May 6th - How natural is our cats' behaviour

The old and very common question or dilemma among cat carers is of course whether they should let their cats roam free outside or whether they should keep them permanently indoors especially since the dangers of being outside are often greater than having the freedom to come and go wherever they feel like. Plus there is the other issue as well since cats are predators after all and they seem to prey on many garden birds and small animals and according to some they seem to be responsible or at least contribute to the extinction of many bird species or to the small numbers that they are living now. Of course this is questionable and for some this is a natural behaviour from cats which we can't really change.
Although it is true that cats were originally domesticated to keep the numbers of rodents down and therefore to protect human food resources and infectious diseases that were originated from rodents from spreading now, after all that time, they are not anymore what they used to be before they were brought 'home' by humans, wild that is.
The belief that the cat should be allowed to go outside even if she was born and lived almost all her life indoors because it is cruel and against her nature instincts it is only the belief of those irresponsible cat carers who are not capable of looking their pets properly. They seem to fit perfectly the profile of those cat carers who will easily accuse dog owners of being irresponsible if they don't keep their dogs 'under control' at all times but at the same time they don't want to know what their own pets are up to when they are outside.
A cat that lives with humans, sleeps and rests on chairs, beds, eats food that it has being bought especially for her, taken to the vet every time she sneezes, given shots to boost her immune system and protect her from illness, wears collars to be identified as a domesticated one, plays with plastic mice on a string, is not the same natural behaved cat that lived in the wild so many years ago. She has changed, evolved to a more human way of life and she depends now more and more on us for her survival. A domesticated cat therefore can live happily indoors and does not need to be outside if she there is danger and threats from cars, humans or other animals. She has adapted after all this time to live with us and she doesn't need a 'natural' way of life, as she is already have one, living with the creatures she knows, us humans. A cat is not a wild animal, is a social one like her carers, the humans.

17th March – Cat vs Human – the cat wins...

All cat carers know that cats are stubborn and they will normally get what they want when they want it. In many cases it is the humans' fault as they seem to underestimate the thinking capabilities of the cats. Cats not only have a large brain comparing to the rest of their body but also they have good short and long term memory and also they are easy to train (when they want to and there is something to gain) and they will learn from us!
When my cat wants to eat he will go through a long list of things that he will do to get his dinner or breakfast more likely, things which he knows will annoy us and make us eventually give in to his demands.
So the first thing he will try in the morning it will normally be the usual feed me now, I'm starving, 'having eaten for days...', 'meow', in many different begging and rather pathetic tones to loud and demanding ones. Then when this doesn't seem to work he will go to phase two: the litter tray. Digging and covering in the cat tray it can be really annoying when it is consistent and goes on for what it seems to be forever...and at the early hours of the morning, the sound can easily drive you off the bend! If this doesn't work then it is phase three the climbing of the rails at the staircase and the mad chase of himself... At this point my partner has already given up and has decided that it is time to get up and feed the cat which of course results in the cat's mind as a total success since he got what he wanted, getting up one of the humans so they can feed him....of course there is always phase four which never fails, the chasing of the other two cats which ends up in a lot of growling, hissing and meowing and which of course never fails to get up both the humans!

22nd February – They are not humans!

The main cause of behavioural problems among cats is mainly their humans and their human made environment for them, in which they are being expected pets to live and to be happy at the same time. Cats are not humans, cats are not small sized children and they should not be treated or expected to behave as such. Cats need litter either soil or a similar natural texture litter, as they need to dig and cover their scent and they also need their privacy and a safety area for their toilet needs. Therefore cats should not be made to use human shaped toilets because their humans can't be asked to clean the litter trays or want to provide ones to indoor cats because of the smell, mess and effort they require to maintain it clean and usable. A cat that is being trained to use the human toilet is not happy, is a stressed cat since she has being trained to do something that is not in her nature and sooner or later she will start showing the signs of that stress in form of many well known cat behavioural problems. If cat carers think that providing a litter tray and having to regularly clean it is too much of an effort then they should have not cats as pets. Cats like any other pet needs a lot of care and requires a lot of effort and dedication for life.
When we're unconsciously anthropomorphising our pets by giving them human attributes, emotions and expecting human behaviour we don't seem to realise that we are actually treating our pets like humans as most of us see our pets as special, who they understand our thoughts, emotions and feelings and they talk to us back in their own way, while at the same time they seem to be capable of showing us the same emotions.
But of course nobody says that cats and dogs have no emotions and or that they are not intelligent or not capable of symbolic interaction or communication but simply that they are different species and although they have similarities with us at the same time they do see the world differently than they way we do and therefore they will at times behave and respond as cats and dogs in the environment they are sharing with us. So the sooner we understand this the better our relationship with our pets will become as then they will not need to show us in their own way that they are not happy with their environment and with the way we are treating them....

January 28st – Separation anxiety for cats and their humans.

Often the problem of separation anxiety appears prominent in some relationships of cats with their human but the problem in some other cases becomes even worse when the humans are the ones that they actually are suffering from separation anxiety, when they are away from their pets even more, even if it is only for a few hours and such choices or decisions such as going on holiday and being away from home and their cat become impossible to become ever reality...
When the cats are suffering from separation anxiety the advice that it is often given is simply to allow the cat to spend less time with their human and more on their own by being provided with alternatives such as play activities and toys, encouraged to keep some distance occasionally and even in some cases by getting another companion and generally try to wean to cat from the constant human company. But unfortunately in some cases it becomes more and more difficult to treat such an anxiety particularly when the cats' human(s) is at home all the time and that human is extremely attached to the cat and treats her/him like a surrogate child, being overprotective and pampering the cat at all times. People who spend a lot of time indoors with few social relationships with other people and who are depending on their pets for company and emotional solace are in need of advice and perhaps help as much as they are their pets. In such cases you need to treat the human's before you try to treat the cat's anxiety as it is also possible that this human separation anxiety will then pass easily to the cat as every other emotional imbalance when the humans and the pets in the household are very closed.
So by running to find out what is wrong any time the cat makes a noise not only will make the cat very spoilt and demanding as she will as a result learn how to get what she wants when she wants it but also will quite possibly lead to also physical along with psychological problems as any possible disturbance in that environment will end up be disastrous for human and cat e.g the human needs to spend some time away from the cat).
Cats are by nature independent creatures and they need to be treated as such. They need to have their own space and to be occasionally left alone even when they live permanently indoors and to also have a routine and discipline if they are to stay emotionally and psychologically healthy and that applies to their humans too, they too need to keep some distance from their pets and to remind themselves occasionally that they live with a cat and not with a small human.

January 16th – I am a Cat!!

It is a very common human tendency to see human attributes (to anthropomorphise) in our pets and to treat them as little 'humans'. But cats are extremely intelligent creatures as their humans will tell you and they can easily learn behaviours from us which sometimes will surprise us, make us wonder and even in some cases will annoy us!
It is well known that cats can be really stubborn, or very persistent and in some cases their persistence will even surpass ours...A good example is when they want something and have learned how to go about getting it... In most cases we will simply give in, with no much fuss as we can' be asked or bothered or we can't bear the thought of our cat seemingly being unhappy by not getting what she wants, food, attention, play time, etc. But then again there will be other occasions when we have to say no and try to ignore them as what they want they simply can't get and can't give them and this can be the hardest bit as they will keep on begging by either meowing, staring and generally using any method they can think of till eventually get what they want.
A good example in my case is Ripley's persistence to sit wherever I have sat before and in particular on my special spot in my sofa, the only one where I can sit comfortably and work on my laptop...but Ripley wants to sit there and she won't give in...She will just stand next to me while the rest of the sofa is empty and available and just stare at me with her big begging eyes (they look as begging to me anyway) for hours and she will refuse to move or sit to the empty and available place. Of course the moment I move from my spot and without actually have got up fully, Ripley will jump to the nearly empty seat and I'll have to be careful not to sit down again and squashed her.
Normally in such situations and other places I will give in and sit somewhere else but when I'm working I need to be in the right place, the right side of the sofa so I will have to push her gently away so I can sit down again with the whole process being repeated again and again, till finally I stop working and go downstairs leaving her to enjoy my own empty seat. But Ripley being Ripley and a cat the moment I leave the room she will decide that she doesn't want to be in that room as well and she will go to the bedroom and jump on the bed where she will stay till I come back again for the battle of the stubborn minds to begin once more!

January 12th – Accidents do happen...The conclusion...the stitches are off. .

Finally, yesterday was the day when Ripley had to go to the vet's to have her tail stitches removed. In generally she has being a really good 'patient'. Ripley always has been the best cat when it comes to not causing any problems, she will eat anything you giver her, wet food or biscuits, she is quite happy to sleep on the sofa, bed, chair, etc wherever there is a space available without causing any fuss (except from her recently preference for the sofa upstairs, my seat, but this is a different subject for a different day), she will play on her own when she feels like and she will appreciate any kind of attention she is given, when it is given and of course she has never caused any kind of problem in the few occasions when she had to have stitches (when she was spayed and the very recent accident with her tail) which made the collar she was wearing a waste of time and caused a lot of unnecessary stress. During the period of two weeks that she had the stitches she didn't try even once to pull them off and she was only licking the area around the wound (although the first time I saw her licking around the stitches I panicked as my first thought was that she was trying to remove the stitches, but of course that wasn't really the case...). So I was pretty confident that her tail was healing perfectly and I was also pleased that the fur had started growing again and soon the tail would look like a proper one again, minus a couple of inches or according to the vet, minus one and a half inches. But nevertheless I was still worrying and was looking forward to the removal of the stitches day as I wanted to be reassured by the vet that everything was fine with her...On the other hand the stitches were really small and they looked so tempting to just try and remove them with a small pair of scissors on my own than having to put Ripley through the entire stressful situation of catching her and putting her into a basket and walk to the vets' to have the professional do it .... But I know better and I want the best possible care for my cat that I went of course for the best solution possible, well at least I thought I was, anyway. It has always being my strong belief through personal and working experience that stress can play a great factor in the wellbeing of a pet not only the psychological one but also the physiological one too and unfortunately in many cases far too often vets do not pay the required attention to the pet's level of stress or they see it as important as they should do which can lead to dire results. If the cat/pet is stressed will be less likely to recover quickly from any kind of illness and in some cases it can even contribute to make the situation worse or even cause an unexpected death. Therefore it is important to make certain that stress levels are always being taken into consideration along with any illness symptoms and every effort is made to relive that stress and comfort the cat to help with a speedy recovery.
So having to catch Ripley and put her into the basket was again a very stressful situation not only for her but for us as well and for Sheng Chi who is more attached to Ripley than Choo Choo and everything that seems to stress her upsets Sheng Chi too.
But at least this time the journey was only a couple of minutes just down the road and the whole 'operation' lasted a couple of minutes in which time the vet checked the condition of the now almost closed tail wound, which was doing fine and Ripley was fine when she arrived at the vets'. A behaviour that is quite common for many for many normally timid cats who seem to get in a panicking mode when they are first put in their basket and sometimes during the journey to the vet but the moment they arrive there and the vet takes them out of the basket they become the friendliest creatures ever and they allow the vet not only to handle them like they knew him/her for years but also they will go back into their basket with no problems whatsoever! Ripley has always being a timid cat who doesn't like strangers, people she doesn't know but she seemed OK with both vets that they examined her, she wasn't scared or made any kind of sound to show fear or any form of being scared, not even a bit...
But the good thing was that at least the stitches were finally off, her tail is healing fine and the fur has started growing again and the end of the shaved tail looks again like a cat's tail and she was safe and sound back home. All in all it took less than 15 minutes from the moment she was put into the basket till the moment she was out again looking for her bowl with biscuits... Although she has lost a little bit of her tail she is just fine and doesn't seem to care about the missing bit at all, happy to be in her familiar environment again, crunching away her favourite biscuits...

January 7th – Obsessive compulsive behaviours

When your cat shows symptoms of obsessive behaviour disorder it can then become a really difficult situation to cope with and as a result it can cause a lot of problems and stress to the cat and humans. Especially in cases when the disorder is caused by stress and anxiety which are difficult to figure out and any attempts to use some form of medication to help with the situation causes more stress to the cat. It becomes a vicious circle as the cat will continue lick or overgroom and bite the area to relive the stress the use of medication caused as licking and grooming is the way their use to calm themselves if they feel stressed and are in pain and therefore they will make things worse. What is normally required to stop them is usually trying to distract them or calm them so they can relax and get sufficient rest and sleep as sleep helps them boost their immune system and therefore get better sooner.
By of course the other difficult part along with treating the disorder is trying to figure out what has caused that behaviour, whether it is just stress or some other external cause such as skin irritation and reaction to products used in the house, food that they are allergic too, etc. It is often easier to pin the cause if it is just an allergic reaction but becomes more difficult if it is just stress as sometimes cats they would get upset by things which do not think or believe that they will upset them in the first place. In such cases when the cat shows the symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder it becomes difficult to treat her as the vet will normally prescribe some form of medication to ease the symptoms but he/she won't tell you what has caused it and as result the cat will either get used to the medication and soon will have no effect or the medicine will have some unwanted and unpleasant side effects.
So what is a solution? Of course you should have your cat checked by the vet to find out possible physical causes. But obsessive licking and overgrooming parts of the body in most cases will require for a cat to have a relaxed and safe environment, to be distracted wherever possible and to be given an alternative to use instead of grooming him/herself. Figuring out what causes her to behave that way it is also important as for any treatment to work it will require first of all the removal of the cause. Therefore it is better if the human carer tries to figure out what stresses and upsets her/his pet and not to depend on the vet to tell him/her.
He/she knows better the cat and he/she will be able to figure out what in her current environment upsets her/him as not always the cause is something that might have suddenly changed. Cats that are left on their own at home for hours with nothing to do on their own can easily start show signs of obsessive behaviour because of boredom as well as cats that become over attached to their humans. Sometimes our cats will need a lot of help and understanding from us but of course they worth it and therefore we should do whatever we can to help them.