It helps if our cat also chooses us.
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
If we extend a verbal or physical gesture towards a cat, and the cat becomes more friendly as a result of our efforts, we have answered our most important question: Will this cat like me? and know that the situation will get even better.
We can have our “ideal cat” in our heads, and know what cat we might like, but this is not a guide to the right cat for us. This is our imagination, conjuring up pretend cats for us. In person, the right cat might look, or even act, differently than we had imagined.
But this does not matter, as long as we and the cat can connect. It’s not just a choosing shortcut that gives us confidence about our new relationship. It is a way of choosing that increases our chances of success.
So we cannot let a liking for a certain look, breed, or size interfere with choosing based on social expression. Cats who are willing to meet us more than halfway on short notice are friendly cats who crave human contact.
Our imagination can lead us astray in another way. That’s when we feel sorry for a cat; and mistake that for being able to connect with that cat.
In the meantime, this traumatized cat needs more distance for a while, not less. We are setting ourselves up for a problem relationship. We should gain something from an encounter with our new cat, not feel that we are lacking feedback.
But it can make our hearts melt any time a cat manages to engage with us, and we feel confident we have already started connecting with this cat. That is a bond already forming that will make training, and loving, each other that much easier.
We already want to please each other.
For more about using our own instincts to choose a new cat friend, see the post Feeling a Connection.
Got here from a Link or Search?
There’s more to choosing a cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See my CHOOSING A CAT.
When we went to the Maine Coon cattery, Cleo and Yeti chose us. As a 4-week-old kitten, Cleo curled up and fell asleep in the palm of my wife’s hand, and that’s when we knew which kitten we wanted. At the same age, Yeti was the kitten who, when the momcat called in all the kittens to come take their nap, he went over to check in, then came back out to be with the humans, and fell asleep on his back; he still loves to show off his fluffy belly.
That’s so adorable! It’s hard to say “no” to something like that.
My last two cats definitely chose me. They were both shelther cats. Stevie (the gamma), sat at the door of her cage and just stared hypnotically at me until I got the message. A few weeks later, I went back to get her “a kitten of her own,” and I could hear Bo hollering his head off before I even got to the kitten room. Although I looked at a few other kittens, he kept it up until I finally realized (stupid human) what he was trying to tell me. Funny thing is, Stevie never made a sound in the shelter, but once I got her home, she hardly ever shut up, and Bo, after his performance at the shelter, hardly ever said another word.
I tend to favor tabbies, though. Bo was the first non-tabby I ever had. He was a tuxie. Stevie is still with us. The other day, we were looking at some old video of Bo, and Stevie happened to be sitting on my lap at the time. She hardly ever notices what’s on TV or on the computer screen, but she was riveted to that image of Bo.