Cats Are Getting Bigger, Should We Worry?

I make no secret of the fact that I like cats; we live at the sufferance of the two feline masters of our lives, McGee and CJ. Our third cat, JiJi, is now living with our daughter. Our first cat, Luna, made it to seventeen before she died three years ago.

If you've ever owned a cat (or more accurately, lived with a cat, because you don't really own them), you know that they are distinct little people, and they're very smart and sometimes quite alien. If they had opposable thumbs, the human race might be in trouble (ditto for raccoons; dogs are too nice to be a worry).

Now the Smithsonian reports that domestic cats are getting bigger, unlike the trend in most domesticated animals.

Perhaps the most surprising find detailed in a new Danish Journal of Archaeology study is the domesticated feline’s growth over time. Although most animals tend to shrink as they become domesticated (the average dog, for example, is around 25 percent smaller than its wild relative, the gray wolf), Julie Bitz-Thorsen of the Arctic University of Norway and Anne Birgitte Gotfredsen of the University of Copenhagen recorded a 16 percent jump in size between Viking Age and contemporary cats.

The reasons for this hefty increase remain unclear, but according to the study, plausible explanations include greater food availability—in the form of either human waste or a higher rate of deliberate feedings—and the shift in culture from treating cats as “fur providing and rodent catching” animals to “the present-day pet invited indoor, fed and cared for.”

It's probably nothing to worry about; after all, we are much bigger than most of our pets. But what if they're getting smarter?This is something I've wondered when I watch our youngest cat, CJ, trying to figure out how to open our bedroom door (he has figured out the door to my son'ts room, which has a defective latch).