But people who ask me this are not discussing cat cognitive states, or neurophysiology, or non-human philosophy. What they are really asking is:
Why do cats seem to get in trouble on purpose?

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This question usually comes up in the context of their cat doing something, and the person has tried over and over and over, in many various ways, to make them stop doing that. Only the cat has not stopped doing that. These people want to know why the cat will keep doing that when they know they will get punished, or yelled at, or otherwise reap some unwanted side effect from doing that.
They aren’t thinking about the bad consequences at the time. When a cat is chasing after a bug which has gotten into the house, the bug inevitably goes to a light bulb and circles it. It is not inevitable for the cat to go for the bug through the lampshade; but that is often how it seems.
My cats have learned not to do that because when they are kittens, and not certain what will happen when they stick their heads in the lampshades, I’m right there to tell them this is a Bad Thing. So when the impulse to go after the bug appears, they have a readily available counter-impulse that helps them remember.
But if we think the kitten is cute when they are too small to knock over the lamp, by the time they are big enough to knock over the lamp, it’s not just an impulse; it’s a reflex. They aren’t pausing now.
They don’t understand what we are saying. We think walking in and seeing them playing with our feather portrait of Aunt Helen and yelling and chasing them away should keep them away from that thing. Why doesn’t it?
Well, why should it?
There’s times when they are playing with our feather portrait of Aunt Helen and it’s great! What we might get out of such a strategy is them running away when they hear us coming. But that’s not a very good outcome, either.
They can’t help it. If their litter box isn’t clean or is in a treacherous place, all the yelling in the world can’t over-ride their instincts which tell them, To stay alive, put your byproducts in a new place, or You can’t relax here, someone might get you.
We might have poor communication with our cat, but they shouldn’t be in fear of their life. And their instincts use a fear for their life to motivate them to do what they do. It’s simply no contest.
So what looks like cat defiance or indifference is usually poor training on the part of the human, and puzzlement on the part of the cat. Because when we have both good communication, and a good relationship, the only times our cats do something is when it is on purpose.
There are times when our cats deliberately push the envelope of what is acceptable. We have a foldable bed table for Dear Husband when he’s really tired and needs to eat in bed. When placed on a nearby shelf, it’s a tempting lookout point that we’ve taught the cats to stay away from.
But the other night, we had left a pizza box on it when we put it on that shelf; and we came back to find Olwyn sprawled on the box. And what could we do? She doesn’t get on the bed table; and, in fact, she wasn’t on the bed table. She was on the pizza box.
And she knew it.
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There’s more ways to understand our cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my posts on WHY CATS DO THAT.












