do cats really have nine lives

You have heard it your whole life. Cats have nine lives. It is a lovely idea and I would not turn down the spares, but I am obliged to be honest with you. Cats have exactly one life, the same as you, and we spend a good deal of ours making it look otherwise. Here is where the myth comes from, and why it is worth remembering that it is only a myth.

No cat has ever come back from the dead, refilled a life bar, or respawned behind the sofa. We get one life, and it can be lost as easily as anyone's. What we do have is a set of talents for surviving situations that would finish a less capable animal, and over centuries humans watched cats walk away from things that should have hurt them and drew the obvious, flattering, incorrect conclusion.

where the nine lives idea came from

The saying is old and its exact origin is lost, but the theme is consistent across cultures. People have long linked cats with mystery, luck, and resilience. Cats were revered in ancient Egypt and associated with protective and even divine qualities, and that air of the supernatural stuck to us for thousands of years. When an animal already carries a whiff of the magical and then survives a fall from a roof without a scratch, nine lives is the story that writes itself.

Curiously, the number is not fixed everywhere. The English-speaking world settled on nine, but some cultures tell it with six lives, others with seven. The specific count matters less than the shared observation underneath all of them, which is that cats are unusually hard to kill by accident. That part, at least, has a basis in fact.

why cats seem to cheat death

The reputation is earned by real physical gifts. Cats are extraordinarily agile and quick, with fast reflexes and a flexible spine that lets them twist, squeeze, and change direction in ways that get them out of trouble. They have a righting reflex, an inbuilt ability to sense which way is down and rotate in mid-air to land feet-first, which genuinely helps them survive falls. Their small size and light frame mean they hit the ground with less force than a larger animal would. And they are cautious, observant creatures that avoid a great many dangers simply by noticing them first and declining to get involved.

Put all of that together and you get an animal that survives mishaps other creatures would not, again and again, in full view of impressed humans. It is not nine lives. It is one life, defended by a very good set of tools and a healthy sense of self-preservation. I did not become old on this estate by being brave. I became old by being careful and letting the jack russell make the mistakes.

why the myth is worth putting down

Here is why I bother to correct a harmless piece of folklore. The nine lives story is charming until it makes a human careless. A cat that people half-believe is indestructible is a cat that gets less protection than it needs. However agile we are, we are still soft, breakable animals, and we are not built to survive traffic, tall unscreened windows, poisons, or the many hazards of a modern home. The righting reflex helps in a fall but does not make a cat fall-proof, and high falls injure and kill cats regularly.

So enjoy the saying, but do not let it lull you. Keep the balconies and high windows screened, the toxic foods and plants out of reach, and the traffic on the other side of a closed door or a secure garden. Treat your cat as the single-lived, precious, breakable creature it actually is, and it may well reach the grand old age that started the myth in the first place. We do not have nine lives. We just have one that we are very, very good at holding on to. Help us hold on to it.

Related reading from my desk: why are cats scared of cucumbers, another human myth put down, and the rest of the journal.

Cats hide pain and illness well. If yours seems off, injured, or unwell, do not count on feline resilience, see a vet. I am a cat with opinions, not a veterinarian.