Discipline with Love. Literally.

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It’s not a method that works for everything, but when a cat is bothering us, we can do the martial arts move I call Hug Monster.

As I’m working on the blog, six month old Olwyn is playing with the stuff on the table beside me. I need my glasses, pens, and whatnot right where they are, not tossed on the floor.

Yet, one of the reasons she is playing with them is because they are near me. How can I discourage her from playing with my stuff while making sure she understands I like having her near me?

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It can be a tricky maneuver; letting a cat know we want them near, but not necessarily paws-on. When they reach for things they are not supposed to have, our first impulse is to chase them away from it. But that can also chase them away from us.

So I reach out and start hugging them extravagantly.

We need a love foundation with our cats for this move to work.

That is its power.

I hug my cats a lot, and they know how to get a hug from me, anytime. However, they aren’t asking for a hug now. But that’s what they get.

I plucked Olwyn off the table and hugged her and kissed her and rubbed her ears gently. That’s nice; she likes that. But she doesn’t want it now. Yet every time she reaches for my glasses she gets hugged.

Since what she really wants is to play, she abandons the table and fishes a toy (with my help) out of the toybox. Now she is batting her own toy around my feet, and we are both happy.

This is my preferred move when the cats are trying to get me up. I sleepily reach out and hug them close to me. If that’s what they wanted, fine. If not, they quickly find something else to do that suits their present mood.

When I’m assembling something and they want to play with the parts, I grab them and hug them. They back off and just watch.

When they are underfoot in the kitchen, I pick them up and give them a bear hug. They find an outpost to watch from and won’t get stepped on.

The beauty of this move is that the cat can’t complain. It’s not in a loving cat’s nature to be upset that we love them. If that isn’t what they want at this time, they will back off and try not to trip our extravagant bonhomie.

Many forms of martial arts are based on using an opponent’s own moves to triumph over them. That’s what Hug Monster does.

Isn’t it a danger that the cat will misbehave on purpose to get hugs? Only if that’s the only time a cat gets hugs.

If we find ourselves in this situation, we need to create more loving moments with our cats.

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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.