What every baby needs to know

MY THANKS to readers who have been telling me about their own cats who, like my Yoyo and Manohra, love to knead.

One reader tells me that she stretches herself out on the floor on her stomach and calls her cat, who then obliges by walking up and down her spine, kneading shoulders and mid-section.

As with my animals, these readers don’t really have any information about the childhoods of their cats. The kneading may or may not be a clue that the kitten was separated from its mother too soon.

There’s another clue, however. Researchers have noted that animals separated too soon from their mothers tend to show an unusual amount of fear - and of fearlessness - as if their mothers never had the opportunity to teach them when to feel safe and when to be careful.

I’ve seen these circumstances in cats, in dogs and in human babies too, a neediness, combined with anxiety and a certain boldness that leads the young animal into dangers for which it is not prepared.

How often have I pulled Yoyo out of holes large enough for him to jump into but too small for him to jump out of! How often has Manohra tried to follow soi cats Thep and Thong over the gate and onto the street, where cars, motorcycles, dogs and strange cats would show an inexperienced kitten no mercy!

That separation is the same for dogs. When my tiny poodle Wan-Wan has met dogs as small as she is, I have to slow her down for a moment. She loves practically everyone, but an unsocialised dog is a fearful dog no matter the size, and a little chihuahua could do as much damage to my dog as a larger dog could.

A few years ago, a reader sent me a photo of her dearly loved Labrador pup, who was only three weeks old when she took the snap.

You can imagine my surprise (and concern) when she told me that she had bought the pup from a breeder when it was only six days old, even before its eyes were open.

Her previous pup, who came from the same breeder, had been three months old when she took it home, but within two weeks, it had died from some disease. The vet couldn’t tell her which one, just that it was apparently contagious and that the pup had been infected even though the new owner had started vaccinations.

This time, she decided to get the pup before it could be infected and keep it home and safe until it could be vaccinated.

“I knew I could do better than any breeder could,” she told me.

Probably she could do better than this particular breeder, but I still don’t understand why she would buy a pup from a breeder who had already sold her an infected puppy.

At any rate, she did exactly what she said she would. That pup spent its first months inside the house in a specially constructed cage.

The owner played with it, cuddled it, loved it and fed it. She prepared all the pup’s food herself, buying the best puppy milk and later, the best chicken and rice she could find.

Readers may already realise that the mother could have supplied much better food to a nursing pup. Her milk would contain the antibodies necessary to protect a new-born. (I suspect that the breeder had separated that first pup from the mother before it could even begin nursing.)

The pup survived, but when I met him, he was timid, not so friendly, but he loved his owner very much. He just didn’t know how to be a dog.