Both experts and amateurs tell others that:
This advice is wrong. It perpetuates the Myth of the Dominant Cat.
There is no such thing.
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People claim to see a struggle for Dominant Cat in their multiple cat home. But when we take off our Dog Lenses and put on our Cat Lenses, we will see differently. Dogs want a leader to tell them what to do. They like it.
Does that sound like cats?
Dogs have an instinctive imperative to discover the chain of command and their place in it. Cats have an instinctive imperative to drive off interlopers they suspect are going to interfere with their territory management.
Dogs live in harmony when there is a clear line of command, and they can relax, knowing someone is in charge. Cats live in harmony when they feel there are plenty of resources, and they feel that they are the ones in charge.
When I advise people to be the Boss of Cat Town, it is not because a group of cats needs a leader. It is because cats in the home need someone to enforce fairness among them, since they might have differing levels of assertiveness.
What we mistake as a struggle for dominance is a cat who is more assertive than the others, and goes after what they want. When a young cat harasses an older one, it is because they want play from them. The last thing we want to attempt is leaving the cats to “work it out,” because they won’t.
Cat conflicts arise from cats who have trouble meshing, usually from personality mismatches or lack of social skills. Our role is to help cats understand each other. Once cats know another cat is not acting from malice or rudeness, they feel in control again. Then, they can get along.
Only in legend is there a King of the Cats.
In reality, each cat feels that way.
I explain how cats are mistaken for dogs in this post, Cats and Pack Behavior. For more about bossing cats, see my post, Leader of the Pack.
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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.
This is so very true. One of our cats is very assertive- can be rather a bully- but we achieve a pretty mellow Cat Civilization by sitting on her when she gets too pushy, and by encour5aging the other cats (especially one who died recently, but who was very much a Gamma and just blossomed when she knew she had our support).
Fortunately, our 2 youngest have each other to play with and plague, and that makes things a lot smoother!