Stop Stressing Cats By Treating Them Like Dogs

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People need to remember that cats aren’t dogs.  The cats in particular want us to remember that an animal behavior expert tells the Telegraph. We stress our felines out by expecting them to be as sociable as our canine friends, happy to be petted and hang out in the same space as other cats.

A woman touches noses with a kitten during a stray cat adoption event.   (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru, Mediafax)
A woman touches noses with a kitten during a stray cat adoption event. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru, Mediafax)

Dr. John Bradshaw says that just doesn’t fit with how cats think: “Dogs were sociable before they were domesticated,” he says. “Unlike dogs, the cat is still halfway between a domestic and a wild animal, and it’s not enjoying 21st-century living.” When a cat is stressed, it can develop dermatitis and cystitis, he notes.

In the past, “with cats, all we wanted was for them to keep our houses and farms and food stores free of rats and mice, and they got on with that,” Bradshaw says. “It’s only in the last few decades that we have wanted them to be something else.” That’s not to say your cat doesn’t love you, he adds. It’s just that they “have their own lives” and interests. (And, as he told the Huffington Post earlier this year, your cat probably also thinks you are a very large cat; that’s why, he theorizes, they communicate affection with humans the same way they do with other cats.) Some tips: Cats are likely to spend more time with you if they approach you, rather than if you approach them first, according to research, he notes. And if you’re planning to get a second cat, you might want to bring its smell home first on a handkerchief: “It’s the cat equivalent of exchanging photos before a blind date.”

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Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.
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9 years ago

I once had a cat that thought it was a dog. Sammy would chase a ping pong ball and return it for you to throw again. She would sit up and beg for food, roll over to have her tummy stroked, walk ‘to heel’ down the road. About the only thing she didn’t do was bark – but it was one weird meow!

E.A. Blair
Reply to  Norman Rampart
9 years ago

I had a friend in college who had a dog that thought he was a cat. When Max was brought home as a puppy, they also had a cat that had recently miscarried a litter. Having no kittens to mother, Pennyangel took to mothering the pup. When I met Max he was a rather large full-grown collie, and the first time I petted him, he started growling. I carefully pulled away from him, only to be informed that he was purring – something he apparently picked up from his “mother”.

This comment is late because some of my incoming mail from MMA has been going to spam.

E.A. Blair
Reply to  Professor Mike
9 years ago

I set up a filter to prevent that from happening in the future. I was getting other news-related emails going there too. Since I use an email client, I don’t check the browser-based email page as often as I should.

E.A. Blair
9 years ago

The German ethologist* Paul Leyhausen wrote a book that’s quite definitive on the behavior of cats. It’s called Verhaltenstudien An Katzen, and the English translation (by Barbara Tonkin) appears as Cat Behavior: The Predatory and Social Behavior of Domestic and Wild Cats. The translation was published in 1979; my copy came from a book club, but it’s rather expensive to buy now (Amazon prices for used copies start at $72.00 or so). It’s also a difficult read for someone who, as I was when I got it, unlettered in the field of ethology.

Among the points Layhausen made in the book is that cats are rather limited in how they react to other animals – as prey, as threats or as fellow cats. They appear to cue on faces for socializing, and, apparently, to a cat a human face is enough like a cat’s that they do, in fact, treat us as fellow cats with two big exceptions. Our size and the rest of our body shape aren’t right, and we don’t smell like cats. Those two factors mean that humans trigger a cat’s ability to socialize, but not their territoriality or hostility (absent, of course, of a bad experience with humans, but that’s individual behavior).

This means that cats can bond with humans more closely than with other cats. Leyhausen also found that feline behavior is very consistent across species, from the smallest Felis silvestris catus to the largest Panthera tigris altaica so there is some truth to Victor Hugo’s statement that cats exist to give us the pleasure of caressing the tiger – and few cat lovers would pass on the opportunity to do this? (okay it’s a leopard, not a tiger – so sue me).

The approach to take with a cat is to offer, not to impose. Hold out your hand and an affectionate cat will show you where its sweet spots are – where it prefers to be petted. I currently have two cats; the older one, a Maine Coon, would spend every possible moment being touched by me in some way if I didn’t have other things to do. The younger cat took a few months to get used to the idea of living with a human, and while she isn’t as touchy-feely as her roomie, she now seeks out affection and even will come when she’s called.

*Ethology is the study of animal behavior.

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