EGYPTIAN MAU CATS

My feline brother and sister, Charlie and Chloe, and also my foster kitten brother, Jacen, all keep telling me I need to write more in my blog about cats.  This is silly because I am a DOG, and I prefer to write about DOGS!  But in order to stop all the kitty pestering I've been getting, I finally agreed to write about a type of cat called the Egyptian Mau.

This breed of cat is very, very old, and in fact it might be the very first, original domestic cat.  In ancient Egypt, cats were worshipped, but I can't imagine why.  It would make lots more sense to worship dogs, if you ask me.  But no one asked me.  So anyway, you can see pictures that the Egyptians made of spotted cats, and these were probably the very earliest Egyptian Maus.  The word mau even means "cat" in the Middle Egyptian language.

Egyptian Maus are probably descended from African wild cats.  They are the only naturally spotted domestic type of cat.  If you shave the hair off an Egyptian Mau --which would likely not be easy to do without getting clawed -- you will find that the skin is spotted, too, and not just the fur.  There are other spotted cat breeds, such as the Ocicat and the Bengal cat, but these breeds were made by mating domestic cats with wildcats to get the spots.

An interesting thing about Egyptian Maus is that they can run really fast, like over 30 miles an hour, which is almost as fast as a greyhound can run.  The reason these cats can run like this is because (1) their back legs are longer than their front legs, and (2) they have an extra flap of skin that lets them stretch out their back legs really far when they are running.

The modern version of the Egyptian Mau breed got started in 1953 when the Russian Princess Natalie Troubetskaya, who was exiled from Russia, met the cat that belonged to the Egyptian Ambassador to Italy.  She asked him to get her some Egyptian Maus, and she started breeding them.  By 1968, Maus had become champions in some official cat organizations.  British breeders tried to make Egyptian Maus by crossing Abyssinians, Siamese, and tabbies, but these cats did not look like real Maus.  Instead, they became the start of the Ocicat breed.

Egyptian Maus are small to medium in size.  They are slender and muscular, and they come in several different colors, such as silver, bronze, smoke, black, and blue/pewter.  Cats with those last two colors can't be shown, but they can be bred.  All Maus have green eyes, but not just any color of green.  Their eyes are supposed to be "gooseberry green."

These cats can be sort of aloof and shy, just like basenjis.  But Maus are very loving and loyal with their people, and when they want your attention, they can be really demanding.  Since they have short hair, Maus don't need much grooming.  They don't usually have health problems, and they can live a long time.

This breed is still pretty rare.  As of 2006, there were 6,741 Maus registered with the Cat Fanciers' Association, and the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy was registering fewer than 200 kittens each year.  But if you want a Mau kitten, you can probably find a breeder who will sell you one for a lot of money.  There is also a rescue group working in Egypt to save native Maus.  They have lots of cats who need homes, but it's kind of complicated to get them to where you live.  Anyway, if you want my opinion -- which I'm sure you do -- you should just adopt a cat from your local shelter.  Or better yet, you should adopt a dog!

A BOOK YOU SHOULD READ

Last week Mom and I finished reading a book called A Dog's Purpose, by W. Bruce Cameron.  This was a totally excellent and wonderful book which I think should be required for all dog lovers to read.  What happens in the book is that a dog keeps getting born again and again as a puppy, and each time he remembers the lives he had before.  He decides that he needs to find his purpose in life and do whatever that purpose is, and after that, he won't have to keep coming back.

The whole book is told by the dog himself during his four lifetimes, and sometimes the book is funny, and other times it is sad.  But if you like dogs at all, you are sure to like this book.  Mom says that everybody thinks about what the meaning and purpose of life is.  Even humans do this.  And when you read A Dog's Purpose, it will help you think about what your life is all about.  Also, I will just mention that this book was on the New York Times bestseller list, and that means lots of people bought it.

There is a whole website just about this book, and you can find it here:  http://www.adogspurpose.com . On the website, you can watch a little video about the book.  The video is called a "trailer," which Mom and I thought only movies had, but this trailer is about a book, so go figure.

Mr. Cameron, who is the author of the book, is a journalist who writes humorous columns.  He has also written some other books, such as 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Daughter.  This book was so popular that there was a whole TV show was made out of it.

The latest book that Mr. W. Bruce Cameron has written is called Emory's Gift.  It is about a grizzly bear that a 13-year-old boy and his father are trying to save.  I haven't read the book yet, so I can't really tell you any more than that.  Mom says maybe we can read it soon.  I think it will be good, but probably not as good as a book about a dog!

MORE INTERESTING WORDS

HULLABALOO

As you should know by now, I like to tell you about words that are fun to say, and hullabaloo is one of those words.  Also, it turns out to have a connection to dogs, so that makes it an even better word to talk about.  A hullabaloo is a big, noisy commotion.  Sometimes it involves people who are making a racket to protest something that they are angry about.

Now, here's the doggy part.  This word started out in England during fox hunts, because the hunters would call out "halloo-balloo" to the hounds to get them excited about chasing the fox.  A fox hunt is a very noisy event, once it gets going, with all the dogs baying and the people shouting.  So that's how a hullabaloo came to mean a loud commotion.

SHIBBOLETH

This is a Hebrew word, and it means the part of a plant that has grain in it, such as an ear of corn.  But that is not how we use this word today in English.  Now a shibboleth is something that shows where you come from or what group you are part of.  But in the past, a shibboleth was sometimes used to test whether you were an enemy that ought to be killed.

The way all this got started was because in the Bible, in Judges 12:5-6, there was a test that the Gilead people gave to the Ephraimite people who were trying to sneak back home after the Gileadites had already defeated them in battle.  So whenever a person from Ephraim tried to come back into Gilead, they were asked to say "shibboleth," but in their language, there was no "sh" sound, so they would say "sibboleth," and then they got killed.  I know this is a not-nice, bloody story, but I did not make it up.  I am just telling it to you like it is in the Bible.

During World War II, American soldiers in the Pacific area used the word lollapalooza as a test of whether people who were hiding were native English speakers or not.  This word worked for that because the Japanese usually say "r" instead of "l", and they could not pronounce lollapalooza correctly.

Other types of shibboleths are things that people who grew up at the same time in the same country all share, like TV shows, songs, and stuff like that.  Or shibboleths might be shared experiences that people had in places like college or the military or working in the same office.

SCUTTLEBUTT

I think a lot of people probably know this word, and it's a funny one to say because it has "butt" in it.  What it means is rumors and gossip and other such stuff that is interesting to talk about.  But in the beginning, a scuttlebutt was a big wooden cask that was on the deck of a sailing ship, and it held fresh water for the crew to drink.  So when the sailors got thirsty, they would gather around the scuttlebutt and and talk while they were getting some water.  This is the same thing that happens nowadays in an office where people stand around the water cooler and talk about the latest gossip.

You might also be interested to know that a butt, which is a wooden barrel, holds two hogsheads of liquid.  This is the same as 126 US gallons.  They had some pretty strange names for measurements back in the old days, if you ask me.

HUBRIS

Hubris is a word that comes from Greek, and it means extreme pride or arrogance.  If you have a bad case of hubris, you might get so out of touch with reality that you think you are perfectly wonderful and fabulous in every way, even if you are not.  In Ancient Greece, hubris was a legal term, and showing hubris was a crime because it meant that you were shaming or humiliating somebody else just to make yourself feel good.  Some examples of hubris are what today we would call assault, rape, theft, mutilation of a corpse, or heresy.

Nowadays, hubris is like the pride that goes before a fall, or the pride that blinds a person.  It means being so confident in your own abilities that you don't use common sense.  It means ignoring moral laws and feeling that you can do no wrong.  And I will just add that if you have hubris, I would really prefer that you stay far away from me!

SCRIMSHANKER

This word came from the British Navy in the late 1800s.  It means a person who avoids their work or responsibilities.  It especially describes someone who tries to get out of serving in the military during wartime.  But it can also just mean anybody who is a shirker or slacker.  Another use of the word is for people who are tight-fisted and who try to avoid paying for their share of anything.




So anyway, that's today's vocabulary lesson.  I hope you have learned some new words and that you will use some of them as soon as you can!