How can I change my cat’s personality? How can she get over her shyness? I love her, but I wish she could be more confident and friendly. Is that possible?
Dear Readers,
We can’t change the cat’s personality. But we can change the way the cat expresses their personality.
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We can make a cat more friendly, more active, more interested in us.
To the limit of what their personality can handle.
There are limits to how far a particular cat might go down a path we’d like. But it doesn’t mean they can’t make progress.
Just like us, there are two factors that have influenced our cat’s present personality; nature and nurture. There are tendencies that are inborn in the cat, their nature; how they cope with adversity, how they regard their environment, how they react to overtures from people or other cats.
What those incidences or relationships might be is their nurture, another strong factor in the cat’s reactions. If these have been aversive, the cat might be shy, sensitive to stress, and unable to interpret intent from other living things.
We can help the cat handle all these drives with much more certainty by addressing each of these concerns.
So a shy cat can learn humans and other cats are trustworthy, or not. An already cautious cat could have had some bad experiences, and will then have a tendency many times as difficult to dispell.
These cats might also have difficulty handling stress, which we can help by offering their favorite stress relievers, from scratching posts to play session.
By always trying to send signals to the cat, by speaking to them with both our verbal and body language, we can build bridges to the cat that will let them be more confident, deal with less stress, and open their hearts to a fuller relationship.
So to successfully change the cat’s personality to be more well-rounded and affectionate, we should be able to bond across, at least, the two of us.
This is how we create a cat who meshes with us.
To make us both, happier.
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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.
With a shy cat, don’t overwhelm them with attention. Acknowledge her presence with a smile and slow blink and her name or nickname, preferably ending in an “ee” sound, like Honey or Buddy, as cats like that sound. Talk to her from a neutral distance without going towards her. When she approaches you, hold out your hand and ask “May I pet you?” and if she doesn’t offer you herself, don’t pursue it. Let her make her own time. And the occasional gift of treats or catnip doesn’t hurt!
She’ll come around eventually. But not everyone’s a lap cat. If she sleeps near you, even if only in the same room, that means complete trust. You can’t rush some cats, but if you have their trust, they will love you. It may be not in the demonstrative way you’d like. That doesn’t make her love less meaningful; it makes it more so. It means she loves you as far as she possibly can.
Excellent points! Just having attention paid can be enough at first.
Quote: If she sleeps near you, even if only in the same room, that means complete trust.
I hadn’t realized that before, though it makes sense. I can’t believe how quickly my new cat started trusting me. Wow. My first shelter cat (that died several years ago) hid for several days before coming out of hiding in her new home. Jessi, though hid for less than a day and on the second night slept in my bed – which shocked me.
Something drew you to this cat. Certainly, something is drawing this cat to you.
Sounds good to me!
Spending a little of our time playing with our pet cats and a simple touch of their body will make them realized that we care for them, thus, relieving them from stress.
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