How our cats tell us things

I was combing James Bond and he bit me.

But I wasn’t upset, and he wasn’t upset. This was communication in action.

Between me not feeling well and James not feeling well, we’d both neglected his grooming. So when I went to comb him, I hit a knot. In response, he took my hand in his mouth and bore down, just a little.

This was to tell me that I was hurting him. And I understood. I went back to the grooming drawer to get the mat splitter. This cuts through the mats and lets them be combed out without hurting the cat’s sensitive skin. By hooking the pointy (but not too pointy) end into the space between the fur clump and the their skin, and using the sharp edge to cut through the mat, we turn the mat into small pieces which can be gently combed out without hurting them.

James was thrilled to be comfortable again after I had groomed him. He was just as thrilled that I had understood his communication, addressed his issue, and not gotten mad at him for doing what he did. This is an example of how we can listen to what our cats are “saying” by remembering that cats are mimes.

Cats, lacking human language, will “act out” their intentions.

This is what James Bond was trying to tell me. When he bit me, very gently, he was trying to say, “You have hurt me with that move.” When he took my thumb in his his jaws and bore down… not very hard… I knew what he was trying to say.

When I went off to get the mat splitter, and used its not-pointy part along with its sharp edge to cut through the mats… I got rid of them. James got relief from his tangled fur. He appreciated it.

We often do not realize our cats might be biting, or clawing, us to try to convey “you are hurting me.”

Cats reflect what we are doing to them.

If we have an aggressive, shy, or un-communicative cat, it’s worth wondering, Is this cat trying to tell me something?

Often, when our cat hurts us, we react with indignation and personal pain. Of course we do! But we can also react with reciprocal understanding. Are we hurting our cat?

Cat who do not have the communications channels we use with our fellow humans. Our cats do not have the verbal language we humans use with each other. They try… but cats cannot verbalize the way humans do.

The cat’s first language is body language.

I have learned incredible things from my cat friends when I listened to what they are saying with their body language. Are they attacking me? Or, at they “attacking me”? Often, they are “pretending” to do something our hysterical human selves think they are actually doing. They are doing this to try and explain how they actually feel in response to our own behavior.

They are imitating what we they think we are doing. This is part of their attempt to mimic our actions and let us know how our behavior affects them. When we listen, we gain valuable information about our cat relationship.

We can’t jump to the right conclusion about our cat’s behavior until we have considered what they might be trying to tell us by performing that behavior.

Training is communication.

We train our cats by letting them know what we want, and listening when they tell us what they want. We both want a close, happy, loving relationship.

Listening to each other is how we get there.

Find out how Reverend Jim uses his mime skills. Find out what they are really saying with the common cat move The Takeoff.

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