The Way of Cats

It’s become common for people to discuss pack behavior in cats; who is the dominant one, how status battles are waged, the best ways to accommodate the cat’s hierarchal concerns.

Except cats don’t have pack behavior.

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Cats have social guidelines, attitude rituals, and friendship criteria. They have cats they find annoying, cats they get along with, and cats they regard as buddies. There are cats who want things very much and there are cats who are laid back.

But none of this is pack behavior, and none of it conforms to pack rules.

Dogs are pack animals. We can tell because they have buttons. A knowledgeable and confident dog person like Cesar Millan, the “Dog Whisperer,” can press their buttons and do amazing things based on his knowledge and understanding of dogs. I admire him very much.

But he can’t do that with cats. I can’t do that with cats. No one can do that with cats.

Because cats don’t have buttons.

Lions have “prides,” consisting of a few dominant males and a larger number of females. They are a cooperative structure. That’s the closest thing we can find to a pack in the entire feline kingdom. And it’s not a pack.

The dangers of trying to treat our multiple cats as a pack is that a) it won’t work, and b) it will create tensions and expectations in our cats that will be detrimental to the smooth functioning of our household. What domestic cats have, in the home, kept as pets, is a civilization.

Every dog pack has slots that keep it basically the same. Every cat civilization is independently created from the personalities of the cats, and each one is different.

Cats hang with each other, or not, depending on how much they get along with the other cat. Cats harass or cooperate with other cats depending on what each of them wants and what the other cat is willing to go along with.

The leverage we have is providing unpleasant consequences for behavior we don’t like, and pleasant consequences for behavior we want to encourage. That’s all. Cats are not going to obey us because we are strong leaders, or because they are afraid of us, or because we demand it of them.

Cats do what they want to do. Always.

What we might mistake for dominance is simply a cat who wants the high shelf more than the other cats. What we think is battling for alpha status is simply a cat who wants to be friends, and is frustrated by a cat who is rebuffing their overtures. What we might regard as our lowest status cat is simply a cat who dislikes a lot of confrontation, and avoids it of their own choice.

We have to make a space for each kind of cat.

Pack behavior does not exist in cats, and cannot be used as a management tool. We do the cats a disservice if we think they are working things out on their own. What we will get is a hodgepodge of bad behaviors which pleases no one.

We may not have the status or the instant obedience that would come as Pack Leader. But, as people with cats, we do have the responsibility to make every cat welcome in our home. We can and should stop cat bullying, draw out the shy ones, and make sure every cat gets the attention they want, in the way that they want it.

We are the Boss of Cat Town. Everyone can do what they want, as long as they don’t interfere too much with other cats doing the same thing. Then we can do what we want, which is to enjoy our cats as individuals.

Each and every one of them.

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There’s more about multiple cats in The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See more posts on the MULTIPLE CAT ADVANTAGE.