Cat Sense

At once affectionate and self-reliant, cats seem to be the perfect pets for the busy 21st-Century lifestyle: they groom themselves, do not need training and can be left alone all day, yet still they greet us warmly when we get home. Small wonder then that across the globe today, they outnumber the dog, man's "best friend", by three to one. But appearances can be deceptive. Unlike dogs, even the most domesticated of cats still think like the wild scavengers and hunters from which they are descended - and to which they can quickly revert. And now they face the most challenging of living conditions to their wild natures since they began their association with mankind some 10,000 years ago.

Yet the recent surge in research in feline science - with John Bradshaw at the forefront - also means we are now better equipped to understand cats than ever before. Cat Sense traces their evolution from wild solitary hunters to high-rise apartment dwellers to show just how much biologists now know about them. It offers us for the first time a true understanding of one of humanity's closest and most enigmatic companions.