Any time we hunt down a cat from a place they are not supposed to be and escort them out of the room… we might have created a fun new game.
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Over and over again, we show our cat that if they sneak into that place they will get chased and grabbed and carried out of there. We think we are training the cat. The cat thinks it is fun.
They might want Drama.
A cat’s ability to pretend is what is literally coming into play here. What better fun for a predator than to pretend to be prey, and then their friends stalk them and catch them? This is how kittens play.
This is what we’ve done.
What now? We’re not going to convince the cat it isn’t fun. If we get grumpy about it we simply confuse the cat; this was a game we invented for them, remember? So, knowing the dimensions of the dilemma, I made the best of it: I ramped it up to make it The Best Game Ever.
When we agree with our cat that this is a great game and we love to play with them, we have more control, rather than less. Instead of Bubby trying to get into the basement every single time I opened the door, I would agree to play with him. Then we would have a lovely stretch of bonding time. I would then have access to the basement without slamming a part of me, or him, in the door in a vain attempt to stop him.
We also got a great game.
We could play it for fifteen minutes, as both of us became increasingly theatrical and emotional. Bubby loved hearing how much I missed him and loved him; I loved hearing him say the same thing. And then, when he felt the moment was right, he would appear and run toward me and get swept into my arms.
It was like two movie stars running towards each other through a wheat field. Well, okay, it was a person and a cat running towards each other across a concrete floor. But the emotion was there.
I no longer have a basement, or Bubby; he was fourteen when he developed pancreatic cancer. But the Game lives on; many an evening Mr. Bond will sit in the hallway and cry, and I will get out of bed and hunt for him, and when he appears, he gets swept into my arms and we go to bed together.
If we have a cat with the proper imagination and outlook, we can easily fall into these games; without realizing it. We can become frustrated with our cat’s misbehavior, we could puzzle over why it makes no sense, we could even exclaim to them, This isn’t a game!
But then again… maybe it is.
Maybe our cat is right.
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I’ve recently started playing a drama game with my one year old cat, Humphrey. It’s adapted from one which is always highly successful with human toddlers. Humphrey sits behind the curtain with just his tail showing, pretending he can’t be seen. I act the stupid and worried parent, hamming it up dreadfully: “Where’s my Humphrey gone?” “I can’t see him anywhere!” “He must be here somewhere!” “I wonder where he is?” Humphrey’s whole body quivers as the tension builds towards the moment when he bursts out from behind the curtain and dashes at breakneck speed to the other end of the room. I act all surprised and happy: “Oh, there he is!” “There’s my lovely boy!” “That’s where my Humphrey had gone!” until he goes back behind the curtain and the game starts all over again.
I love that game! That’s one of the great things about cats: there’s no such thing as too much ham.
I accidentally created a game of jumping on the stove with 6 month old Espresso.He loves jumping on it so that I can yell and pick him up. And he’s very much an alpha cat with lots of energy, so he gets fixated on things. Once he’s jumped once, he’ll do it again and again and again. I’ve tried distracting him with toys so that he jumps down by himself, but he always jumps back up. I’ve made it a game to jump on the stove but I really don’t know what else to do… how do you train a cat not to do that using positive reinforcement??? :/
Since the stove is so dangerous for both of you, I would redirect the jumping to anywhere else in the room at once, like a chair or table in the room, using treats as bribery. A cat on the table can be embarrassing – a cat knocking over a pot of boiling water can be very serious for everyone.
That should be faster than trying to stop it directly.
Hehe, wow, I have to admit I never considered the possibility of playing a game like this with any of my kitties, though I’m well aware they have amazing imaginations and pretending abilities. But the other day I decided to try a round of “Where’s Shadow gone?” with Shadow, my playful sweet Beta guy. And he LOVED it. He has been asking to play it several times a day since! I have never had a problem with him trying to get into, say, the garage so I just wander around the house pretending I can’t find him. I open closets and look in hampers and such, calling for him. And then eventually he will come *running* up to me, at which point he will announce his presence with a squeak-mew as if to say “Here I am!”. It is the coolest thing. Thanks for the idea about the game!
.-= AnneC´s last blog ..Shadow Teaches Himself To Sit =-.
I used to play peek-a-boo with the late great Boris, where I would hide around the edge of the couch or chair and slowly peek out at him until he just had to jump at me.
G swears that he saw the two of us playing this game when Boris was an old man and he could tell that Boris was humoring me. “Oh, geez, she really likes this game, I guess I’d better play along. Yes, yes, you found me, I’m very scared.”
Robie, our 12 year old cat, is very assertive and territorial. He probably started his habit of darting into the bedroom closet while trying to extend his reach, as a young cat.
It’s definitely a game now, though. He waits for us to open the closet to get clothes, then runs to the back of a lower shelf, waiting excitedly for someone to get down on the floor and grab him. If we’re too busy to play his game we just leave him in there while we get dressed, he’s ready to come out on his own by then.