relying on smells, sounds, touch and vibration. I bet she can hear and smell small critters just fine, but would she be able to successfully hunt them?

        • @[email protected]
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          18 days ago

          She can still hunt rabbits somehow.

          Not that they let her. They just discovered this by accident. She’s an indoor cat that roams their high fence backyard when they’re out there.

        • @[email protected]
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          317 days ago

          If the critter is close enough, their whiskers can pick up on vibrations in the air AFAIK, so they could probably still hunt.

  • @[email protected]
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    5018 days ago

    They say the same thing about horses because of their kidney to body size ratio but it’s simply not true. It might help them survive on saltwater longer than a human would but it’s still a death march.

  • @[email protected]
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    1118 days ago

    we’re going to need to evolve this superpower if we want to avoid my grandkids and your grandkids killing each other in the global water wars.

    • @[email protected]
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      117 days ago

      we could also just build desalination plants with a field of solar panels next to them, but what do i know

    • IngeniousRocks (They/She)
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      4618 days ago

      I’m my experience folks who call Cats “evil” usually don’t have a very clear understanding of consent or non-verbal communication.

      • @[email protected]
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        518 days ago

        I like cats, but this argument is dumb. The people I know who don’t like cats don’t like them precisely because cats don’t respect boundaries or consent the way dogs do.

        • IngeniousRocks (They/She)
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          18 days ago

          People I know who don’t like Cats don’t like them because they expect them to allow them to cross all their boundaries like dogs do. You can’t expect a basically wild predator to respect your boundaries, you can however respect its boundaries and that is where the folks I’ve met who dislike Cats fail. They try to hold it and get scratched because it didn’t like it. They overstimulate it and get scratched because the cat didn’t like it. I’ve seen SO many people who dislike Cats because they don’t understand how to approach an animal with caution and respect, and think that because the wild predator responded to discomfort the way a wild predator would do, that Cats are bad or evil.

          Edit, to clarify, my comment was about people who say Cats are evil, not about people who simply don’t like them.

          • @[email protected]
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            618 days ago

            Yes, you can’t expect an animal that basically tamed itself to respect your boundaries, and that’s why dog people don’t like them. They jump on the counter or try to break your coffee cup if it’s too close to the edge of the table.

            But overwhelmingly, in my experience as a cat shelter volunteer, people who have owned catsand do not like them feel that way, not because Mittens got overstimulated and scratched them once, but because they cannot cope with their boundaries being disrespected all the time. It isn’t the cats fault, true. It’s just an animal acting the way it evolved to act–but let’s try to be understanding about why many people struggle with them as pets.

            It really does take a certain personality to be okay with living with a cat.

            • @[email protected]
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              18 days ago

              Wow, you’re completely right and I never recognized this before. I’m your quintessential cat person. I’ve lived with cats since the day I was born. They cuddled with me in my crib. My first word was cat. We joked that I was raised by cats. I’m just used to cats and don’t often think about their behavior.

              My partner is a dog person, so now we have a mixed family. When the dogs cross a boundary, we do something to correct their behavior and there is the expectation their behavior will change. If it doesn’t, we adjust our response until it does. When cats cross a boundary, we still do something to correct the behavior, but entirely expect the cat will continue doing it and respond no differently when they continue with the original behavior.

              • @[email protected]
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                518 days ago

                I grew up in a mixed pet family. My dad loves cats; my mom dogs. It was exactly the way you describe it, too. I get why people adore cats and dogs both, but they do draw different personalities.

            • @[email protected]
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              118 days ago

              I feel the same about dogs honestly. I prefer older small dogs because I find that when they do cross my boundaries I’m less likely to be injured in anyway. I honestly dont know how I would be able to live with large dog. Its funny that you say that cats cross boundaries a lot, because my experience has definitely been the opposite 😅 a dog is the size of a person too. When those cross my boundaries I usually get physically hurt. I suppose the experience of other people must be different lol

  • Tim_Bisley
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    10418 days ago

    They can drink salt water when times are tough but it still wouldn’t be good to drink it for a sustained amount of time.

  • Komodo Rodeo
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    1118 days ago

    Sort or related question, is that why their piss reeks like concentrated jenkem?

      • @[email protected]
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        18 days ago

        Not trying to be that guy, but it’s urea, which breaks down to ammonia due to microbial action once it’s out of the cat. If a cat is pissing ammonia, it has big problems and needs to see a vet.

        Other contributors to awful cat piss smell are mercaptans, the same compounds responsible for the scent of skunk spray, and pheromones and fatty acids released when the cat is spraying versus normal urination. It’s all compounded by cats being adapted for arid environments so their urine is much more concentrated than human urine.

        I love cats but they’re gross little fuckers sometimes.

        • @[email protected]
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          117 days ago

          this is why it’s ideal to befriend a neighbourhood cat, all the positives without the negatives

      • Komodo Rodeo
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        318 days ago

        I’m under the impression that the basic product itself isn’t a concentration, but more of a fermented brew.

    • @[email protected]
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      818 days ago

      Dehydration is a common cause for cats to be ‘ill’ and brought to the vet,* so it could be that their piss reeks because they are having to concentrate it so much in the first place.

      *source: a dimly remembered conversation with a vet friend when I asked her why she was adding water to the already wet food for her cat. She said her cat could never be encouraged to drink enough, so it was her way of staving off the annoyance of giving iv fluids to her own animal someday.

      • Komodo Rodeo
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        218 days ago

        That makes sense, I wonder if it’s the case and how common it is. I’ll have to ask a vet tech that I know.

      • @[email protected]
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        618 days ago

        It’s absolutely a thing, I’ve had several cats in my life look nearly on the brink of death before basically forcing them to drink or eat turned them around completely. They can be very stubborn. Fountains help a lot because in nature moving water is typically cleaner than standing water, so if your cat always refuses to drink, get a $10 cat fountain on Amazon, it works!

        • @[email protected]
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          117 days ago

          also stop giving them dry-ass pellets with a bunch of grains in them, nut up and live with the smell of wet food and buy some chicken innards for them every now and then.

    • @[email protected]
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      18 days ago

      yep, usually the first organ to fail in old cats, so the superpower seems to come with a drawback. edit: removed inaccurate statements

    • @[email protected]
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      1918 days ago

      Yes, but often as a result of a long diet with chronic dehydration from a kibble based diet.

      The moisture cats consume is from their prey. The blood and juices of rodents and birds hydrate cats.

      Canned/wet food cats tend to wind up with thyroid issues instead of kidney. (Well, sorta: there’s evidence the BPAs in cans and mercury from fish as a reason for that.)

      • @[email protected]
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        1118 days ago

        Well this is partially true. I’m pretty sure even a cat on a perfect diet will still have very high chances of developing chronic kidney disease in old age because it is just common in cats.

        Could be wrong but my understanding is that It’s partially because their kidneys are so efficient that they often get kidney disease in late age. They’re always under a super high workload.

    • @[email protected]
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      918 days ago

      Old age, in and of itself, doesn’t kill any living thing. There’s always a system failure eventually. Seems like in cats that’s commonly kidneys or thyroid.

  • @[email protected]
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    2018 days ago

    I could say that is an impressive evolutionary feat, but instead I’ll say: Evolution, what the hell is wrong with you? You do know we all came from the sea, you should know 70% of the earth is covered in salt water, why did you think it was ok to devolve the ability to drink salt water but retain the requirement to drink water? Are you Ok? Do you need Jesus?

    • @[email protected]
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      1318 days ago

      kidney disease is one of the most common ways cats die of old age so super efficient kidneys dont come without a tradeoff. Cats have evolved to live in very arid enviorments where saltwater is all that is availible so the tradeoff might have been worth it. ability to drink saltwater only would work without kidneys being prematurely overstressed would be likely if animals had higher normal salt content but that would mean they would need a lot higher salt intake making living inland harder.

        • @[email protected]
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          1018 days ago

          but whales like all sea creatures have high bodry salt content making the osmotic pressure difference small

              • @[email protected]
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                117 days ago

                No, you’re missing the point again, when fish first went land diving they drank salt water because of that there body would have already had more salt and so would there kidneys, we evolved the ability to drink fresh water, that is what took a million years.

                • @[email protected]
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                  117 days ago

                  I didn’t comment elsewhere but from this incoherent comment it’s clear you don’t have the first clue what you’re on about, or why I said a million years (evolving a major change like sea to land takes hundreds of millions or billions of years).

                  Ideas are good, but people contributing ideas that show they don’t know anything at all about the topic, while insisting they’re right, gets tiresome.

            • @[email protected]
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              218 days ago

              if humans would be adapted to that it could work but it would mean without modern technology it would be close to impossible to survive without access to saltwater (most of human habitable land area)

              • @[email protected]
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                118 days ago

                Well we were already adapted for it or at least our ancient ancient fish ancestors were we lost the ability that’s my core point, salt isn’t exactly rare and other minerals can be used to reduce osmotic pressure, but besides that 40% of all people live near salt water and ~30% of all land animals live near salt water so I wouldn’t think that would be enough to lose such a valuable resource as water, I am obviously wrong since we can’t drink salt water but it still feels like a miss step.

                • @[email protected]
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                  518 days ago

                  i guess in the case of humans we would have evolved for a long time to mainly eat fruit that has a high water content with low salt content possibly even being most of needed water intake. after starting to eat meat perhaps there hasnt been enough evolutionary pressure to be able to regain saltwater consumption ability

    • Sixty
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      1018 days ago

      Evolution is considered a success if the animal lives long enough to successfully mate and nothing else matters to mindless evolution. At least cats don’t have curly tusks that borrow through the skull if they live long enough like that infamous boar species I can’t remember the name of.

      • @[email protected]
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        517 days ago

        Success is being better about producing offspring that can grow old enough to produce offspring better* than everything competing for your niech

        *Better is the more optimal rate. Overpopulation is sub optimal

  • ✺roguetrick✺
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    18 days ago

    Airid environment animals that could subsist on metabolic water and blood to an extent. In inland arid environments most standing water never makes it to an ocean, which means it accumulates surface salts and is brackish.