Thanks for stopping by! Get The Way of Cats, delivered, by asking for my RSS feed. Get my free cat advice newsletter by signing up here and get the FREE eBook, Ten Cat Tricks (Every Human Should Know.)Cats fall into two training categories; those who are environmentally cued, and those who are symbolically cued. Figuring out which cues our cat uses helps communication, and thus training. The cat cannot react the way we’d like unless the cat knows what we would like.
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What is it we want to convey to the cats? We often get the opportunity with small, practical projects, such as when we get home, we find the cat has pulled down our scarf and is sleeping on it.
We have very nicely asked them not to. They are still doing it. This has to be a failure to communicate. Because the cat is not doing this to annoy us. The cat is doing this because they miss us. We cannot ask the cat not to miss us.
What we can do is shape this response in a way that doesn’t get our scarf covered with cat hair and lying on the floor. We begin by figuring out which element most appeals to the cat, and we do this by performing experiments. We alter one aspect at a time, such as making adjustments to the physical area of the scarf.
If we move the scarf (it needs to be washed anyway) to another spot, say in the carpeted hallway, will the cat move with the scarf? If so, we now know:
The cat is a symbolic thinker.
The scarf symbolizes us, and we can give them another object to stand in for us, which we don’t mind them sleeping on. Rubbing a small blanket or stuffed toy on our hair and neck will imprint it with our scent. We can then gift the cat with this new object, and make a point of giving it to them when we leave.
Then we will hang up the scarf we want them to leave alone in its usual place, rather high so we change its profile in the cat’s head. Changing something in this way will make the cat reconsider their usual behavior with it, since it is now, potentially, a new object.
If we move our scarf and the cat stays with the location, then we know:
The cat is an environmental thinker.
They are hanging by the door so they can greet us right away. The scarf is secondary, so they pulled it down to get some cushioning.
Our task now is to create a more acceptable place for the cat to sleep, near the door, and get the cat to sleep there. We can get a cat bed, or another scarf. When we put the scarf back, it should be after the cat has accepted our substitute object.
Knowing what kind of thinker the cat may be, which can even change from object to object depending on the cat’s perceptions, will help us tell the cat what we want.
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I found this really interesting – thank you. I thought I was pretty good at understanding cat behavior but you’ve thought much more deeply than I would have. I’d have assumed that the cat was missing me, so I’d have provided something like an old sweater of mine for the cat to lie on (and probably moved the scarf completely out of the cat’s reach). I wouldn’t have thought of moving the location unless the cat was somewhere he really shouldn’t be. I find cat behavior fascinating – I think they are so clever!