The Way of Cats

There’s an even higher goal than having cats who get along. It’s having cats who genuinely enjoy each other’s company.

Mr. Bond (on the left) and RJ (on the right) are sharing a moment on the bed. RJ is paying Mr. Bond the highest compliment. He is mirroring Mr. Bond’s body language.

Recently we have been spending a lot of time in the bedroom instead of the living room. We’ve been doing some rearranging and putting together of new storage devices. RJ is not sure how to handle these changes. He knows the hanging out in the bedroom routine well, but the added wrinkle of boxes and clothes strewn around the room; that’s new. He doesn’t know what to think.

When I found RJ hanging out in the living room, lonely and confused, I picked up some toys, and then him. I carried them all to the bedroom and put them on the bed, where Mr. Bond already was. Mr. Bond arranged himself on one side of the toys. Then RJ did.

Mr. Bond, by modeling the correct behavior, was a great source of reassurance to RJ. Whatever this was, it was to be studied, not feared. So RJ settled in next to Mr. Bond, who was supervising the process, knowing it well, alert to the always predictable appearance of the vacuum cleaner in Act Two.

(We think Mr. Bond is studying the vacuum cleaner for his great treatise, The Behavior of the Vacuum Cleaner, which will be published, he knows, to great acclaim. We know Mr. Bond is a promising cat scientist, because he is capable, upon the delivery of a new vacuum cleaner, to recognize the picture on the box, and avoid that box conspicuously until it vanishes again.)

A few minutes later, and their head positions have switched; now it’s Mr. Bond, on the left, who is pretending not to look at the other. RJ has stopped pretending he is sleeping and is investigating his rabbit. Mr. Bond continues to signal that all is well.

After half an hour, RJ’s curiosity about the temporarily empty closet is going to be greater than his fear, and he will jump down to explore. But he will first look back over his shoulder, because Mr. Bond will know when it’s safe to go in there.

This is something we humans might miss. We might not think to tell him ourselves. We might not know what he is asking. We might lack the mutual communication skills to let each other know what we each need to know.

But Mr. Bond knows the routine and how to speak Cat. He will tell RJ what is safe, and what is not. He enjoys this role, especially since Modeling in a Dignified Manner is his preferred technique.

We have fostered this relationship by saying nice things about them to each other. Since they are both Betas, they tend to have shared interests. Mr. Bond’s settled ease and savvy behavior has made him into the cat RJ wants to be when he grows up.

Mr. Bond, as we suspected, has been sucked in by the flattery.

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There’s more about multiple cats in The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See more posts on the MULTIPLE CAT ADVANTAGE.