ACK
I would say you are correct about cats, the Scottish Wildcat is a solitary animal and very shy, I have been lucky enough to see one a couple of times in my younger days.

Tom Shakespeare yesterday on Radio 4's Point of View discussed dog as pets and suggested they exhibit more contentment than we do. They same goes for cats. I am a dog person but have been owned by two cats. Both would enter a state of utter bliss when on our laps being stroked, purring and padding our chests. I understand kittens use padding to stimulate their mother to produce milk. Contented cats may therefore look upon their favoured person as a mother-figure.

I believe humans have changed the mental state of cats substantially from their wild ancestors. Most live happily in homes with other cats, whereas their ancestors were strictly solitary and strongly territorial. Farmyards commonly have multiple cats and I have seen TV programmes showing feral cats living in colonies.

Green Sand & Pcar

yours crossed with my slow typing! I think one way or another, we are all singing from similar hymn sheets.

Green Sand, do you recall whether your beast of a cat was only aggressive to those entering "his" territory, ie the hay loft? Were you and others "safe" when outside but in the vicinity, even if under discrete surveillance?

Pcar, in the spring, a clearly cared for cat, tried to rehome itself here 4 or 5 times over a couple of weeks.. It had an identity tag. It had travelled 1/2 mile across fields. The young family contained 2 children under 3, and had just got a dog.....

3-4 years ago, a rather expensive looking pedigree cat, but clearly a bedraggled lost one, camped in the garden, trying to get into the house. Bribed and tricked with tinned tuna, it was caught. It had no visible name tag, but was traced by a local cat rescue volunteer, as it had an embedded ID chip. It was 20 miles from it's urban home. I presume it had got into a vehicle by mistake. I never found out how long it had been lost, but once fed, it did relax in its temporary cage, once inside a warm and dry house

Incidentally, GPS Trackers for cats/dogs are available if you Google, though I have no experience of using them.

@Green Sand, Aug 28, 2016 at 10:23 PM

Ah! Animals, territory, domestication etc...

Barack Obama was right – UK will be back of the queue after Brexit, says US Ambassador

Those ungrateful colonials mis-running the USA need to accept their place beneath HM EIIR. Mr Reagan, Mr Bush, Mr Clinton and Mr Bush did.

Thankfully, the Mr Obama and Mr Obama White House occupants will soon be gone.

Fingers crossed they are not replaced by Hellary and Slick Willy

Back OT, Congress & Senate who make the laws want free trade agreement with UK as they know that is easier than agreeing one with EU's multiple Gov'ts. Obama's rhetoric is just that.

TinyCO2, if unneutered, domestic cats are fiercely territorial about their home, garden, and whatever other bits of land and property they claim and can defend. If neutered, they will be possessive about their home, it is where their food is, plus their own warm laps to curl up on, and their own special stroking person/people. They may tolerate another cat passing through their garden, but not one that sits down and looks comfortable. That cat may be issuing a challenge and/or a claim of ownership.

Like Ring-Tailed Lemurs, a cat walking with its tail up, is advertising it's presence, in a non confrontational manner, to other cats in the neighbourhood, and it's humans in the house. A cat with it's tail down is trying to be discrete, and if the tail is right down, it is either stalking, or frightened and very nervous about being seen.

Dominant and aggressive cats in a household, even if neutered, are quite happy to bite or slash their owners. They may then jump down on to the floor move away 6 feet or so, and then raise their tail, before walking purposefully somewhere else. It is a gesture of defiance, knowing they have won that particular battle of wills, and will not face retaliation!

Small terrier type dogs will do something similar. Dogs bred for size and/or aggression, may press home the initial attack. In a pack, it is not normally advantageous for the dominant member of a pack to kill another pack member, and the beaten one, will normally submit by becoming limp and quiet. Sadly, human families and aggressive dogs trying to be pack leader are a disaster waiting to happen, as they don't understand each other's understanding of each other.

Interesting discussion, and I agree that some animals have very little in their make up to allow themselves to be domesticated. I'm not sure cats are fully domesticated, they've tamed us (well not me but then I'm a gardener). At what point does tame slip over into domesticated?

Don't pigs revert quite quickly to a more agressive version once running wild? Tusks grow and everything.

But I do think that 'personality' for want of a better word is part of evolution. It allows animals in a group rub along together and allows different circumstances determine what type flourishes. To a certain extent mankind domesticated itself. Co-operation became a positive survival instict. Hunter gatherer became farmer.

I think domestication is one of those things that's more conjecture than consensus. eg recent DNA tests are pushing the advent of the dog further back into mankind's past than previously thought. Until recently they thought dogs were descended from grey wolves but now it looks like they both split from a common ancestor that no longer exists.