Pet Ratios

guest-written by Deborah Stout

Sometimes I wonder if our pets are insane.

I don’t mean their silly antics, like getting “the zoomies.”

Or when cats get that specific look on their faces.

I’m referring to the fact that they not only live with us, but actually like and trust us.

This notion might not sound “insane” on the surface, but bear with me.

The idea came to mind as one of my two cats, Penny, sat on my lap, with that cat-smile on her face that comes with getting head scratches.

In that moment, I thought about how I, a not-so-large human, could fit nearly her entire head in my hand.

This fact was, thankfully, a delight to Penny, as it made it easy for her to rest her head in my hand and receive unending pets with ease. I, however, wondered: could I ever be happy and not scared out of my mind if I were constantly around some being who was able to hold my entire head in their grasp?

This realization brought a whole new level of appreciation for my little fluff-ball. Penny is a skittish cat. She is not a fan of strangers entering her space, nor is she a fan of the two little humans who run around my home. Our other cat, Imelda, is much less concerned about her surroundings. She is interested in any new people who enter our home, and she allows the elated mini-people to pet her and be around her, though I cannot commit to saying she likes them (yet). Imelda is not only unconcerned about her surroundings, but, sometimes, outright dumb about them.

My husband and I often joke that if our two cats were to live out in the wild, one would survive and one would not. As I contemplated Penny’s head in my hand, I realized that her skittishness is a much more rational response than Imelda’s. The average cat weighs around 10 pounds, and the average human around 180, which means we are approximately 18 times heavier than our domesticated feline friends. Length-wise, we dwarf our cats by about three to one.

Imagine living with beings who were 18 times your weight and three times your size. That would mean living around something weighing approximately 3,200 pounds!

Animals of this magnitude include hippos and rhinos.

We already think people who live with animals proportionally closer to our size are not altogether “with it.”

Take Timothy Treadwell, better known as the Grizzly Man. He and his girlfriend lived with grizzly bears, which are twice as long and up to four times as heavy as humans.

Their story did not end well.

Then there’s the even more well-known Joe Exotic of Tiger King fame.

Tigers are almost three times bigger than humans by weight. Joe definitely does not have all his marbles, and he certainly did not lead an injury-free life around his tigers.

More benign examples exist, such as Dean Schneider, who founded an African animal sanctuary and regularly “cuddles” his lion residents, which people can experience vicariously through his Instagram.

While lions are “only” just over two times larger than humans, I don’t think anyone would think of cuddling up to one they just met.

This project’s Woman Crush Wednesday series highlighted Simona Kossak, who spent her life living with critters in the Polish forest.

The photograph of her with the massive boar, Zabka, is amazing. While we don’t know Zabka’s exact size, she was likely around 200 pounds, and quite a bit bigger than Simona.

While Simona’s life with Zabka was much more like that of a human and domesticated dog, I don’t know too many people who are ready to adopt a baby boar just yet.

All this to bring us back to our non-feral friends. If they seem hesitant to meet a new person or even just a bit frightened when you’re angry, remember this reaction might be very rational.

After all, they’re living with something much larger than grizzlies, by comparison to us! So, give them an extra pet, cuddle, or scratch to make their life among towering creatures feel a bit safer.