Cat Poker. The game where everyone wins!
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It doesn’t matter who starts the game. It’s simply that someone has to. One makes an affectionate move. The other returns it.
But this keeps the game at the same level. To play Cat Poker, someone has to see it… and raise it.
When we respond to a cat’s friendship gesture with one of our own, this is the Law of Reciprocity. Many people, new to cats, are puzzled by this law. They seem to think the pet equation is something like this:
But there really isn’t any pet equation that actually works that way.
Cold-blooded pets, like fish or snakes or sea monkeys, don’t do much in the way of affection. Their equation is simple; we feed and shelter them, or they aren’t around any more.
We had an adorable parakeet who loved music (BB King, Mozart, and Tito Puente.) While Mr WereBear and I were dating, he would rest for hours in the curve of my neck. He liked the food, (bananas and Life cereal, especially,) and when I moved in with cats, he sure needed the shelter. (Our neck time moved to the computer room.)
But he didn’t like us because of gratitude. He liked us because he was capable of love and we had shared interests. He had previously belonged to someone else who fed and cared for him… but they never bonded. With us, he found his flock.
What about our dogs? Don’t they love us? Of course they do. But it’s not gratitude. It’s sadly true that even without food and shelter, dogs will remain attached because of their personality structure. Of course, with good treatment, dogs love us more.
But that’s because we made them happy. Grateful doesn’t enter into it.
With cats, there is no drive to remain attached, or seek a group identity. A poorly treated cat who is able to find better treatment elsewhere will go there, and not come back.
This is how I got some of my own cats. Some of them loved group living, and some did not. But they were looking for love, and if I couldn’t provide it in my house, I found someone who could.
They already had food and shelter elsewhere. If that was all there was to it, why would some owners, once tracked down, shrug and tell me to keep the cat, because “it never seemed to like me.” There was care, but there was also something missing.
Cat Poker is an extraordinary game because it keeps getting better.
The more I love my cats, the more they love me. The more they love me, the more they come up with ways of playing with me, interacting with me, and communicating with me. Every time they do something to show off their trust, such as hiding their face in my hand, tucking their head under my chin, or demanding that they sleep with me on their special spot on the bed; the challenge is on for me to come up with some way to make them as happy as they make me.
So we seek out new toys and new ways of playing with them. We create rituals around their food, and try to get them their favorite flavors. Most of all, we pay attention to them, ask about their day, and lavish our human version of trust and affection on them.
I’m sure some people find this strange. They think that we’re here, and the cat is there, and that should be enough for everybody.
I don’t know how the attitude appeared that this was enough to comprise a relationship. I mean, it is.
But wouldn’t we all rather have a good relationship?
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There’s more ways to get our cat to be affectionate in The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my CAT AFFECTION posts.
A friend of mine’s first cat was a big black guy who clearly had a home somewhere. He was well fed and cared for, but without a collar or microchip. He turned up on her porch one day, hung out for a little while, then left. He kept coming back, staying a little longer each time. Eventually, he didn’t leave, and is now a happy indoor cat. He had food and shelter at his first home, but clearly he didn’t have what she offered him: love.
Everyone is familiar with the term “loveless marriage.” You have food and shelter, but that’s it. Eventually someone else treats you the way you want to be treated, and you leave that relationship for the new one. And that was what happened to her; she couldn’t support herself and her young daughter on her own, but she could with her verbally abusive boyfriend. But she broke up with him and moved out, just as her future cat would do to his owner, when she found true love. And a better life.
Anyone who says “Cats aren’t affectionate” has never shown affection to a cat. There are emotionally distant people, too, but no one says that all humans are that way. They’re that way for a reason, and can blossom with love.
My brother picked out a cat from the pound for his family, and the cat dearly loved him. However, with my brother’s wife and my nephew, the cat never shows any kind of affection – when I first saw the kitty with them (my brother wasn’t around), I marveled at the lack of eye contact, no twisting around legs, no purrs or murmurs, no conversations with the cat, etc. In about 10 minutes the cat was on my lap, sounding like a buzz saw, and very very gently gnawing one of my fingertips. My sister-in-law was shocked, saying “You and your brother aren’t human. That cat loves you two, but it doesn’t like me at all and I feed it everyday.”
Maybe the cat didn’t like being an “it”. That seemed to sum up what the problem was: perfunctory care. That’s my term for really bad daycare for children, wherein kids get food and shelter and a degree of safety, but not much else, certainly not affection, or interest, or treatment as a person. Seems to apply to human-cat relationships, too. (Some cats, of course, don’t even get that. )
How sad, when such a great bond with a cat seems like the easiest thing to start, and keep on growing – and so much fun.
You said it, Kidspeak! The people I’ve known who have cats that “aren’t affectionate” are always the ones who don’t have a “him or her,” just an “IT.” My boss can’t even remember what gender his wife’s cat is.