Beaked whales

with other cats. Finally, cats need to read and understand human behaviour better (which is where dogs have really excelled). Bradshaw argues that early socialisation and training can help achieve some of these goals, but that we should also consider selective breeding of behaviour. Controversially, the author is suggesting that widespread neutering in the UK be relaxed, arguing that the practice actually selects against the above wish list by allowing the genes of feral cats to dominate future generations. One thing bothers me with this line of reasoning. Do we know enough about the evolution of the cat to attempt influencing its direction from this point onwards? Maybe, but I suspect other readers will also need convincing. Cat Sense is an enjoyable read and I like that it poses as many questions as it answers. In comparison to dogs, cats are fairly useless pets and their presence in our hearts and homes seems rather odd from an evolutionary perspective. However, there is lots of work to do if we want to make firm conclusions about cat cognition and behaviour and the extent to which this has been influenced by domestication. One nagging problem with this endeavour, of course, is that scientists have made more headway answering these questions in domestic dogs precisely because working with dogs in behavioural experiments is much, much easier. Partly this is because cats are constrained by their territories and unsettled by transport to university research centres, but it could also be because cats are less rewarded by human interaction. Now, the challenge set by Cat Sense is for scientists to circumvent these problems and start to really understand why we let cats become such ubiquitous members of our households.