Misty likes to lick my hand and arm. She also licks paintwork occasionally, but mostly it’s my hand and arm. Quite often it seems to be an expression of gratitude for having done her some sort of favour – fetching clean water for example – but at other times (like here) I don’t really know why she does it.
Holly would never do that. Sometimes I think they look a bit like rabbits.
There are angora rabbits as well as angora goats, but their name comes from what’s now Ankara, in Anatolia,
rather than from the two wools.
A Bad Guide 
Do not both angoras come from the same root, i.e. the name of the city? I’ve always thought so.
Yes, that’s what I was trying to say. I’m not sure of the root of the name of the city – actually, I think it’s a province.
Maybe you’re a salt lick.
Yes, I’ve wondered that too, but the other day she was licking me immediately after I’d had a shower, so there can’t have been much salt.
Oh, now I see where the two parts of the contrast lay. Yes, they got their names from the city of Ankara and its neighborhood. And there are also angora cats. I wonder how it came that three so different animals which to all laws of genetics cannot cross-breed have the finest hair of their race in the same – and relatively small – territory.
I read somewhere that the goats only came to Turkey in the 16C. I believe they originated in Tibet. It makes me think that the Ankara connection is about trade and or production of the textiles – though in the 19C most of the textile production was done in the north of England, so it was probably just a wool trade. I don’t know where the cats come into this, I’m allergic to cat fur and I also can’t imagine making wool from such short strands.
Maybe the licking is not licking – in the sense that the “tongues” of different animals have many different functions, only one of which (sometimes) is to lick up nourishment. Heat dissipation is another, smelling (in snakes) another.
Let us assume that Misty is in some sense “trying to express affection”. Since I also assume that goats are not physiologically equipped to purse their lips and give you a chaste, dry peck on the cheek, I conclude that the tongue might be their affection instrument of choice – wet but honest. Leaping up on you is another one.
I think the goats use light butting or pushing with the head to express affection and that Misty uses licking to express gratitude. I think Topsy the dog uses licking to express affection and leaping up on you as a friendly greeting. It’s different languages really; a limited number of tools assembled in different ways.
It’s different languages really
Different tongues, yes. No. That’s not what you meant. Aren’t you glad you weren’t trying to say it in, say, French?
Well spotted. I always wonder with things like that whether I had noticed the two words subliminally and that’s why I thought to say it – a sort of Freudian impulse.
“I think the goats use light butting or pushing with the head to express affection and that Misty uses licking to express gratitude. I think Topsy the dog uses licking to express affection and leaping up on you as a friendly greeting. It’s different languages really; a limited number of tools assembled in different ways.”
Fine tools, all the same.
Someone says, “our cats use head butting to express ownership”.
Misty pictures at last! I love them.
And of course she licks you because she loves you, you don’t need to ask anymore questions. Mistery is a perfect thing, just as Misty is a perfect goat.
Tom, tell us how is that your “cats use head butting to express ownership”.
Well, Julia, I think that when a cat rubs the side of its face against something, it is scent-marking, to establish that that something is part of its territory, but when it rubs the top of its head against something, it is saying something slightly different, combining affection with a sort of proprietary claim. This has been going on around here for years, through several “generations” of cats. All of them have a previous history of being wild and having nothing to call their own, which perhaps enhances their desire to state the fact that, now that they are here with us, the terms of the arrangement are that they are the de facto rulers of this kingdom, and we are their subjects, and they like this, and us, very much.
Could she be after your hormones? Does she lick the lassies of your household?
And of course (you all know this) cats and dogs both press the tops of their heads up under their mothers’ chins to get the mothers to lie down and feed them, so this is a gesture of “need-love” from infant to parent; and similarly they respond to pressure (stroking) under their chins with an affectionate desire to lie down and snuggle (feeding or not), so that is “gift-love”. So that’s the dogs’ and cats’ excuses.
My mother-in-law classes all this as “cupboard-love”.
How do mother (or father?) goats interact with their kids? Have you had opportunities to observe, Mr Crown?
But I’m sure Julia’s right: Misty loves you.
Sure, Tom, I do know this gesture or movement you mention. It’s a very feline practice. I thought Someone was talking about head butting, not rubbing. And of course, I agree with you, we’re they subjects (whether we know it or not).
Yes, Catannea our dogs use to lift our hands with their heads when they are doing (the hands, I mean) something else instead of caress them as they should.
I was not familiar with the expression “cupboard-love”, so I looked it up. Wikipedia tells us:
Cupboard love is a milder version of conditional love, where love is given solely in response to certain behaviour. Some local authorities class conditional love as a form of emotional abuse.
Ø, you’re not by any chance associated with the First Parish Unitarian Church in Harvard Square, are you? It’s just that I know someone who is.
I think the idea of cupboard love, except when it means a love of cupboards, is silly. If you’re reliant on someone else your loyalty and devotion is going to be to them.
Catannea, I’ve seen it, but I can’t remember. It was a few years ago. It certainly wasn’t the fathers, though. They lived in a different field.
Nope. To the extent that I am associated with any church (and the connection is increasingly tenuous) it is a different one, in Watertown Square, a few miles away from there.
Unitarians rarely butt heads or lick each other, in my experience.
Is there a difference between “being associated with” and “belonging to” a church ? Is “belonging” nowdays considered to be an outrageious imputation, sort of like “girlfriend” instead of Lebensabschnittbegleiterin ?
Used to be, people could laugh at the corny joke: “That was no lady, that was my wife !”. Now everybody is so actively and passively sensitive that “I don’t belong to that church, I am associated with it” could only be grave reproof, not an occasion for a chuckle.
“Associated” was not my word.
No, we belong all right. We’ve signed the book, and we contribute money every month. (Also, I chair the Religious Education Committee. What do you think of that?) But I do sometimes wonder what it all means; and we haven’t been showing up much lately.
In our Catholic masses (please Grumbly don’t ask me what do I mean by “our”) everybody kisses the people who is near to them to wish them peace (cheek kisses, no French kisses or lickings of any sort). “La paz sea contigo” is the phrase we use in Spanish at that moment, and the other person responds “y con tu espíritu”.
¡Jajaja! A nice image.
That’s funny, I wrote something and it’s disappeared. Anyway, what I said was “associated” wasn’t mine, either. It was the word used by the person I knew, who said she was associated with the branch in Harvard Sq. Since you ask, I think it’s fine for an atheist or agnostic to be knowledgeable about religious education. I know I’d be completely unsuitable for any committee work myself unless I could take part lying down and with something to eat and drink.
I’m glad you like it…
In my blog I tried to answer your question about “De la guarda”, but now I found a video that’s better. Here you are:
I’m not knowledgeable about it; it’s just that on the whole I just enjoy being with children more than I enjoy sitting through a church service, so that’s my preferred way of belonging. For “enjoy” you may substitute “draw spiritual sustenance from”. That makes it sound more high-minded.
Of course, serving on a committee is different from spending time with children. I have recently let it be known that the committee needs a new chair.
I had several decades with no church services at all, but I’ve recently had to attend some funerals and Norwegian Lutheran confirmations, which are socially as important as Bar Mitzvahs here. I find the whole thing very dull, there’s certainly no kissing or licking.
Julia, that’s fantastic. Such a good idea; it’s as if they’re weightless dancers, and by avoiding gravity they can make longer, less jerky, movements. I also like the way the shadows work on the wall. D. really liked it too (wife-who-must-not-be-named-in-full).
:-)
Julia, that is beautiful, but also terrifying. I guess I’m easily terrified.
Yes, they say their shows are very exciting. As usual, I’ve never saw any of them.
Evocative, this:
“In our Catholic masses … everybody kisses the people who is near to them … (cheek kisses, no French kisses or lickings of any sort)…”
Dim memories of a shady RC childhood, shady churches and pews, unattainable pre-adolescent kissing candidates all round, with white hankies hygienically draped over their virtuous little heads, and no tangible concept as yet of those things the French know about.
Much less, yegads, lickings of any sort!!
Oh, Tom I have very similar memories of old times when I go to church regularly and I was thrill waiting for the moment of “dar la paz” because I was near a boy I like… Going to church in my adolescent times was kind of a social event where we saw and were seen.
Being married to a Catholic, I’ve been seen entering Catholic churches when family occasions oblige me to. I can report that in Norwegian Catholicism (and I suspect Northern European RC in general) the congregates wish eachother peace with more or less firm handshakes. No kissing yet observed.
You see, Trond, That proves the previous conversation about physical contact and nationalities…
I’m going to print you some “Kiss me, I’m Catholic” t-shirts, Trond. You can pass them around.
WRONG!
Trond proves that’s not true.
The thing is “Kiss me, I’m South-American” (or Argentine?)
There wouldn’t be much point in sending Trond any “Kiss me, I’m South-American (or Argentine?)” t-shirts. He’s very good at languages, but who’s he going to fool ?
OK, you have a point there…
But the thing is that he said “his” Catholics didn’t kiss at all at the same moment of the mass when we all kiss each-other here (well… maybe conservative men may only shake hands).
So what’s the point of your t-shirts?
I can teach him some Argentinian words and he could pass as one of us, among you northerns.
If he wants to be kissed… We didn’t ask him, actually.
So what’s the point of your t-shirts?
To encourage northern Catholics to kiss rather than to shake hands. People pass on terrible germs by shaking hands. I believe I read that the US property developer and “personality” Donald Trump won’t shake hands, because he cannot be certain the person he’s greeting has washed them thoroughly.
Ahhh!
That makes perfect sense…
As always, Mr. Crown, you are right, and I’m wrong.