Punishing a cat versus deterring a cat humanely

Punishing a domestic cat and deterring a domestic cat can be one and the same thing but they can also be entirely different. I attempt to explain the difference here.

This topic is about the difference between punishment and what Dr. Bruce Fogle DVM calls "divine intervention". It's about deterring your cat from doing something without the cat associating the deterrence with their caregiver.

We know that punishing a cat is pointless because a cat does not have the mental capacity to understand the whole concept of punishment; a human process. For them, it is being harmed or made anxious because they are behaving normally. If you punish your cat by yelling at them or, God forbid, hitting them after they've done something that you don't like they will simply see you as a person to be avoided thereby breaking the bond which is so essential to a good relationship and which is the reason why you adopted a cat in the first place.

RELATED: Do ultrasonic cat deterrents work?

Image: RSPB

The way to deter a cat by invoking "divine intervention" is to ensure that your cat experiences something which is mildly unpleasant when they do something that you don't want them to do. And at the same time there is no linkage between that mild unpleasantness and you, the owner.

Cats learn from experience. So going right back to the time when they are kittens, if they try to do something and they suffer a bad experience because of it they will not try to do it again (normally).

Dr. Fogle provides two examples. You can put double sided tape on a kitchen counter which will be unpleasant when a cat jumps up on it. I don't like tinfoil on kitchen counters because that can terrify a cat which would not be "mildly unpleasant".

If you don't like your cat to jumping onto your bed, Dr. Fogle DVM suggests an infrared beam from a tiny burglar alarm that sets off a siren. The cat doesn't like the sound and escapes from the bedroom. Or your cat is about to scratch the sofa and silently gets a shot of water in their face from a water pistol. They don't see that you have the water pistol. It is divine intervention or an act of God as the veterinarian states.

The two most common divine intervention cat deterrents concern the backyard or back garden. One has a motion sensor which then sprays water onto the cat and the other is an ultrasonic device which sends out a high-pitched sound which deters the cat. They operate automatically and therefore they are true acts of God from the cat's perspective.

RELATED: 2 devices I would try first to keep cats out of your backyard plus alternatives.

These are just examples of ensuring that there is no connection between the unpleasantness and the owner. It is making a certain type of behaviour unpleasant, which will obviously be a deterrent.

Personally, I don't employ diving intervention because I allow my cat to do anything which he wants to do because it is natural for him to do it. I don't like imposing my will on him although occasionally I will restrict him doing something because it gets in the way of what I'm doing. That involves a polite signal and words that he understands.

Happy cat. The objective of all cat caregivers. Photo in public domain.

Of course, as mentioned, there are alternative ways to live with and manage your domestic cat companion. For example, not allowing your cat on your bed or even in the bedroom is, on the face of it, unkind because bedrooms are full of the scent of their owner. This is something that domestic cats love.

RELATED: How do I make my cat happy? 

It is reassuring to them. In a good human-cat relationship, cats relish the smells from their owner. To deprive them of this pleasure by banning them from the bedroom is, I would argue, bad cat caretaking. It's a personal decision but if you want to please your cat you will let them into the bedroom and onto the bed.

The same, as far as I'm concerned, applies to letting your cat jump up onto the kitchen counter. People disallow this because they think cats might spread disease but from my perspective humans spread as many diseases a cat but be let them use the kitchen counter. The "banning from kitchen counter" policy doesn't make sense to me.

Animal shelter volunteer says that they have never been so busy on intakes

NEWS AND COMMENT: An animal shelter in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, has never been busier. They are experiencing their highest ever demand to rehome cats and dogs in receiving 55 calls to taking unwanted companion animals in just one day.

One volunteer, Janice Porter, said that the Grove Hill Animal Trust has never seen it so bad in terms of intakes and she's been volunteering there for 20 years. By 11 AM on Monday she had received 20 calls to take in cats.

Janice Porter a volunteer at Grove Hill Animal Trust, a N. Ireland animal shelter. Photo: Belfast Live

What's behind this? She thinks there are two reasons (1) people who acquired cats during the Covid lockdown failed to spay and neuter them due to inexperience and (2) the cost-of-living crisis is making it harder for owners to fund the keeping of a companion animal. It appears that people are cutting their living expenses and one of the things to go is their pet. There is a third reason: people returning to the office after working at home under artificial circumstances.

This, it has to be said, points to the same problem of not spaying and neutering and in adopting during the Covid pandemic in order to keep yourself company. These are adopters who were not really committed to caring for their companion animal for the life of the animal. That's the root of the issue.

The Covid pandemic distorted our lifestyles. It has created some long-term problems in many areas. There was actually a prediction that there would be a flood of cat and dog abandonments after Covid for these very reasons.

RELATED: More cats than dogs abandoned during coronavirus pandemic.

There was certainly a huge surge in dog adoptions in particular because millions of people had time on their hands to do nothing while they received furlough money (UK). They thought they would adopt a dog and take him or her for a walk in the park to occupy themselves. That sounds great but it is not the best way to prepare for a lifetime of care of a companion animal. It might work out but as we can see too often it doesn't.

Many of the cats being abandoned to this shelter are aged around 2 to 3 years old. This once again points to adoptions made during lockdown.

And perhaps there are other issues at play here. Let's say a person adopts a cat during lockdown and then let's them wander around and in effect abandons that cat so that he or she becomes a stray. Another person feeds the stray and because they are not spayed, they are going to mate with a stray tomcat and produced kittens in quite large numbers over a couple of years. This sort of thing is happening as well. The kind person who fed the street cat is then going to take them and their kittens to a shelter for rehoming.

It is sad to see this surge in abandonments but it was predictable.

Irresponsible cat owners TAKE ADVANTAGE of rescue centres

NEWS AND COMMENT-EVANSVILLE, INDIANA, USA: This is not an untypical story of the dumping of nearly two dozen cats at the Vanderburgh Humane Society shelter in Evansville, Indiana, USA. Clearly, the "owner" decided to get rid of all their cats in one fell swoop so they drove them down to the shelter, when I guess no one was there, in cardboard boxes and left them outside the building. Actually, it was on their back porch.

Nearly 24 cats dumped at humane soc. This is taking advantage of a rescue facility,

The shelter facility has no space. The Humane Society has "been keeping our heads above water lately thanks to our awesome community. But this has put us over the edge today and it's time to sound the alarm."

They are happy that the cats are in good hands i.e. their hands, but they say that "dumping animals off to them was not the right decision."

The shelter has done their best to manage unwanted cats which are currently at a level beyond their capacity with, as they say, the help of the community and "then situations like this happen where someone totally takes advantage of us. Yes, they are safe. Yes, we are glad they brought them here instead of dumping them in the country. BUT. That does not mean that this was the right way to get rid of unwanted cats."

The right way is not to allow cats to breed in the first place. The right way is to exercise more self-discipline and more responsibility, which is not a very hard thing to do. The person who did this is very ill-disciplined and irresponsible. They lean on the good people to mop up their mess. They count on somebody else to fix the problem which they have got themselves into. That is the definition of an irresponsible person and an anti-social person.

These sorts of people need to contribute to society rather than lean on it to support their irresponsible ways. The Vanderburgh Humane Society is asking for help. They want people to come forward to foster an animal or donate and finally to volunteer.

There are takers and givers in society in all countries. The person who dumped their cats is a taker.

I guess they have dealt with the overflow of animals at their facility through local people providing fostering services.

I think that the irresponsible people who do this should be punished to teach them a lesson. The hard part in that achieving that objective is finding them as they dump their cats surreptitiously. They avoid shelter staff.

Good man turns on public water fountain for thirsty cat

This is Israel and it must be damned hot in Israel in this year of more clear signs of global warming and extreme temperatures. Although the video was made about five years ago. But the message is there: the summers are getting hotter and the record temperatures higher. The high temperature in the UK today was a record for the country at 40.3 Celsius. The previous record was 38.7 Celsius. That's a 1.6 increase. Wildfires broke out in East London in a field which spread to 7 houses and burnt them to the ground. In the UK we see pictures of California's wildfires and think never here. We think that it is something that never happens in Britain but now it does.

To play the video you may have to click the play button twice! Good fun. High tech.

I am going to guess and say that the cat was stretched out on the water fountain to keep cool. It is made of a large slab of stone which is going to feel cool as it was probably cooled down by the water flowing over it when along came a good guy who with foresight decided that this stray cat probably needed water and as it was to hand, he obliged.

I can tell when my cat is genuinely hungry by his weight

It sounds improbable but I can tell when my cat is genuinely hungry by his weight when I pick him up. I can feel the differences in his weight. I believe that cat caregivers need to fully understand when their cat is genuinely hungry and will eat the food that is put down before them as opposed to those times when domestic cats sometimes are seeking what I will call "food therapy". Too much wet cat food is wasted. Think how many millions of tons of cat food is waster annually.

My cat has a 'primordial pouch'! Not call domestic cats have them. As you can see he has a perfect body weight or BMI! That's because he is active and eats well.

  

Sometimes domestic cats eat out of boredom I believe or because it is just there and instinctively, they eat some of it. But I know my cat's weight or the feel of his weight by picking him up. And I can tell the difference between when he has lost some weight and when he has gained a little bit of weight. The difference is subtle.

When he feels light, I believe that if he is asking for food at those times, he is genuinely hungry and will eat the entire bowl of food that I put down for him. This has been proved true time and again.

If I'm correct, it is a useful check. I don't know about you but I feel that I waste too much cat food. I decide to give him food with care and with as near certainty as possible that he will eat it. However, sometimes he shows some interest but then leaves it. In that instance you have almost certainly thrown away an entire sachet of wet cat food. 

Perhaps cats vary in this aspect of their behavior. Perhaps some cats are more predictable. But then again perhaps some cats always eat their food and are obese as a consequence.

Sometimes, and I stress that this is quite rare, he does come back to wet food that has been left out for quite a long time and eats it. He does this because it smells stronger and domestic cats are scavengers unlike their wild forebears and so he might scavenge some hours-old wet cat food during the night.

I'm trying to figure out some scientific reason why there is a link between my cat being genuinely hungry and being lighter than normal. I think is because he has gone to the toilet and a few or more hours after going to the toilet his eating rhythms kick in and he is ready for food. That is a guess. Or he is simply more active at some times and eats later than normal. Under these circumstances he burns some fat and therefore feels lighter.

But I can quite definitely detect the difference in how much he weighs simply by picking him up. I can also combine this with palpitating his body. Sometimes he feels a little bit thinner than at other times. There's a natural weight fluctuation. I am sure that this is entirely normal and happens with humans.

Detecting his weight helps guide me as to whether he needs genuinely needs food or not.