Is it okay for a single person in the military to have a cat in America?

The question arose because I've just written about Sergeant Rode who fell in love with a ginger tabby cat in the Middle East who was injured and struggling to survive. She brought him back to America with the help of generous donations and a friendly organisation (PAWS OF WAR). But what will happen next because Sergeant Rode is in the military and it occurred to me that it might not be ideal to be a single person in the military and be a cat caretaker at the same time? And I am thinking about the cat, of course.

Sgt. Rode and Bubba the cat she rescued from the Middle East and shipped to America. Photo: PAWS OF WAR.

We know that cats like stability and routines. Even if a single military soldier or officer is stationed in America, they may be transferred to a different location or unexpectedly they may be deployed to a war zone even though that was not on the cards. I don't know how deployments are worked out but it seems to me that they could happen to anyone in the military perhaps even at short notice.

And under these uncertain circumstances it would seem that their domestic cat might become unhappy. And good caretakers do not want their cat to be unhappy. Good cat caretakers don't want to be stressed with the thought of making their cat unhappy because of reasons beyond their control. And when they bond with their cat being separated if stressful for both.

There are some good stories about this on the Reddit.com website which shed light on these difficulties and conflicting emotions. Some people say that you can be in the military as a single person and have a cat companion because if you are away from your home in the barracks for a while you can place your cat with a foster parent or with family and so on. That's all very well but you can't do it for a long time in my opinion. So I don't think it's particularly good idea unless the relocation is for a short time such as a max. of 2 weeks.

The average military deployment is between six and 12 months, as I understand it, for American military personnel. You can't really kiss goodbye to your cat for this sort of time. It undermines the whole purpose of having a cat in the first place. It's a question of providing the best caretaking for a cat and if a person can't do that they should let somebody else try. No?

One commenter on Reddit.com said that he or she was in the military, single and "got a cat". There was little chance of deployment for the person but notwithstanding that it did not go well. They ended up being sent to Korea for a year. She asked family to take care of her cat. When she returned he/she was stationed in a small town where it was impossible for her to find a rental which allow pets. It was very difficult and stressful to find suitable accommodation. And she had to move every 2-3 years. She found driving across country with their cat to be stressful and of course a cat would have found it stressful, at least potentially, too.

She felt terrible leaving her cat behind with friends and also felt that her cat would be miserable being boarded. Also she did not like leaning on friends to check in on her cat to feed her when she went away training for a couple of weeks. She realised that cats need people around and it will be too hard on a cat that had bonded if you are going to be away all the time. As a result, she eventually gave her cat to her father  "so it could have a stable life". I agree with everything this person says. But the situation is not black-and-white.

Others suggest that if you adopt two cats you will be okay but this is not a particularly good answer, sometimes. It is quite difficult to ensure that your cats get along, and anyway you can't just leave 2 cats alone for many weeks with a neighbour popping in to make sure that they are fed. It is simply not going to work and it is not good cat caretaking. It's a question of standards and if a person knows that they are unable to provide care to a sufficient standard they should pass up the opportunity to look after a cat and let someone else, better suited, try.

Another commenter said: "I knew of soldiers that had a pet while on active; it never ended well for the pets. It would seem that their life would be tossed to the wind and most just started to have behavioural problems."

Conversely, there are people that say it is workable. Another commenter said: "I am AD Army with three cats. I would say that it's pretty easy to have cats minus [sic] just having to arrange for someone to watch them while you're in the field or whatever as long as you're committed to making sure that you have a plan for your kitty in the event of your unexpected deployment (think family care plan), I think cats are great military pets. There are more challenges finding housing...."

Others say that "a cat will be perfect". You make up your own mind. I think it's about standards of cat caretaking. You can make alternative arrangements and have a support system which allows your cat to be cared for when you are away. But this is not ideal, far from it. There's no shame in rejecting the idea of having a cat companion if you think you cannot be an excellent guardian to your cat.

It is hard to not be drawn to the conclusion that sometimes some military personnel might adopt a cat, despite their circumstances being far from ideal, because they need to adopt a cat to benefit themselves and they have temporarily brushed under the carpet the needs of the cat. That said, a cat living with a military person whose life is not particularly stable is probably in a better position than a rescue cat in a shelter. On that assessment you have to go along with those who support the idea of military personnel having cat companions.

Indoor cat likes to be carried around in a paper bag so owner tried it outside and it worked great

PORTLAND, USA: I think that this is an interesting cat story because it goes to the heart of feline emotions and insecurities and it also demonstrates to us away around those issues. The owner said that her cat, Charlie, is a full-time indoor cat. In a rather eccentric way she found that he likes to be carried around the home in a brown paper bag. I don't think the colour is important but being inside a bag is important because the obvious reason why he likes it is the actual reason why he likes it, namely, that it provides him with a feeling of security.

Indoor cat likes to be carried around in a paper bag so owner tried it outside and it worked great. Screenshot.

I think, wisely, Seyoung Yeo, decided to try the method out when outside the home. Therefore, she took Charlie outside in a brown paper bag and made a video of it at the same time. I can't show the video on this page because I cannot embed the code into the page but I can provide a screenshot of the video from which you can readily see that the was as content as could be. She walked around the neighbourhood and Charlie enjoyed it. She said that he was completely relaxed and made no attempt to jump as she carried him.

So what can we take from this? Sometimes there is a way of providing a full-time indoor cat with the enjoyment of going outside in security. This is an unusual way but Charlie's life has been improved. And I think his owner is quite brave to do this. She must be quite strongly motivated to do her best to improve the life of Charlie which is a good sign of top class cat guardianship.

Resting domestic cat has traffic bollards placed around her for safety reasons

from Cat GIFs via Gfycat

The video is amusing and meant to be but I'll take a serious approach. This is a practical example of how you respect the cat. Respecting the cat is a rather amorphous concept. What does it mean in practice? Well, this, as mentioned, is an example in practice. I know it was done for entertainment purposes. But respecting the cat really is about allowing the cat to behave naturally and respecting their innate behaviours and the drivers behind it. 

It is allowing the cat to express themselves and taking charge of that responsibility. It means that the person takes charge of the relationship and ensures that their cat has the freedoms that they need within the limitations of safety. 

The first step in respecting the cat is to understand domestic cats and in order to understand domestic cats you have to understand cats in general and the domestic cat's wild cat ancestor. I preach (!) that people should love their cat as a family member but treat the cat as a cat. 

What that means is you don't treat your cat as a little person because that can result in feline behavioural problems and problems in the relationship between cat and person. It's a lot to do as well with expectation management. 

People need to have the right expectations when it comes to their cat and their cat's behaviour. I am sure that there are many homes were people adopt cats expecting something and the cat delivers something else and there is a gap between expectations on delivery which causes disappointment which in turn can lead to a cat being given up somebody else or a cat shelter. 

The only way you avoid expectation disappointment is by understanding domestic cats before you adopt them. It means doing your homework. I know this is incredibly tiresome and utterly boring but you've got to do some work on it before you take that big step. 

And it is a big step because there cannot be failure. It has to be a successful relationship. There are no other options. This is for the life of the cat.

Crystal Meth And Cats!

On Tuesday, July 22, 2014 at about 3 am in the morning a call out was made to the police on US 395, north of Conway Summit.  This, by the way, is in Arizona, USA.

By the time the police got to the car there was a passenger in the backseat,  a 33-year-old woman, but no one in the driver's seat. The driver had run off because both the passenger and the driver had been taking drugs and in the car was paraphernalia concening the use of crystal methamphetamine.

The passenger was under the influence of this drug. There was a second passenger, a cat hiding under the passenger seat. The policeman decided the cat should be taken under the care and control of Mono County County Animal Control until the lady was able to care for her cat herself.

A gentle wrestling match ensued as the police officer extracted the cat from the car. There was the usual hissing, scratching and “feline defensive mechanisms".

It seems that the policeman did a good job. The only worry I have is whether the cat is safe under the care of animal control, in a shelter.  Without wishing to be overly critical, these are potentially dangerous places for cats.

Let's just hope that the lady in the back seat of the car genuinely cares for her cat. Or perhaps the cat belongs to the driver who ran-off. Not a good endorsement for for her commitment to cat ownership if she is the owner.

The whole episode begs the question whether a person who uses crystal meth is able to care for a cat to a satisfactory level. I think the answer depends on the person. If the person is a genuinely good cat caretaker then he or she will probably be able to work around the addiction, if it is an addiction.

However, if the person is an average or what I call an ambivalent cat owner then when you add drug taking to that mix you end up with inadequate cat caretaking.

Cat Scratching Behaviour Is Not Destructive

A lot of cat owners think that cat scratching behaviour is destructive.  Scratching can destroy furniture, damaged carpets; cats even scratch walls and destroy wallpaper and so on and so forth.

Scratching behaviour is highly destructive of the home if the cat caretaker fails to deflect scratching away from furniture to a scratching post and fails to realise that from the cat's perspective scratching is a highly constructive and beneficial form of behaviour because it's sloughs off the outer layer of claws, it allows the cat to stretch, it deposits scent on the area scratched so the cat feels more comfortable and it allows the domestic cat to do what comes naturally and when a cat is able to exercise and express natural drives and emotions he or she feels more content.

Photo by Jennifer C

Cat scratching is constructive from the cat's point of view and it is only destructive from the person's point of view if that person has the wrong attitude and fails to take steps to accommodate domestic cat behaviour.  It's as simple as that at the end of the day.

I realise that it can be difficult for a cat owner to adjust their mentality and attitude away from what they want, to what the domestic cat needs, but when a person takes on the responsibility of caring for a domestic cat then I'm afraid they have to adjust.

Accept and Accommodate Normal Feline Behaviour for Successful Cat Ownership

Normal Feline Behaviour – Our Response

As regards cat ownership - which is better described as cat guardianship or cat caretaking - perhaps the most important thing a person can do is to understand what normal feline behaviour is and then accept it and furthermore accommodate it, by which I mean ensure that the cat can express normal feline behaviour within the environment provided by the owner. It is pretty much as simple and as straightforward as that.

It all starts with understanding the fundamentals of cat behaviour and respecting the domestic cat.  A person respects the domestic cat by letting the cat behave normally.  It's common sense because if any sentient being including human beings are prevented from expressing their natural desires, motivations and behaviours this will inevitably lead to stresses and abnormal behaviour together with possible health problems.

If you click on the link above you will see that I have referred to two central aspects of normal cat behaviour which can irritate cat owners, namely scratching and predatory behaviour.

Cats need to scratch because it is part of natural behaviour.  Scratching is quite a complex behaviour because not only does it slough off a layer of the claw it also marks territory by leaving a scratch which is a visual signal and it also marks territory by leaving a olfactory signal because there are scent glands in the paws of a cat.  Pretty well everyone knows that by now because of the Internet.

The answer to scratching is not a quick fix namely chopping off part of the cat's toe (declaw) but to accommodate this behaviour: to respect it.

The reason why cats exhibit predatory behaviour even when they're not hungry is because they are built to respond to signals (cues) from prey items such as mice.  These signals include rapid movement and sound.  A domestic cat is programmed like a wild cat.  This means that a cat cannot wait till he or she is hungry before she hunts prey because the success rate is quite low at around 17% and if a hunting session started off when the cat was hungry and the cat has to try and try again it is quite likely that the cat will be unable to succeed because of fatigue due to a lack of nourishment.  It is simply about survival and it is a practical solution.

If people know that then they might be less critical of the domestic cat when he brings in prey even though the owner has put down first-class food in a bowl in the kitchen!

Obviously when accommodating a cat's natural behaviour which includes hunting outside a cat owner needs to not only respect their cat but also their neighbours and native wildlife species.  This entails finding a balance between these competing objectives.  That is not beyond the bounds of possibility. Like almost everything in life it comes down to compromise.  One way to do this if a cat is allowed out side is to limit outside activity to times other than dusk and dawn because those are the times when a domestic cat is liable to be most active for hunting.  The cat owner could exercise a curfew on their cat at those times.  This is just one example.