This makes sense in the wild, when they don’t have time to think things through; they only have time to react.
This also makes sense in our home; because a lot of what our cats deal with was created by us, for us. They cannot “figure it out” without a frame of reference.
For so many things, they simply don’t have one.
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The underlying emotional state is important to how we, and cats, view events and shape our reactions. Because we can, through carelessness and thoughtlessness, create a less than optimum environment for our cat. This is how we have a less than optimum cat experience.
We can rush through our preparations and chores, tripping over the cat as we do so, and get angry at them for getting in our way. They should know better than to bother us when we are trying to get to work/get dinner on the table/get that project done/get ready for bed!
Then when we do have time for them… where is the cat? We’d like to have some cuddling right now, after the day we’ve had. We’re ready to pet them and play with them right now. But the cat won’t come, won’t get out from behind the couch, won’t stop evading our impatient hand. Well, that’s all the time we have for them in our busy schedule, so we stomp out of the room. Stupid cat!
These are the people who tell me, in all sincerity, that they had a cat once, and it was a lousy pet.
I understand. I really do. But one of the great strengths of cats as pets is how they can insinuate themselves seamlessly into our busy schedules; if we make the slightest of room for them. Even if we only take a minute, we can connect with the cat in that minute.
Cats do not look at the food dish that was filled in a hurry, or the nice cat bed that is far away from where the humans hang out, and say to themselves, Look how much they love me. We might as well show them the vet bill and say, “There, that’s how much.” These are not the gestures our cat can interpret as a loving message of their worth.
When their emotional needs, their desire for connection, is constantly brushed aside until a snatched space appears, they cannot suddenly cram all that needed trust and security into that space.
We need to be fully and completely there for them. We can pause almost any endeavor to return the little gestures of a cat trying to be friendly. This makes them more responsive the next time we make a gesture.
They won’t have to be in our way; when we have created a way for them to be with us when they want to be.
When they need to be.
Make sure our cats have mostly good entries in their Cat Database.
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There’s more to raising and training a cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See my CAT TRAINING TIPS.
I’d come home from my second 12 hour shift in 2 days to my new kitten Kill Kill. She cried for me to play with her. “Honey,” I sighed in exasperation, “I’ve just worked 12 hours! All I want to do is update my webpage!” And I abruptly realized “Someday, hopefully not for another 20 years, this kitten will be gone. And I won’t think ‘I wish I’d spent more of our time together typing.’” And I got down on the floor to play.
That’s been the rule ever since. If I’m not trying to sleep, the cats get attention when they want it.
(ha ha! guess who just interrupted my typing for head scritches!)
It’s a good rule, especially if you have a cat who awakens you at night. Playing when you’re both awake tires them out, and they eventually learn to let you sleep. “Eventually” depends on the cat; Killsy and Byron understood at age 9 weeks, but DJ didn’t pick it up until after 9 months.
I’ve spent today overhauling our filing system and Humphrey has been involved all the way through: fighting with the paper in the recycling bag, hiding in the empty filing cabinet, batting the roll of labels around the floor and sleeping in the box of new file folders. His facial expressions, as he attempted to puzzle out what I was doing, were hilarious and his company meant that an otherwise tedious chore was often fun.
My cat Charlie knocked over a glass candle holder which smashed a glass bowl. Poor Charlie was terrified. The first thing we did was comfort him and make sure he did not think he would be punished. Then we cleaned the glass up.
Cat Games´s last [type] ..Benefits Of High Top Litter Boxes
I wonder how many of us realize that learning to be better companions to our cats also teaches us to be better human beings.