Quote:
Originally Posted by Tje
agree with both of you.
Shelters ARE full of cats with behaviour problems, but often the problem does lie with owners and is fairly easily fixed. Or rather, it might be fairer to say that the problem lies in the fact that the owners speaks a different language to their cats. Many cat owners are at fault by treating cats like mini humans. That won't work. They are not mini humans.
What we cat-loving humans see as as being nice and reassuring and loving (for instance) might be viewed by a cat as us being threatening and invading their space. I never used to have much success with rehabbing (socializing) feral cats ... then I learned one simple thing, stop looking at them and stop talking to them.... they want to be invisable, and my walking into their room and looking at them and saying "good morning lovely wee man did you sleep well last night" was about the worst thing I could have done, to say it is counterproductive is putting it mildly. Just by learning to ignore them, sitting with my back to them, then averting my eyes (or turning my body around) when they approached me... heck within a day or two these cats are practically begging you for attention. Almost yelling at you to "talk to me, look at me".
Many people will have noticed with cats when there is a group of people in your home and one of them doesn't like cats that the cats choose to go to that very person. I have seen this loads of times. My own cats do it too. The more of a "I am definitely not a cat person" a person is, the more my cats will jump on their laps and hang around their necks. A beahviourist explained to me that is because normal cat loving people look at cats and say "hi there, you're lovely" and basically in the cat world that is rude and uncouth. The person at the party who doesn't really like cats, ignores the cats, doesn't look at them at all, is totally disinterested so deosn't make eye contact with them and certainly doesn't oooh and ahhh over them. That is polite to cats. In the cat world that person is well mannered. So that's why the cats go to that person.
I have a friend who has helped me a lot with my fosters over the years, but a lot of them didn't like her, lol. She is VERY kind and VERY loving and I just knew that was the problem, she was too nice! But because this woman has had a few cats over the course of her life she simply wouldn't listen to me that had to start being a lot more standoffish with my fosters. When I finally asked her to humour me and start doing it my way (ignoring them a lot more, let the cat come to you and not vice versa) ... things have improved dramatically.
Also people fall into the trap (like the friend I mentioned above) of thinking along the lines of "well this is the way I did it with Tibby & Felix & Garfield and it worked fine with them and they were perfectly sociable cats".
Cats with issues cannot and should not be compared to totally balanced cats. You can compare them, by all means, but you need to treat them differently.
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I agree with all this, it reminds me of a cat we had in rescue called Charlie. Big ginger tabby about 7 years old, he had lived with a family his whole life but never wanted anything to do with them and when they tried to make friends he would get quite aggressive about it, anyway they eventually gave up and brought him in.
He was a really 'unique cat', he did not like to interact with you at all and if you attempted it in any way, he would come and bite your hand. By that i mean if you looked at him in the eye,even slowly blinking, he would casually walk over and bite you as if to say ' don't do that'
He was difficult to rehome, he hated to go outside so was an indoor cat only which meant being a barn or stable cat was not an option, he did not like other animals so couldn't go as a companion. Basically your asking someone to take an indoor pet on with the chance your not be able to do anything with him and get bitten at random times! it did not look good and we were sad about it.
So one day a nice older man came, he liked cats very much but did not believe in molly coddling them, he wanted one around in his house cause he missed their prescence after his last 1 died, but he did not want one to cuddle and stroke all the time.
To cut a long story short he took charlie, for the first month he was there the man did not even look at him, he didn't speak to him or acknowledge him in anyway. Charlie was not scared of people at all, he settled into the house well and was apparently swaggering round on the 2nd day, but they did not interact together. If he passed him in the hall or walked in the same room, they ignored each other.
One evening after about a month, charlie suddenly laid on the sofa next to the man. It was the first time he had ever taken him self over to a person.
Fast forward to now, and they are living very happily together. They do their own thing in the day and every night charlie lays next to him while he watches tv, he will tolerate a 2 min scratch on the head, but apart from that there is not much physical contact, but they are company for each other.
My point to all this lol, is that if he had gone to a more 'normal' home where they wanted to do things with their cat ( which is perfectly acceptable of course) he would not have fitted in, he would probably come back for being aggressive and such like.
Charlie was extremely lucky to find the perfect home for him that just let him be what he was, and it made me realise that for MOST cats which have issues, there is a home out there for them which can deal with it, and sometimes it is just not with us, even if we have the best intentions in the world.
Charlie would not have done well with someone hands on and really loving and friendly, even though to us, that is the perfect owner, if this all makes sense? Sorry for going a little off topic but what Tje said was spot on about us cat lovers coming across as rude sometimes in cat language
21-01-2011, 11:54 AM
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