As this has been touched by two separate threads recently and it is a fascinating subject, it probably needs a new thread.

Is the Asian leopard cat input in Bengals responsible for the allegations of aggressive territorial behaviour in some of these cats or is that just a coincidence and they would have turned out "bad" anyway?

Is temperament in any cat decided by a cat's genes and its breeding or does it solely depend on how it is brought up, and socialised by the breeder and pet owner?

Is bad temperament a trait that is just inherited from its feisty mother or unhandleable father?
Can it occur in the offspring of perfect parents?
Is it OK to breed from poor temperament parents as the offspring can then all be sorted out by good handling?

I am asking about all breeds and moggies here, not just Bengals.

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Lauren

Don't Shop Adopt! - Stop Puppy Farming

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In cats I think they are going to be what they are going to be and do whatever they want to do. Our cat of many years was a wild cat that adopted us. She is and has been the most loving cat anyone could ask for. She maintains her independence however. She is primarily an outside cat especially in the summer but enjoys being an indoor cat in the fall and winter. I suppose my point is that in cats and dogs both we sometimes over think it. Nature is nature and all we can do is take our best shot.

Thanks so much,

Bill

Down Home Pets

I am very much an advocate of its the way they are raised, anyone who follows the exploits of Craig the lion man ,knows even wild animals can be tamed.

Its more a question of understanding your breed,and how to raise,socialise,etc

Welcome to the official Lionman Website : Craig Busch and the Big Cat Sanctuary at Zion Wildlife Gardens

As I have said in a previous thread all cats have a genetic link one way or another to a wildcat ancestary.

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http://www.funkyfurballs.co.uk

I would think that the selection of traits by people long ago are responsible for the domesticity that we see in animals today.
Animals were selected for malleability and how they fitted into the daily lives, dangerous, unpredictable ones would have been removed by being eaten or turned back to the wild. It would have been no good spending all day chasing cows in order to get close enough to milk them, or being eaten by dangerous dogs.
Those with good handleable traits would multiply and end up domesticated in the main.

Temperament is inherited just the same as coat, or body shape or ear length. Temperament can be altered by the treatment the animal receives, but I still believe it is the individuals make up that still dictates that to some extent. Hence you get children suffering child abuse who go on to live entirely normal lives and others suffering the same abuse who end up as mental cripples.

The Scottish wild cat, is untameable, so if it is all about environment how is it that no-one has ever tamed one?

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Lauren

Don't Shop Adopt! - Stop Puppy Farming

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It can't all be about nuture. Many breeders will attest to raising a litter of four to eight kittens with many different personalities even though they got the same handling, same interactions and essentially same up bringing so it must be genetic.

My thought on this ...

It's first of all a shame we can't go back 10,000 and see how the first domestic cats behaved. I think that could answer the question better than anything else.

I do believe that if you take a cat into your home, no matter their temperament ... if she was then to have kittens, you could in theory raise them to be cats of good, docile temperament if you put the time and effort into doing so. However if you then take the cat into another environment they will revert back to their genetic traits. But then, once again return to their docile temperament when back in the familiar environment they were raised in.

It takes many years for a species to evolve, or begin to evolve beyond a point where these things can change, including genes and traits. But I don't think any species can change so much that their original traits disappear. Else our domestic cats would not hunt, or fight over territory and mating rights.

After almost 10,000 years ... they still have some of the original traits of wild cats! For a new species/breed this would almost definitely be a worry for me. There is no way you can breed out some of the 'survival' traits in such a new breed IMO.

Glad you started this Lauren, it is really starting to interest me too ... the more and more I read

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IMHO It’s a bit of nature and a bit of nurture

and the split between the two is never divided the exact same way – it could be 50/50, it could be 70/30 it could be 30/70.

the way I rear kittens remains constant, they way they turn out doesn’t – so that would point to nature takes the bigger role, not nurture.

But I have had experiences of turning a x-th generation feral kitten into a lovely friendly sociable pet. So that points to nurture.

But I don’t generally get life-long updates on my foster kittens, so I have no idea how they are when they mature. I do know one of my “success story” feral kittens badly attacked a child with no provocation… and it wasn’t just an exaggerated story the new owners palmed me off with so they get defend rehoming their kitten, I saw the child and the hospital report! I advised against rehoming and took it myself to get put down.

And these are just feral domestics, hand reared in my home… I really would worry if they had other species wild blood in them.

people talk about feral cats… and I have raised feral young, some with mothers some without (even those with mothers we tend to separate them very young) … but that word feral covers such a wide spectrum of behavior that it’s practically useless. Is a feral cat a cat who was once a pet but has lived for a year on the streets now after being turfed out by its owners, or is it 10th generation totally isolated from civilization feral or is it somewhere in between those two extremes. And even with xth generation ferals… say for instance when we lived in Dubai, feral colonies populate the many building sites there, and some of those very (true) feral kittens grow up taking sandwiches and saucers of water from the labourers, or coming to a volunteer run feral feeding station every day, so they ain’t that feral.

Lauren, while I strongly agree with you it is not all about environment, the Scottish wild cat analogy…. I am not sure that is such a great one… there is only about an estimated 50 to 100 of them left (right?) and do we know if anyone has ever tried trapping and taming one? And if a kitten less than 4 weeks old has been trapped and taming has been attempted? I would only rule out they couldn’t be tamed, if a pregnant queen was trapped and the kittens were exposed to humans from day one, and removed as soon as poss from the mother. Would I want a tamed Scottish WC for a pet. Absolutely not! Apart from the fact I think it is unethical to take wild animals from the wild just for our enjoyment…. I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them. There is such a wealth of anecdotal evidence against Bengal and their tendency for aggression… A tamed SWC makes me very worried.

So for me it will always remain part genes part environment (part nature part nurture).

Anybody interested in this nature v nurture topic as it pertains to humans I can recommend a couple of excellent books, although I think with humans environment/nurture plays a far bigger role than in cats where genetics/nature plays a bigger role.

Kittens are going to have differing personalities because every one of them will have been raised slightly differently. As newborns strength and the survival instinct have them fighting for position and from that moment on there are differences. It's far more complicated than straight genetics versus a simplistic view of how kittens are socialised. Kittens of 3 weeks old will hiss at strangers - and mean it. At this age it must still be pure survival instinct, the fight or flight response coming to the fore if you like.

I don't know at what point this could become 'hard wired'. Conventional thinking talks of 6 weeks being a critical age for socialisation but I believe it could crucially be a longer period from about 3-7 weeks. It's a gradual process, a gaining of confidence and I do honestly think it's a learned behaviour in great measure.

I tend to agree, to take a completely wild cat and in a relatively few generations expect the cat to be totally domesticated is a big ask.
I realise that the addition of domestic genes in the form of Bengals (which also carry "wild genes") at each generation away from the wild, may dilute the wild factor, but by how much it is difficult to tell.
Perhaps in this "uncontrolled" situation of suburban gardens and faced with "threats" some do revert more to their wild instincts, more so that if they had ended up in an indoor home which is a much more controlled, less scary place.

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Lauren

Don't Shop Adopt! - Stop Puppy Farming

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With regards to Bengals and the ALC part of them ... I've been trying to find some footage of ALC's in the wild behaving 'wild' (so hunting, fighting, protecting young ...). If someone could lay their hands on some such footage, I wonder if Bengal owners would recognise this behaviour in their more aggressive pets that do go outdoors.

It would be interesting to see.

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