The Quest

My first cat was Minouche. I was still very young when my mother bought her. I now realize that at that time, to me she was a very funny, fluffy moving toy. Which I can admit influenced highly on the rest of our shared life. Kids do not have an understanding that pets have a life and a will of there own, or at least I didn’t. Just like children develop there personality in the 3 first year, it is the same with cats. Sadly when we got her, we used her like a toy, and she developed a highly paranoid persona, always afraid of people getting near her. She hated being picked up because she never knew what would happen. Still she was a really good cat, loved to be in the same room, observing us from above, and would come to see us on her own terms.

When I first got Merlin, I had learn from my mistake, and seen success in a friend. I loved to pick him up but always at the first sound of complain would put him down. Form early on, I got him used to being touched at sensible areas (paws, ears, stomach) so that if he came in contact with children that are a little rough on him, he would not harm them. I also thought him to play without hurting me this way even if I forgot to cut is claws for a while we can play fight without me being afraid of getting hurt. So now, I have this great relationship with him.

Another example is my sister’s cat. Well more he boyfriend’s since he is the one who spend most time with her. My cat knows that a meow is enough for me to let him go. This week-end, they brought there cat to my moms. I just came back from the Sugar shack (I still think this sounds ridiculous) and the cat seemed fascinated with the smell of my shirt, so I picked her up. She started to smell my shirt and suddenly out of nowhere attacked me. At first I was really surprised but then I realized that at no moment had she felt threaten, nor was she especially aggressive in her attack. Only where my cat would have meowed, she attacked. All she wanted was to signal that she was ready to be put down. But since as a baby the only way her owner would let her go was when she attacked she learns that this was the proper signal. They will have a hard time changing this habit.

Guess what I learned from this experience is that all animals learn to interact with you from the way you interact with them. Another example of that: the animals at the small farm at the sugar shack. When people come in, it’s too feed them therefore they expected to be fed, and once they discovered you had nothing for them completely ignored you.