Why Cats Are Frusrating
This article assumes that you want to understand cats and would like to live in your home harmoniously with them.
Cats may frustrate some dog lovers because, well, they are small animals: they “should” act like pets, i.e., they should “appreciate” what you do for them the way dogs seem to. They should “love” you unquestioningly, dammit! You give them food and shelter, so they darn well better appreciate it, right?
Actually, you might know already that the “love” you see in your dog’s eyes is really not love for you, it’s a plea for acceptance by you. You are the leader of its “pack”. You may notice that your dog acts like this with pretty much anybody in the family, but this behavior actually comes from the dog’s heritage. Dogs, as we all know, were originally bred and domesticated from wolves, and the behavior and instincts that your pet dog has are very similar to those of the wolf cub.
Dogs are really wolf pups that never grew up.
They bark, which is characteristic of the wolf pup as it calls its mother, or members of the pack. Mature wolves have no “bark” because as they grew up and their basic nurturing needs were met, they no longer needed the bark, and they actually, as predators, need to be silent as they approach their prey.
The only noise that mature wolves display is the baying often heard at night in the northern areas of the continent, as they call to other members of their pack.
Back to cats: The first thing one has to accept about cats if they are ever going to take on the responsibility of owning one is that they cannot help being cats!
Repeat: A cat CANNOT HELP being a cat!
What do I mean? Well, the complex behaviors that cats display are identical to the ones found in their wild counterparts. For example, I’m sure you’ve seen as a cat “sneaks up” on a toy and pounces-this is the exact skill that a cat maine coon cats for sale needs to hunt its prey. Now, domestic cats seldom need to hunt, however, they won’t ever lose this instinct. And cats are simply not intelligent enough-intelligent though they are-to learn to behave in any other way than cats do. Sounds pretty simple, but it’s amazing how many people I run into who forget this.
Secondly: CATS ARE NOT HUMAN!
They are not “sneaky”, they are not “aloof”, they do not “try to make you angry”. They do not need these traits, therefore, they don’t have them. I know you are going to say I’m crazy to make these statements, but no, a cat does not have the human intelligence and motivation to do these things. One MUST understand these things in order to understand the cat.
OK, here’s a scenario: The cat jumps up onto the counter. (Cats actually instinctively want to be in the highest places they see in order to survey their territory.) But, you do not want your cat on the counter so you hiss or yell at the cat to get it the heck OFF the counter. The cat jumps down, startled.
You exit the kitchen, and when you come back in, there’s the darn cat, right back on the counter! Didn’t you JUST tell it to GET OFF?
OK, now, keeping in mind that cats are NOT HUMAN, and therefore do NOT have human emotions; and are not “sneaky”, we have to take this logically: You startled the cat off the counter. The cat knows only that you startled it off the counter. And that’s all!
Wait a minute-the cat not only is on the counter when you come back, but jumps off when it sees you. Right? That obviously means the damn thing is sneaky, right? Wrong! The cat only knows that you startled it off the counter. The cat does not “think”: ” Oh-oh, he doesn’t want me to ever be on the counter, even when he isn’t in the room, but I’m going to try to get away with being on that counter when he leaves.
Screw him!”
Can you see how this is not only attributing to the cat human behaviors- of which it’s not even capable, but further: that it has the ability to reason; to think abstractly, something a housecat is decidedly unable to do. Instinct is the primary drive in cats. Repeating:
The cat can’t help being a cat!
You might think: Bull, that cat knows I don’t want it on that counter!
To this I ask, How does it “know” this?
Again: all the cat “knows” is that you startled it off the counter! And that is it! Cats are survivors: they remember when they are startled-also a natural reaction of cats, by the way-so the cat jumps off when it sees you again. When the cat sees you, all its instincts are telling it is that you are the source of a startling experience, so it reacts. See? Stimulus, instinct, reaction. That’s it. The cat DOES NOT have the ability to think in the abstract, which is what you are asking of it.
