The Way of Cats

A reader writes:

My son brought home an adorable male kitten but our older cat, a female stray, never took to him. He chases her and she will hide or avoid him. He never hurts her, but now she doesn’t like him near her. He has gotten hurt chasing her, and now he’s started spraying around the house! Is there anything we can do?

Dear Readers,

My first hunch was that these were two widely differing cat personalities. My reader confirmed that Older Cat enjoyed her routines, was shy about new things, and was in many ways a classic Gamma, while Young Upstart was into everything, high energy, and had other Alpha characteristics. This is too great a difference for easy blending, especially since they are the only two cats.

Two cats are always the trickiest cusp of the behavior template I call “mirroring.” As we do, cats look to others of their kind as a check on their own behavior. Cats living in close proximity have no choice but to spend more time with each other, encountering the cat mirror during their routines of daily life.

Cats can develop a fierce dislike for each other, or one can unknowingly become the bane of the other’s existence. Older Cat did not have the inter-cat skills to either ignore the kitten or teach him to leave her alone. The Alpha kitten is finding her too irresistible to play with, no matter what she does. He doesn’t mean to bully her, but that is how she is seeing it.

When these two cats look at each other, they see frustration.

This builds and builds the stress level in the home. There being only two cats means neither cat can see a different reflection. Another cat puts new matrixes in the cat mirror, giving them different ways of evaluating their behavior and communication. Having a third cat in this scenario would result in a different mirror. Third cat could be a playmate for rowdy Alpha, allowing him a new cat to approach and taking the pressure off the shy Gamma. The cats involved have a less stressful reflection they see staring back from the cat mirror.

Understanding our home’s cat mirror is the hidden key to cat compatibility. If possible, encourage the cats to show up together for treats, sharable toys, and special attentions. They will relieve their frustration by associating the other cat with something good for a change, and this can smooth the path to eventual friendship.

But ultimately, it might be an irreconcilable difference that will demand segregating the two cats or finding one a new home. In this case, I advised my reader, He’s going to chase her as long as she runs. She will always run. These are fundamental traits of these two cats, and not responsive to change. My reader has tried to reduce the stress levels in the house, such as Feliway to project calming pheromones and trying to keep the two cats away from each other.

This works when cats are still evaluating their responses and the stress triggers can be reduced. We can’t change these cats’ personalities, and it is pointlessly cruel to try. Trying to rev up or cool down either of the cats beyond limits they have already shown would only frighten or irritate them.

In circumstances such as my reader explained to me, I agreed that Alpha should keep his room of his own, where he behaves and doesn’t spray. This is not cruel in the short term, provided he gets visiting time, because stress is always bad for him and the fact that he’s not spraying in there means he’s calm. It also means my reader can approach the task of getting him a new home with the confidence that there is nothing wrong with this cat that a new environment can’t fix.

Some cats will get along, no matter what we do. Some cats will never get along, no matter what we do. In between these two extremes, we can make some efforts to reconcile differences with shared fun activities, supervising the stress level, and not letting confrontations get out of hand. If the situation cannot improve, and there isn’t enough room to let the two cats lead separate lives, the new cat will need to find a new home. I gave my reader some suggestions on rehoming.

It’s sad when a cat does not work out, but I wonder if sometimes the best service we can provide for a particular cat is acting as a station on their railroad.

We might not be their ultimate destination, but we can serve as a way of getting them one.

Want to avoid this situation?
There’s more help at The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See my BEST WAY CAT INTRODUCTIONS.

The “better” pet is the one who most closely conforms to what people want from their pet. Since most people want to have a close, affectionate bond with their pet, the cat is clearly the better choice.

Because cats can be spoiled.

When dogs are spoiled, they become either bossy or insecure. One of the reasons dogs respond to trained professionals and not their owner during behavior issues is that the trainer is capable of the strong assurance that dogs need.

It is the dog’s own gift and curse that they so successfully convey their adoration. People adore their dogs. They can’t stand to be firm with that pleading face. So they don’t. Unfortunately, dogs living with people need their people to show leadership, and people who get a dog so they can adore them tend not to be the people who can combine that with leadership.

Cats don’t want leadership. They don’t respond to any kind of coercion. We discipline cats with thought and love. Cats are structured to behave better, enjoy better health, and pay more attention to us when treated with adoration.

For the pet lover, there is no better choice.

Cats will actually obey us. But it has to be their choice. The only way they will do so is because we asked them to. The more we love them, the more they will do things because we asked them to.

Cats absolutely bloom on love. They become ridiculously affectionate, amusingly interactive, and exquisitely sensitive to our moods. They will come to us when we are down and offer comfort. They will be interested in our latest triumph. They will join in the search for the car keys and the arrangement of the new spice rack. They will love their time by our side.

That is the cat, in love.

When we do things because they asked us to, we reap two great benefits. One is the ease of training when we go ahead and let the cat train us, because then it will be done right. The cat does know more about how to please them than we do. We are avoiding the burden of trying to figure out what the cat wants. We can let the cat tell us.

The other great benefit is that we now have a pet we can adore and fuss over and spoil, and it will not be bad for our relationship. It will improve the relationship. We can adore them and it works for us!

People don’t consider cats because they think cats are not affectionate. Or they think only some cats are affectionate, and of course they would get one who is not. When people find out how loving cats can be, that will turn a cat owner into a felinarian (Cat Appreciator.) They get more, because more is more fun. More cats means more of all the things they love about cats. Now we can spoil more.

Cats do not react badly to spoiling because they will then ramp up their efforts to please us. We can train the cats to stay off the counters, but only by allowing them some of their own spots in the places where they need to play lookout. Then we are both happy. Since we adore each other, that makes us happy for each other, too.

We want pets to offer amusement and interaction. The point of pet enjoyment is love and companionship and a paw on the knee when we’re down. Cats provide all that. People don’t know that when they have never spoiled a cat themselves.

If we have not successfully spoiled a cat, we can catch glimpses of other people’s spoiled cats. Most cats will not show affection in front of strangers. So to see a cat respond to spoiling, we must at least make friends with them.

If a dog needs more exercise, play, and attention than our resources or living situation can handle, we should consider a cat. But not as a second-tier dog substitute. Cats engage our fascination with them at the same level we are able to expand our understanding of their ways.

Cats can get us to laugh, to do things for them, to give us both the thrill of finding them at the door and the fun of hide and seek. Cats can love us more than any pet we’ve ever had.

They just need to be spoiled.

Image from HessDesignWorks

Got here from a Link or Search?
There’s more to The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See my LATEST CAT ADVICE.

Cats have patterns in their minds. Not plaids or pinstripes, but a lot of if/then behavior that they don’t revamp very easily. The patterns of their lives with us create the reactions they will use, even if the context puzzles us.

Here, Samuel demonstrates how cat’s patterns are about what’s figuring out the thoughts in their heads, not matching their background. Cats, of course, want us to notice them.

Sometimes, though, we are wondering what they are thinking when they behave in ways that are not immediately apparent to us.

Why are they asking for treats when it’s not the right time? Why are they waking us up too early this morning? Why are they acting like we are leaving the house when we aren’t planning to?

We have inadvertently tripped a cat behavior pattern.

Those of us who feed the cat with a can opener know any can opener behavior will draw their curiosity. If we get a new one, or fix the old one, or use it in performance art, it doesn’t matter that we aren’t using the can opener for them, at this moment. They are hopeful.

My cats used to have a pattern for when I came home from work. I’d drop into my chair, greet them, and open the fishing creel beside the chair to distribute treats. However, with my wanting to give them more healthy food, we have upped the canned content and stopped some of the Treat Times.

They mostly went along with this, but sometimes, I feed them in the morning and then sit in my chair. Even though they have just had a meal, even though I never give them treats right afterwards, the action of me sitting in my chair sometimes gets them clustered around my feet expectantly. That action, bound up with all good things such as affection, attention, and treats, has worn a groove in their minds. I have to then say, “You just got breakfast! No treats now.”

The other day Puffy, knowing he wasn’t supposed to nudge me with his paw after this announcement, yet stymied about what to do with it, used it to give Mr. Bond a nudge. You ask.

This is the foundation for much otherwise puzzling behavior. It doesn’t make any sense to us that they want treats right after breakfast. Or does it? Have we never seen a doughnut late in the morning… and even though we’ve had breakfast, we’ve thought about it?

Cat behavior is only inexplicable to us. The cats always have a reason.

One night I awakened at 4 AM because I had too many blankets on the bed. I peeled off the quilt and put it on the chest at the foot of the bed. It was over in one instant, and I settled down to go back to sleep.

RJ did a whole production, involving jumping on the bed and leaping off with force, playing with the stuff on my night table, and pulling himself along the floor by using the edge of the boxspring.

I kept rebuffing his efforts and scolding the clearly out-of-bounds behavior. I finally got up at my usual time, without any sleep, but also knowing I couldn’t start feeding them at 4 AM. That, of course, is what he wanted.

But what had tripped him? I couldn’t figure it out in the depths of half-sleep, but once I was fully awake, I realized the action of putting the quilt on the chest was close enough to my actions upon waking to have triggered RJ.

While RJ is quite good about sitting like a gentleman, waiting for his food, and not annoying me in the morning, this was different. He felt I had signaled breakfast, and then not followed through. This made me even happier I had handled it without getting upset at them. It would have only confused RJ.

We all have times when we can’t figure out what the cat is doing or asking for. But if we look for the patterns, and think about what we might have said or done that is very close to a pattern that usually involves the cat, we can often solve these cat puzzles.

Got here from a Link or Search?
There’s more to The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See my LATEST CAT ADVICE.

Dang it, I tried. I tried to find a way to sneak old posts onto the new blog without the feed reader noticing.

But, apparently, nothing fools the feed.

The Best of the Way category keeps posts off the feed, and off the main navigation of the blog. My attempt at a cunning plan also keeps these classic posts out of the navigation. So when I went to build a nice tag cloud for everyone, there were all these dead tags that went nowhere.

Republishing them with a past date kept them off the front page, but they still appear, and still pop up in the feed.

When one is confronted with a Greater Force, one must adapt.

So, while there will be fresh content as usual on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings, there will be My Favorite Posts from the old blog showing up in between. Eventually, it will make the blog complete.

And I don’t want these posts to be out of the Loop. I think it’s important for everyone to play Cat Poker. How could I give up my important Introduction series? I’m not importing every post, but I will be revamping some of them to give a fresh perspective.

So I’m declaring them bonus content.

I hope nobody minds.

With the creation of My Own Domain (wayofcats.com!) I hope to say, as we do after every move: that we never want to do that again.

(Note for WordPress aficionados– yes, I could have imported all the old posts with their permalinks, but I didn’t like the structure imposed on me by Blogger, and didn’t want to keep every post. I’m moving away from a calendar structure because it’s more important that people find the categories they are interested in.)