Your Best Friend in Minecraft- Part Two

Cats are harder to get in Minecraft, and harder to take care of than dogs.  They are smaller, easier to kill, and have an annoying tendency to accidentally drown if they get into water and something is overhanging the water.  However, they perform an invaluable service to you if brought with you or left around your home- Creepers fear them.

Cats are only found wild in the jungle, in the form of Ocelots.  Ocelots make a distinctive skittering noise when they run, which they do at random intervals in random directions.  They move fairly quickly, and will flee if you move while you are near them.

Ocelots are turned into cats by the use of fish.  This makes fish a far more valuable resource (and by association, fishing rods and therefore string) than they used to be pre-Jungle biome.  If you have a fish in your hand and- and this is very important- DO NOT MOVE while an ocelot is near you, it will come to you and stop briefly.  You have a small window of opportunity to use the fish on it before it suddenly meanders off in another direction, so don’t wait too long after the ocelot comes within reach.  As with wolves and bones, a failed use of fish will not force the ocelot to run away nor will it do anything else than use up a fish.

Tamed cats, however, are not just ocelots with collars.  A tamed cat will be either tabby, persian, or ‘socks’ patterned in fur instead of its previous ocelot patterning.  They will follow you like a dog does, but they wander a lot more, tending to run in random directions every so often.  You can make them sit by right-clicking them without a fish in your hand, just as with a dog if you haven’t got a bone or meat in your hand.

Unlike dogs, cats do not fight at all.  You cannot heal them with meat either- if your cat is hurt, your cat is hurt.  However, you can use fish on tamed cats to breed them.

Most importantly, Creepers fear cats.  If a Creeper gets near a cat, it will turn and head the other way.  This lets you plant sitting cats around your base to protect it from Creeper detonations.  More importantly, this lets you keep Creepers away in dark areas by having your cat follow you.  Interestingly, the cat will not keep the Creeper far enough away to make sure it can’t see you- so if you wander around a lot with your cat, you may find yourself accumulating Creepers as well.  They will, however, stay back- giving you a good chance to fill them with arrows, drop gravel on them, lure them into holes, or otherwise dispose of them without blowing up.

Dogs that fight alongside you, and cats that protect you from sudden Sssssss.  What isn’t there to like about a pet?