The Knight Life by Keith Knight for August 26, 2016

My cat Laptop found this strip funny.

Cats should not drink milk

Most mammals lose the ability to digest lactose after they are weaned. There is nothing “wrong” with them.

To be fair, many cats are just intolerant.

One of my docs told the residents that most humans become lactose intolerant at puberty. It’s just some mutants from Northern Europe and their descendants (one of them pictured at left) that don’t. Cheesemaking is essentially removing lactose, it being water-soluble.

When a black cat jumped up onto the kitchen window sill one night about 40 or so years ago — and blinked its gold eyes at my mom, scaring the hell out of her so that she dropped a dish in the sink — the only thing we had to feed it was milk. The cat didn’t immediately proceed to the bowl; but about half an hour later I checked and found her steadily lapping it up. We eventually adopted the cat. But the first time I saw her drink milk was the last time I saw her do so.