Catching Some ZZZZZ's

Hi, everyone!  This is Vanna!  First I'd like to tell you why I haven't written in so long.  Well, Ive been sleeping!  Okay, not all the time, but a lot of the time.  And then I did some studying!  Yep, Vanna's my name and teaching's my game!  Hee, hee!  And then there's all the time I have to spend following the humans around to be sure they are doing what they're supposed to do.  That can be stressful when they are in different rooms at the same time, and I get really tired.  And we cats aren't supposed to go in the back room, which is only for humans, but sometimes I need to sneak back there just to be sure all is well.  And then, of course, I need to sleep!  And so I decided to go to the spa for a while, get a massage, some extra rest.  And still I sleep!  Hey, this is just an example of why cats are the best.  Humans are always short of sleep.  We're smarter than that!  (Humans don't get enough exercise, either.  Just sayin'.)

Of course I understand that we cats do need a lot of sleep, and not just because we're so smart!  It's because of our physiology, how our bodies work.  We have the physiology of a predator and that means that we're made for the hunt, the chase.  Even though the fortunate among us have humans to hunt our food, we're still wired for hunting, pouncing, springing.  And that means we need lots of energy.  And that means lots of sleep!  My cousin Leo, who is king of the jungle, has a cool mane, and roars, is so much like us!  When you're related to the King of the Jungle you get to sleep!  I mean who's going to bother US while we sleep!  We are predators!

I decided to talk to my cat friends about this physiology, but what did I find?  They were sleeping!  Now I could have gotten the attention of many of them quite easily if I'd wanted because most of the time cats sleep very lightly.  Most of the time we just doze, so that if we hear the squeak of a mouse we can jump up and get it!  Our deep sleep only lasts about five minutes at a time and, even though humans may see little change in our sleep, we have a sleep/doze pattern that actually goes on and on until we decide to wake up.  Now here's a question for you.  Do you think Alfred is sleeping or dozing?

Well, that's an easy one!  He's dozing and he heard Vickie coming with her camera!  But since she isn't good to eat, he is going back to sleep.

What about Tiki?

Well, I don't know for sure, but I vote for dozing.  Look, she could jump up any second to catch that mouse, or bird, or whatever it is she needs to eat!

Now here is something interesting I learned in my studies.  We've talked about cats being nocturnal, right?  Well, guess what!  We're really crepuscular!  Yep!  That means we like to do our hunting during the hours of twilight and dawn!  I hear many of the humans who help us at StreetCats complaining that their kitties wake them up early in the morning.  Hey, keep in mind that we could play all night if we wanted to!  But we try, really we do, to adjust our sleep patterns to your feeding schedules.  So give us a break!  We're cats!  And we have cat physiology and nature!  We walk on the wild side with our cousins!

Now I'm going to show you AJ and Miss Molly.  They look to me like they might be sleeping rather than just dozing.  We don't know for sure, but we do know for sure that every one of these kitties I've shown you is a StreetCats cat and is available for adoption to the right human people.  Nonhuman people can't have us!

Note that AJ is sleeping in the cabinets.  What is it with these cats??  They love the cabinets!  The humans don't like us getting in there.  Well then why do they keep the beds up there?!  Duh!!

Here is the worse part of my being asleep so much.  My new forever humans were here to get me recently, I'm sure, but I must have been sleeping!  I mean why would they choose another cat over me if they met me???  I'm going to need to talk to my humans about this right away so that when they come this week I'll be paying attention.  Wake me up people!  I want to go home!  Do you think I'll have a basket like this one in my forever home??  I think I look pretty cute in that basket!