A long and luxurious tail can be called with confidence of one of the main advantages of the cat. Returning home from work, it's nice to see that your homemade pet is encountered on the threshold with a gentle and quiet purr and highly raised from joy. Nature gave these incredibly gentle animals by the tail not only for a luxurious appearance. Here, the whole thing is that a long or short tail is a rather multifunctional element of a feline organism.
Building and form
The tail is a completely natural continuation of the cat's spine. The tail of the animal consists of three parts such as:
- root is from 4 to 6 holistic vertebrae;
- The stem is not to the end of the developed parts of the spine, has a cylinder form;
- The tip is more subtle vertebrae having an acute form.
Characteries and joints, located between all vertebrae, are necessary for excellent flexibility and increased animal mobility. Averaged tail length can be up to 27 cm, but in a number of well-known and expensive breeds, for example, main-kunov, it can grow to 40 cm. Bobtail's tail, on the contrary, is completely small, barely noticeable, only 3-4 cm. The tail of the males is most often for 2-3 cm longer than the kittens of the same breed.
Functions
Cats are quite actively used by the tail throughout their life. Sometimes a feline tail can play the same value for your cat, like his main pride - mustache. The whole tail is practically permeated with the finest nerve endings, which are directly related to the central nervous system and allow your favorite to feel better in the environment . With the help of such an important part of the body, the animal seems to "feel" all the space next to it, which significantly improves his neat movement, even in a state of complete darkness.
Balance
Quite often, you can hear stories that the cat fell from a high height, while remained completely unharmed. One of the reasons for such an amazing ability is the balancing of the tail. During the jump or in the fall, the pet body fully retains its balance, which just allows the animal to quietly land on all four paws.
The presence of a balance for an animal gives him the opportunity without much difficulty climbing very high designs and trees, and after waging through the very thin, flexing branches, jump over them or carefully descend.
Steering wheel
When hunting the tail, almost like a steering wheel, allows the animal to make various kinds of turns. The tail is very actively rotating with all the animal gear, Specifying his body a certain direction.
Temoregulation
During the summer heat, the cat uses the tail, as disastrous - few people know about this interesting fact. Thus, the animal lowers the temperature of its own body and saves its body from possible overheating. And if the heat of the body is missing, the pet will begin to curl into a compact ball, and at the same time it will cover the spout and eyes - this is done to reduce heat losses.
Easy of enemies
When the cat is seriously frightened, its wool immediately become endless, and its maximum flowing tail will be highly raised and ridden in the form of an arc. With this pose, the pet tries to seem much more than it really is. Very many representatives of the animal world resort to such a trick (create a visual illusion of increased body size) to avoid a potential collision and enjoy enemies.
In the wild, any bite can in principle become fatal, for this reason, even among close relatives there are special rituals that allow without a fight to determine who is the main one here. For example, many cats will prefer a long period of time to surprisingly sort and brazenly spinning about a friend, before you really clung to a fight. Luxurious, a large flourished tail in a similar situation will help its owner to get so necessary advantage in the power.
Means of communication
It is worth paying your attention to the fact that cats use their tail as one of the actively used for full-fledged communication devices. Remember how your pet in minutes of serious irritation suddenly begins to shake his tail or he twitches hard on the sides, as he spreads his pride in the form of a tail and lifts it, if something unfamiliar scares the animal.
In combination with the position of the ears and the expression of the eyes of a pet, the amplitude of the movement of his tail helps to make the most correct conclusions about how he will behave in the very near future. For example, if the tail of a pet suddenly sharply begins to rush to the sides, and the ears are tightly pressed against the head, it means that your favorite is carefully preparing for the attack and is about to go into battle.
Hunting
During his hunt, the cat lowers his tail as low as possible and tries to keep it parallel to the surface of the Earth. In certain cases, it is possible to even see a slight twitching of the tip of the tail - such a simple method of the animal tries to keep his amplifying excitement.
It is worth explaining how those pets do not care without such an important element, which appear completely without tails or remain without their tail due to the misfortune or in the silly will of the owners. Those who have lost their tail will randomly, for a long time they can lose their gracefulness when moving and confidence in gait and they will have to learn to live on without such a convenient balancing tool.
Those who, according to their natural data from birth, do not have such part of the body, as the tail, as a rule, have elongated and rather muscular hind legs - to a certain extent it compensates for them the absence of a chic tail.
Health indicator
As of the cover of wool on the tail, you can learn about those diseases that there is a particular pet. If the cat falls in the sacrum area at the very base of the tail, then the pet is clearly lacking in the body of vitamins and various trace elements, which can be corrected by a vitaminized diet. Wool fallout on this part of the body can also talk about the presence of lichen animals, fungus, moisture or allergies on the body.
Comfort and entertainment
For comfort and games, cats also need tail. An animal that wants to warm up and have fun, in those minutes, when nothing within reach is able to attract his attention, can fully focus on his own tail. After all, he is actively moving all the time, and this implines a potential victim, for which you can enhance.
When the cat runs after his tail, and then catches him, she begins to understand that this is just part of her own body, not an enemy or a victim. After aware of this fact, as a rule, the animal begins to intensively care for the tail. When playing a cat herself will not harm himself, so it's not to interfere with her to play with a tail.
Is it possible to do without it?
Very often, homeless cats lose their tails as a result of any injury, with homemade pets such a kind of incident occur much less often, especially if they do not enter the street at all and do not climb on the trees. A number of tail breeds are generally not at all of the birth or it is so small, which is almost impaired. Many animal hosts are asked a completely rational issue - and is it possible to do without this body in general.
If the tail is missing in the thoroughbred animal and is a characteristic feature of its breed, then the tail has no greater value for such pets, as for pets, that lost the tail due to injury or serious illness. In principle, and without a tail, a regular cat can live the same good life as with a tail . Perhaps a part of this life will not be so comfortable, but all his feelings a pet will be able to hand over with her eyes, meowukani, legs.
What do the tails mean?
The value of a large or small tail for pets is quite difficult to overestimate. If you are most attentively look at how the cat's tail is moving, it can be easily able to understand what attachments from your fluffy friend, how he feels whether your favorite wants to talk or, on the contrary, wants to be left in full . The tail movement can mean a lot.
- Comfort . When the animal is comfortable, his tail is in the position of full rest - that is, not moving at all. Sometimes a pet can be lazy to twist the tip of the tail, if the tail is hanging quite in the usual way. If he is most relaxed - it will also say that your favorite animal is in a state of calm. On the excellent mood of the animal can also say the fact that the tail is neatly lying around the seated or lying cat.
- Joy. The tail in this case will be friendly to lifting up or slightly bent the arc.
- Curiosity. It seems that the cat is carefully listened to something, while slowly wagging the tail.
- Playful mood. When a person wants to stroke the cat, and his tail apparently strains and a little bit tremble - the pet is ready for an aggressive game, which means that it can seriously scratch. Often, the playful mood of the animal can be expressed in his strong swinging.
- Irritation . For the cat, this condition is visible immediately - he begins to rush nervously, bypassing his master.
- Rage . The animal wool suddenly rises on the whole torso. The tail is moved to the lobby and flies. The back is sharply disintegrated, the fierce meowing and snorting is heard. In this case, you need to be as cautious as possible, since the mood of your fluffy pet is very combat and aggressive.
If you see on the back and on your cat, your cat has an unfair wool - it means that your pet is seriously excited. This kind of state may arise from the fright or from the overseas active game. You can quickly calm the cat with a light stroking. If the cat holds his tail at an angle of 45 degrees - this 100% shows that it belongs to those surrounding with distrust.
If the cat climbed his own tail between the paw, it will mean that it is frightened and will not resist, this is a clear sign of recognition of defeat in animals.
It often happens that when there are too many people in the house, then the cat is lifted and the tail is beginning to twitch. This means that the cat is glad, but only the presence of its owners. If a cat is extremely interested or passionate, then he will actively twist the tip of the tail. If the cat strongly waves the tail from the side to the side, it means that the conflict suffers inside your pet. The animal should make some kind of choice, but can not quickly decide how to do it correctly.
Why can not pull and pull?
The tail is an extremely important organ of a cat, since it contains many nerve endings. Exactly because of this reason It is impossible to pull it too much, since a similar inaccurate handling of a pet can lead to the loss of the capacity of this particular part of the body. And his injury, as it does not sound strange, can significantly influence the work of the kidneys and intestines, the sexual system and even the hind legs.
Many cats simply do not like when they even touch their tails and immediately get up in a defensive position.
If your animal suddenly fell extremely unfortunately, then you will tell you a unnatural look. In this case, you will need to consult a doctor. At home and yourself try to treat the cat is not worth it. In addition to X-ray, in the vettlenik, the animal will be put on the tail a special bus or tight bandage.
The overall health status of your fluffy friend will also be reflected in the thickness of his wool on the tail. Often the tail begins to lie. This may be due to the presence of dermatitis or eczema, and also will also tell about the problems with the stomach and the presence of many other diseases. Sometimes it can even be about serious stress. In any case, it is necessary to find the cause as soon as possible before starting treatment, so you still have to go to the veterinarian. He carefully examines your favorite and prescribe loyal treatment.
About why the cat needs a tail, look next.