Happens all the time. But why?
Because most cats have the middle name of “Caution.” The box is reliably fun, and a great outpost from which to observe the New Thing.
Cats are natural observers. They will study and think and watch others interact with whatever it is. It reminds me of the incident when I first showed James Bond and Smokepuff the Litter Robot. They stared at it for a while, then James gave Puffy a poke in the behind: You check it out.
So the best way to get our cat to enjoy the New Thing is to let them sit in their new, yet familiar, box outpost, and study, contemplate, and ponder. This process is a cat favorite.
We can also move the process along by playing the role of Spokesmodel. Examine the New Thing, exclaim over it, describe its workings, and get excited about the possibilities. By demonstrating how it works and why we thought they would like it, we are adding information to their Cat Database.
In our Cat Database, a high priority is always given to known things. They have a history, and our cat knows what to expect. This makes them feel confident. We humans should understand the process. It’s why franchises for providing hotel rooms and food are so successful. People know what to expect.
Humans are able to move into familiarity more quickly than cats can. That is because we are able to gather more information, and organize it more efficiently. We then “build” our new circumstances in our head more readily.
Cats have a slow sense of time compared to humans, and this can create a mismatch between our own expectations and our cat’s sense of comfort. Mr WayofCats and I were on board with “new kitten” in about five minutes, if that. Tristan took a month to reach that same level of enthusiasm.
For one thing, Mr WayofCats and I have a lot of kitten experience. Tristan had never even seen a kitten before. If we had tried to hurry him, nudge them together, and override his own instincts, we would have delayed and hindered the acceptance process, not sped it up.
Instead, we demonstrated what kittens do, pointed out how much fun RJ was having with this little playmate, encouraged group activities, and were openly happy about the newcomer. This let Tristan observe the behavior, consider how he would like to interact with this new “toy,” and be reassured that we, at least, thought Mithrandir was a good idea.
When we allow cats to acclimate at their own pace, they file things away in their Cat Database in ways that fit together for them. They will be able to feel confident about their feelings and reactions about this New Thing.
Remember, we are not often called upon to react with lightning speed and perform tricky maneuvers with practiced agility. (At least, not since we left Ninja College.)
But cats… do. They will need to race up the new cat tree with full speed. They will need to leap over a clueless little kitten body in the middle of their play runways. They will be finding the changes affecting their carefully grooved routines, and must craft new ones.
All this takes time and practice.
The next time we are impatient with our cat’s acceptance of something new: stop. And think about how much information we have… and how much information they have.
Whatever we can do to move the information from our head to theirs will speed up this process.
Read about how we got our cats to trust their new cat tree with Announcing the new cat tree.
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There’s more ways to understand our cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my posts on WHY CATS DO THAT.
SOURCE: Way of Cats blog ยป The Way of Cats helps you understand, train, and love your pet cat – Read entire story here.