How to Understand the Human to Cat Relationship from the Cat's Point of View.

Living with cats is easy; understanding them is not always so easy. Getting to know your pets is a challenge but well worth it in the end as it eases your understanding of your cat's needs.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. 
    
   Spazzy in the Window

   Remember that cats are not mythical creatures. They are not a witch's familiar nor are they evil or unlucky if they possess a certain color of fur. Cats are people-friendly pets and they have personalities all their own. If you own a cat or two, watch how they act. Do they run around a lot? Do they sleep a lot? Do they purr a lot? Do they generally act happy or sad or something in between? All of these questions can be answered through simple observation. Cats will tell you how they are feeling, usually with just an expression on their faces. They have pleased looks, miffed looks, annoyed looks, satisfied looks and of course, angry ones as well.

2. 
    
   A Puzzled Cat

   Find out how a particular cat reacts to certain stimuli, for example, cat nip. Does she pounce on it and play with it before eating it, or does he roll around in it for several minutes and then ignore it? This, from the cat's perspective, is perfectly normal behavior as he is demonstrating to you how much he appreciates what you have done for him. They may not necessarily wish to eat the nip, but they will show you how happy they are to receive it. The same is true of toys that you give them. Even if it is not something the cat wants to play with at the moment she will still at least nudge it with her nose or her paw to let you know that she acknowledges the gift and accepts it.

3. Observe how the cat reacts when you interact with it. Does your cat appear to be sleeping but when you touch him there's no reaction? He's faking being asleep and wants to find out if you are there to pet him or ignore him. He will pout if you do not stop to pet him. When a cat is genuinely asleep he will startle when you wake him suddenly. This is a game your cat will play to reassure himself that you love him. Cats are fascinated by their humans and will sit and stare lovingly into your eyes for the longest time. If you stare back, of course, he will look the other way. This is how he defers the leadership role to you.

4. Know how your cat behaves when you leave the house. Chances are, he will simply spend his alone time curled up asleep and it is not uncommon for a person to leave home and return several hours later to find the cat curled up asleep in the same place and nearly the same position he was in when that person left. Upon your arrival back home however, the cat is liable to go into a sudden frenzy of activity, nearly killing himself bouncing off the walls. This is the equivalent of a child saying, "we're finally there" on a long road trip. What the cat is saying is, "I'm so glad you're finally home!" He will react this way if you are gone 6 hours or 16 minutes. The length of time is irrelevent.

5. Just spend time with your cat and learn its moods and whimsies. Find out its likes and dislikes and you are well on your way to learning your cat's love language towards you, the human of the household. Your cat loves you and misses you when you are gone and will act disobedient on purpose just to get your attention. Cats are clever at getting attention and single-minded of purpose about getting it. Just enjoy your cat and it will enjoy you as well.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep an eye out for unusual behavior from your cat. Sometimes weird actions are the cat's way of telling you something is wrong.
• Make sure your cat is kept fed and watered and keep its litter box clean if it is an indoor cat.
• Be gentle with your cat as they are a lot smaller than you and are easily injured during rough play.
• Don't pull your cats tail or allow your children to do so as the tail is part of the spinal column and this can lead to injury.
• Carefully keep your hazardous materials out of the reach of the cat, and be careful which types of houseplants you raise as some are toxic and cats love to eat plants.

Resources

• Pet Place

[schnuffelcuti12]

on 7/21/2009 angelsroy33, that is soo cute! I can imagine my little man doing that. Anyways, loved the article, umm, one thing. cats communicate telepathically. If you say inside your head, "(cat's name), may I speak with you for a little while? I'm quite lonely here..." You will get a response.It works.

[angelsroy33]

on 12/7/2008 I loved your article,...but I have one experience that seems to differ from what you wrote here. And this is just my experience with my kitty,....if my cat is napping, you know sometimes they are awake trying to fall asleep,or even cleaning,...they want to be left alone, not hoping you will go pet them. My kitty naps, and wakes up and yawns, stretches, but the second I start to walk towards him, he feigns sleep, which ends being the cutest thing you ever saw!!!(His head goes right down and he closes hie eyes and pretends to be asleep.) He does this alot, and we laugh ourselves silly, but it's enough to know that we should just leave him alone and let him do his thing!