The inner lives of cats: what our feline friends really think about hugs, happiness and humans

The inner lives of cats: what our feline friends really think about hugs, happiness and humans

“They have been stigmatised as evil because they are thought to be amoral,” says the philosopher and writer John Gray, author of Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life .“Cats are a window outside the human world,” says Gray, “They are themselves, and they stay themselves.

John Gray: 'What can we learn from cats? Don't live in an imagined future'

John Gray: 'What can we learn from cats? Don't live in an imagined future'

Readers of Gray will recognise this book as a postscript or coda to Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals , the 2002 bestseller in which he elegantly dismantled the history of western philosophy – with its illusory faith in our species living somehow “above” evolving life and outside the constraints of nature.

How to train your dog to cope with fireworks

How to train your dog to cope with fireworks

Dog trainer Jay Gray has shared some pearls of wisdom ahead of Bonfire Night (Picture: Jay Gray/iStockphoto)Bonfire Night can be an absolutely hellish occasion for pets across the country who are petrified of loud bangs from fireworks.