Except this never, ever, works.
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Our nerve fibers transmit at 100 nanoseconds. Cat nerve fibers transmit at 120 nanoseconds.
See the math, there?
Moreover, cats access these reflexes like a trained athlete, and have the moves of a Tai Chi master. We probably aren’t a trained athlete or a Tai Chi master.
People who try to use speed in a disciplinary situation are doomed to failure. It’s not the pointless futility of it; we can do pointless, futile things all we want. It’s that speed attempts will trigger the cat’s panic mode, and panic mode is what will do the damage.
We keep attempting this futile maneuver because we keep thinking we need a physical component to our discipline attempts. Even if we know better than to hit the cat, we think that we must physically remove the cat, or physically block them, in order to do any good. None of this works.
It’s a primitive mechanism in our human brains; we see the cat playing with whatever, and we’ve told them not to do that. So we charge over there, maybe waving our arms, maybe even yelling something… and the cat freaks and takes off.
Now we can see what happens with foot-pounds of force; against the side of the garbage can, or bundle of wires, or vase full of flowers, or whatever it was the cat was messing with. It’s now far more messed up; and can we honestly say that part was the cat’s fault?
Then we think we at least scared the cat away from the object. Didn’t we think that before? Isn’t that why we got mad when we saw the cat playing with it again? How many times do we have to do this before we admit it doesn’t work?
We haven’t scared the cat away from the object so much as we’ve scared the cat away from us. The object didn’t turn into a monster before their very eyes; so whatever drew them there will still be operating.
However, the trust and love that is what gets a cat to listen to us, and divert their own desires to make us happy, that can be used to help a cat behave; that’s been blown to smithereens for the moment.
Cats have two big problems in the wild; eating, and avoiding being eaten. So they have developed something which helps with both problems; being able to accelerate from 0 to 60 in a very short time.
We want them to only use this power for good.
We should use our gentle voice to remind the cat they aren’t supposed to play with that. We can calmly walk over and remove the cat from what they are doing. We can find something else for the cat to play with, and make happy noises when they do.
Cats may be faster, but we are supposed to be smarter.
Let’s show it.
Find better ways of handling tricky situations with Cats and Breakables. For stubborn problems, see Extreme Measures.
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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.
so true! Last time I tried that, ending up with a broken vase, and that was really the last time. Too bad my mom still thinks it’s supposed to work. I agree with the panic thing too, a panicked cat is more trouble than a calm, careful cat. Calm cats rarely ever break anything because they have such amazing footage and flexibility (more so than I will ever have) but panicked cats will blindly knock down anything and everything in it’s way from escape! Last time my cat panicked it tried to leap through a closed glass door (ouch!) and smacked right into it, so they really are blind when they’re panicking. I just let my cat go anywhere except the stove and kitchen tops. And I try not to leave any little curious glass things on the table because she likes to prod at them and push it off the edge. Curiosity is a problem all on it’s own XD
Boy, do I know this to be true! My cat Squeaky knows where I’m going to sit, whatever room I walk into, and she beats me to the chair everytime! I’ve almost fallen because I’ve tried to sit on my desk chair (with rollers). She won’t move over and the chair slips right out from under me! Trying to beat the cat is dangerous!! I’m lucky I haven’t broken “me”.