Are house cats useful?

[cech4204a]

I love cats, had like at least 10 of them so far, but i think i won't have anymore, since they all go away/die/get killed on the road. I admire how somethimes they seem to be "smart" in some actions. Well, we still have a dog, and it's the best dog you could imagine

[1713430037]

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[1713430037]

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[BitcoinTraders]

Cats are not useful!
They only eat and don't do anything!
I hate cats...

[roslinpl]

Cats are not useful!
They only eat and don't do anything!
I hate cats...

no

my cat eats snakes
literally

I caught her eating a snake like 2-3 times

my backyard is snake free

say that's not useful

Damn ... where do you live that you've got snakes on backyard :]

I told many times that I feel lucky that I live in a country where a biggest spider lives in a zoo and there is only 1 kind of a snake that has poison and it will don't kill you even if it bites

Cats are cool 
Snakes + backyard = not cool

[djarot]

my 2 cats are serial toad abductors! no toads anywhere in my neighbourhood. As a tangent, are toads useful?

[giveBTCpls]

Cats are cute to pet and watch how they walk around and play. Everything doesn't have to be "useful" you fucking aspies.

[Bitcoinexp]

^ True... 

[jump4ever]

I think dogs are better since they are always happy when you come home etc...

[FlyForFun]

Not at all, you have to clean their shit, clean them, buy food for them, play with them..

[ObscureBean]

Cats are useful because they are a constant reminder of how not in control people are 
Cats will love/use you when they want and then completely ignore you when they're bored.
They will eat your food and sleep comfortably in your house but they never really belong to you. They're too cool for you 
I like cats 

[Brewins]

They also can be used as a hacking tool for wireless devices.

http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/10/warkitteh/

Gene Bransfield's Warkitteh on his cat Coco

Forget Trojan horses -- it's the cats you have to worry about. Security engineer Gene Bransfield has developed WarKitteh, a tech-laden collar that turns feline companions into scouts for WiFi hackers. The innocuous-looking accessory hides a Spark Core board that maps wireless networks and their vulnerabilities wherever the pet wanders. If used in the field, the technology would be pretty sneaky; the cat stalking mice in your backyard could represent the prelude to an attack on your wireless router.

Thankfully, Bransfield doesn't plan to weaponize the Siamese next door any time soon. WarKitteh was developed on a lark, and it isn't getting much more exposure than a panel at the Defcon hacking conference. However, the experiment in pet-based network penetration also serves as a friendly reminder to lock down your home's WiFi access point. The engineer discovered that many of his neighbors were either using weak security, or none at all -- it wouldn't have taken much for someone with more sinister intentions to either "borrow" those connections or spy on their users.

[bitcoinminer007]

I don't think cats are useful is any concern.

[BADecker]

Yes cats are amazing at getting rid of rodents.  Warning, street cats will leave a beheaded mouse on the floor and you might pick it up thinking it is a piece of porkchop.

I'm a better housekeeper than to let pieces of my pork chop lie around on the floor until they get fuzz on 'em.

[BADecker]

And it's not cruel, people castrate animals all the time (with dogs it's even recommended) and you say cutting the nails is cruel?

If you look around for it, you can find where, right in the United States, even, people castrate other people!

[BADecker]

I think claw removal/clipping is really cruel. You basically rob a cat of its ability to climb, hunt, defend itself, etc. You know, stuff cats do.

If you want a cat but don't want your furniture destroyed, there are other options like getting a scratching post, not allowing your cat to go indoors or in certain rooms, or simply not getting a cat at all.

+1

Declawing will make me label you as an asshole, they actually need claws to do stuff, what happens if you die or they have to survive on their own for awhile? You've just made it extremely difficult for them to get any food, the reason they scratch is because they're doing the equivalent of clipping nails so they don't get too long, you could either get a scratching post for them to use or if it really bothers you that much don't get a cat at all.

Yeah if you've got furniture you don't want it near you could just keep it in an area where the scratching won't have any affect and just let it go outside to do that, as for the shitbox, my cats are awesome and go outside to take a dump, then they bury it themselves without any input from me whatsoever

Just wondering what kind of "*hole" you are going to label those who use cats for target practice.

[BADecker]

Cats are pretty shit. They don't do anything.

Dog's eat their shit then lick your face.

Cats lick their xxx, then spread it out all over their hair, then rub up against you. So soft.

[spazzdla]

The only reason I can leave the door on my balcony open is the cats will eat all the flies with in 12 hours.  The one will spend the rest of the day hunting them lol.

Spiders.. well the damn things just toy with them and never kill them.

[BADecker]

i would never own a housecat though just because i think they are discusting and they really cant jump up on counters and such after they scoop poop around in their litterbox . they are not clean animals./ i like dogs. a lab preferably

Almost +1.

Keep ALL dogs and cats outside, or at best, only in their own room which is blocked off from the rest of the house.

[BADecker]

I don't believe in the idea of keeping animals in a house.

Humans are animals.

Wrong! Lately researchers have found that humans have a section of brain that animals don't have. It allows reasoning in great quantity and quality. Most (all?) animals seem to have a slight amount of ability to reason. But people use it all day long, every day, in a big way. Animals can't do this.

While I don't have a site reference for this, this newly discovered part of the brain might also be the part that connects us to higher consciousness. Besides this, there are some TED talks that are finding things along these same lines.

[BADecker]

Cats are not useful!
They only eat and don't do anything!
I hate cats...

no

my cat eats snakes
literally

I caught her eating a snake like 2-3 times

my backyard is snake free

say that's not useful

Your cat sounds like a cow chewing her cud, eating a snake 2 or 3 times.

[TeraBox]

They are useful if you are sick. They can sense illness like cancer. There were some research on this, apparently they help you heal when they purr

http://healing.about.com/b/2013/07/24/healing-vibrations-of-cat-purrs.htm