How to train your human

There have been cat people for thousands of years.

- Gowri S

(Read on for a few of their stories.) And yet, in all the world, only one species of wildcat has deigned to be domesticated. Somewhat. Our felines remain 'peculiar' in a number of ways, as one researcher puts it. They hold on to their hunting abilities and independence. They don't always wait to be adopted. See how they have changed, in our midst; how new research is updating the arc of our bond. And how we have celebrated, over millennia, the world's most supercilious pet

People who adopt cats often do so in a rather unplanned way.

A cat stalks in, settles down, and suddenly one's life revolves around it.

How exactly did this happen? How did the domestic cat (Felis catus) become the one creature that appears to flip the relationship humans have with domestic animals?

Thousands of years after this relationship began, it still lives by its own rules.

Cats are almost impossible to train (the CIA famously tried to use cats as spies during the Cold War, and spent $20 million on the experiment, before finally admitting defeat). They are notoriously difficult to direct.

"It was like assembling a team of bank robbers," Peter Attencio, director of the film Keanu (2016), has said. (Scan the QR code below right to see why they're still cast, over and over, as filmstars).

Even in the home, one cannot expect to tell a cat what to do.

"What makes them peculiar among domestic animals is that they maintain several aspects of life in the wild. They retain a wild side, despite living in our households," says Claudio Ottoni, evolutionary biologist, cat researcher, and associate professor at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy.

Their hunting instincts remain intact, as does their independence. They may playfully try to swat the cheese off your cracker, but they will not whine for a meal.