Showing posts with label affection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label affection. Show all posts

Thursday, 28 September 2023

Do cats actually love their owners?

I think you've got to start this discussion with a definition of the word "love". And I think most people would agree that it means an intense affection for another. Although this is a very elastic definition. What I mean is that love is a very personal emotion. Different people have different depths of emotion for their significant other when they say that they love them.

And bearing in mind that the term is elastic and that the word "love" normally applies to the affections that a human has for another, it is impossible to come to any other conclusion that a domestic cat can love their owner, in their way, depending upon whether their owner loves them and treats them in a way commensurate with that love.

Love is a two-way street. A person can love another if that person doesn't reciprocate but it won't last. It'll fizzle out eventually. So, love feeds on the love of another. It is entirely mutual as I see it. The love of one magnifies the love of the other and vice versa.

So, taking that introduction into cat ownership, in the best examples, the cat owner loves their cat deeply. They care for them beautifully. They provide a beautiful, enriched feline environment for their cat which is thoroughly enjoyed. The caregiver feeds the best quality cat food and they spend hours together in play and cuddling.

Under that scenario, a cat will love their owner. I think it's impossible to come to any other conclusion. It has to be said, though, that we do not know what is in the mind of a domestic cat. At least we don't know what is in that mind accurately. We can guess through their body language and their vocalisations. But nobody has yet has actually truly read the mind of a domestic cat.

This mutual love between human caregiver and domestic cat is supported, I believe, by the fact that in this relationship the owner is a surrogate mother to an adult cat who feels like a kitten. That's because their every need is provided for. It's just like a cat mother is looking after their kitten.

This is a useful point to make because it supports what I have just said. A kitten is going to have a close connection with their mother and there will be a mutual love bond between them. That's exactly what the cat owner and their cat should replicate.

You can go further than that when the owner is imprinted on the brain of the cat that they are their true mother. This is when the owner has raised a newborn kitten and become imprinted on that kitten has a feline mother not a surrogate mother. And this imprinted mentality will be there for the rest of the cat's life. Under these circumstances there will be a special and super-close relationship of mother and offspring.

I think everybody would agree that the mother-to-offspring relationship is bonded by love and it doesn't matter what species of animal we are talking about.

But I have to return to the beginning and say that the word love is elastic. We don't know how cats feel except that we do know they feel contentment and pain. They are sentient animals. They indicate very strongly to us that they love being around us if we are good cat caregivers. 

They like to sleep on us and next to us. They like to lick us in a friendly example of allogrooming. They like our emotional warmth and our physical warmth. They like the way we smell. They greet us at the front door and they are thoroughly connected to us.

These are all the ingredients of mutual affection which when deep enough qualifies as love.


The above section of this article was straight out of my head. That's me, Michael. I would like briefly to refer to the words of Dr. John Bradshaw who is a renowned cat behaviourist and who wrote the book Cat Sense. I'm referring to his book.

He says that domestic cats don't automatically love people. "Cat are not born to love people. It is something they have to learn when they are kittens-they do not automatically love other cats [either]."

In that statement Dr. Bradshaw is stating that cats have the potential to love people. He therefore supports what I have said above.

But the whole process of learning to love a person starts off with being socialised. Unless a domestic cat is socialised at an early age, they will probably never totally lose their inherent fear of humans. They will lose 99% of it if and when they are socialised later as adults but it is far better that they are socialised when they are newborn kittens. They lose the fear of people and then building on that they are able to love people especially their provider, their caregiver.

The video maker things cats can love their owners:

Sunday, 18 June 2023

16 most affectionate cat breeds who love a good cuddle

I'll say it strongly: the title is pure mumbo-jumbo and it comes direct from Pets Radar, a cynical website in my opinion where they regularly employ clickbait with a complete disregard for factual truth. They are cynically misleading the general public and those who want to adopt a cat for the first time. In fact, they are taking the piss out of people. That's what they are doing. They are playing with the internet. Don't listen to their advice. I'll tell you the truth.

The truth is far less prosaic. It is far less interesting. I know that people who want to adopt a cat from a cat breeder like clarity in terms of the cat's character. They want to know what they are buying. They want certainties. That's why Pets Radar provides it. But it is false.

16 most affectionate cat breeds who love a good cuddle
16 most affectionate cat breeds who love a good cuddle. A random bred cat being affectionate. The nose-to-nose cat greeting occurs frequently. It is a friendly greeting and pleasant for both parties. I think the human likes it more and feels blessed to be treated as a genuine friend by their cat. Image in the public domain.

All the individual cats of each cat breed are going to be bred to be friendly and affectionate. Above all else, domestic cats who are part of a cat breed are just like any other domestic cat.

In fact, you might find some individual cats described as moggies i.e. non-purebred cats who are friendlier than any individual cat from any cat breed. It often boils down to the nature of the individual cat.

It is disingenuous to presume that all the individual cat of one particular cat breed all have the same character in terms of their level of affection. It isn't logical. It isn't common sense.

Breeders focus on the appearance of the cat primarily. The character comes from the foundation cats and obviously they want their cats to have good, friendly and affectionate characters. They want their cats to be confident and outgoing. They do work on this but it is not a science. And of course, there is nature/nurture. The cat's experiences later on in life and in the early years of development affect their personality.

So, you can't provide a clear answer as Pets Radar think you can do. Well, they don't actually think that. As mentioned, they are cynical. They just feed information that they think people want to hear. Their objective is to get as many readers as they can and they don't care whether the information that they provide is correct or not.

I'm being harsh but rightly so in my view. It isn't just Pets Radar who do this. The newspaper The Scotsman has done it frequently as well. It's all click bait. It's all very wrong and I don't want to see people adopting cats to be so misled.

If you want to adopt - as everybody does - an affectionate purebred cat which you will have to buy at over £1000 normally, you really should visit the breeder that you have selected, talk to him or her and meet the cats. Ask some pertinent questions. Challenge the breeder. Discuss the matter in depth and then adopt the kitten that comes to you if that happens.

But you're not going to know for sure whether the cat you adopt is going to be super-affectionate or more affectionate than any other domestic cat. Just presume that your selected cat will be affectionate provided that you are affectionate towards him or her.

And that's the last point I want to make. The level of affection that a cat delivers to their caregiver is largely dependent upon the level of affection that their caregiver delivers to them. It is reciprocated. Affection is an emotion. And the emotions of a cat and how anxious or calm they feel is dependent upon the environment in which they are placed and that environment is dependent upon the work and efforts of the caregiver.

16 most affectionate cat breeds who love a good cuddle
16 most affectionate cat breeds who love a good cuddle. All domestic cats enjoy a cuddle at some time or other. It just needs to be done on their terms. Image: public domain.

In the interactions between caregiver and cat are so important. They should be gentle, calm and friendly. Owners should never yell at their cat. They should never be aggressive towards their cat. They should not be irritated by their cat if their cat behaves in a way that displeases them. And this comes down to expectation management as well.

People need to remember that the domestic cat is a domesticated wildcat. They have inherited the wild cat behaviours but of course they've adapted to the human environment. They are domesticated. But expect a domestic cat to have wildcat traits which occasionally emerge.

Be realistic, please. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet because a lot of it is tailored to please the readers rather than, like this article, tailored to be entirely factual true. The raw truth counts in my view. And in that way, we can expect better animal welfare as well because people's expectations are accurate.

Thursday, 22 September 2022

Does my cat understand when I pick him up and hug him?

A social media user asked: "Does my cat understand when I pick him up and hug him, or is he just waiting to be moved/put down?"

Does my cat understand when I pick him up and hug him, or is he just waiting to be moved/put down?
Does my cat understand when I pick him up and hug him, or is he just waiting to be moved/put down? Image: MikeB based on image in the public domain.

The answer to the question depends on the circumstances. However, if you have the habit of picking up your cat gently and gently talking to him and gently loving him and you do this as an expression of love and friendship, your cat will understand what it means and respond accordingly. 

However, if you regularly pick up your cat and transport them to another place under certain circumstances and you do it over and over again then your cat will understand that picking them up and transporting them means just that and it is not an expression of love towards your cat. 

Like I said it's a question of circumstances and how a cat links your behaviour with those circumstances to deduce what is going on.

There is also the issue of how you pick a cat up and whether you do it in the correct way or incorrectly and how you hug your cat when they are in your arms. Do you carry your cat like a baby which is feet up and, on their back, or do you carry them in a way which is less intimidating to them? 

Sometimes when people treat their cat as babies the cat can become a little anxious. In which case they will want to be released. And cats vary tremendously in their preferences.

Some cats like to be carried or jump on to their owner's lap while others are less keen. Some cats actively dislike being picked up and carried and they'll complain. For them, picking them up and hugging them cannot be a pleasant experience of affection from their owner.

And clearly, there has to be a good general relationship between cat and person. If the relationship is slightly tense or fractious, a cat will not wish to be picked up because it will only tend to make them nervous. The opposite will happen if there is a good relationship, and the cat likes to be picked up and understands that it is a demonstration of affection from their human caregiver.

Wednesday, 4 August 2021

Unconditional love the primary benefit of the human-cat relationship (and verbal communication is the primary benefit in the human-human relationship)

The long title sums up the summary of a study published on the website Psychological Reports and which is entitled Attachment to Feline Companions. The study coordinators used a mail survey of 100 adult cat owners to investigate the attachment of cat guardians with their companion animals. 54 of the participants were members of a nationwide computer cat club while 46 were attending a cat show in Anaheim, California. The participants were therefore committed cat people.

Jay Leno and his cat.  Screenshot.
Jay Leno and his cat.  Screenshot. Leno loves his cat and vice versa I'd say.

More than 90% of the participants said that they preferred cats to other companion animals because of the following:

  • Ease of care;
  • Affection and companionship;
  • Personality.

The positive characteristics of the cat companion were linked with attachment and people tended to put aside feline behaviours which they might find difficult.

SEE MANY PAGES ON THE HUMAN-TO-CAT RELATIONSHIP

A comparison between the benefits of the cat-human relationship compared to the human-human relationship indicates that the participants appreciated the affection and unconditional love of the former and verbal communication as the primary benefit in respect of the latter

As we all know, the study organisers concluded that cat companions can be a very important source of pleasure and emotional comfort.

This study was published on June 1, 1994. A subsequent study published in September 2, 2015 concluded that domestic cats do not show signs of secure attachment to their owners. They decided that cats were "typically quite autonomous even in their social relationships and not necessarily dependent on others to provide a sense of security and safety."

The conclusions of the second study point to a one-sided relationship. The first study is about people appreciating the benefits of living with a companion and in the second study they seem to be saying that domestic cats do not appreciate the relationship quite as much as their owners.

The conclusion that I have is that studies about cats should not be entirely relied upon partly because they are conducted by people who often don't know cats that well or at all. Also, they frequently use questionnaires, and sending out questionnaires to people is fairly inaccurate at best.

Good cat guardians would say that they fully appreciate and rely on their cat companion's presence in their lives as a companion and as an excellent substitute for a human companion, very often. They will also state that they firmly believe that their cat loves them or at least demonstrates affection towards them. 

And that cats do appreciate the security and the general ambience and environment plus the food that there cat owner provides. The human-cat relationship is an interspecies relationship of which there are many. It is not just cats and people who become friends although that is the most common interspecies relationship together with the dog-human relationship.

You will see many dogs being friends with cats and cats being friends with squirrels and many other animals including deer et cetera. I believe that these are all genuine friendships. It looks that way to me. And if it looks like that it probably is that. We know that cats are sentient beings with feelings. It is a very short step from recognising that aspect of their being and behaviour to also accepting that they can make genuine friends, bonded through affection.

Friday, 5 February 2021

Allow the friendship between cat and person to grow over many years

What I'm going to say is essentially common sense but I do believe that it is worth saying it nonetheless. It comes from first-hand experience, actually. When you adopt a kitten and live with her for the remainder of her life your relationship will change over those 15 to 20 years.

Man loves cat and vice versa
Man loves cat and vice versa. For illustration purposes only. Pic in public domain.

This is because you will change, your circumstances will change and above all the character of your cat companion will change. Of course, it depends upon the inherent character of the cat (and person) and the environment in which they live. But if your cat is a little bit feisty and perhaps a bit standoffish which may concern you slightly then you might expect things to improve over the next 10 years as your cat goes from being a teenager, through to being a youth and then to a middle-aged lady.

It's my experience that a feisty little male cat can become quite mellow in middle-age. I prefer the mellow character. And if you are consistent with the love that you deliver to your cat through excellent care, the bond will deepen between you. There is a reward because your cat will become more attached to you and more often than before seek your attention and enjoy being with you, perhaps lying on your lap or next to you in bed.

The point worth making is that the relationship deepens but the deepening depends upon how the relationship is managed by the person. It is the person who is in charge. Consistency in excellent caretaking with plenty of tender loving care will warm the relationship as the years go by.

It will become very beautiful and tender. Both parties will be supported and enjoy the relationship. The lesson is to be patient, very patient and think long-term. Also be consistent and develop those routines and lifestyles which cats like. They need the reassurance of a well developed routine which suits them. It gives them confidence and through confidence they can express their personality more positively and thereby show their love for you.

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