Saturday, November 07, 2015

Is it play or is it fighting? Toby reveals his play technique.

Watch this on video here
Dear George,
I am trying to help Celia train her foster kitten, Abby the Tabby, to behave well towards other cats. It can be tiresome and sometimes downright embarrassing. She whizzes up to me, rubs against me, and shows excessive affection. Then she plays...
And plays and plays. And she is very rough. She body slams me. I pounce on her but I never have my claws out. How am I going to teach her to play less roughly?
Yours exhausted,
Toby.

Dear Toby,
I can tell that she is having a great time because there is no hissing, spitting, claws out, no tufts of hair and no blood.  It's play not discipline - thanks to your good manners. You are twice her size and would really beat her up if you chose to. And you don't, even when she jumps on you at speed.
Human pets don't understand us and sometimes think we are playing when we are fighting. So thank you for posting this video. It will help humans recognise play from fighting.
I am not sure if you will succeed in teaching Abby to play less roughly, Toby. But playing with her may help her to live with another adult cat when she finds her forever home.
Yours
George
PS. If you live Oxfordshire and can give Abby a home go to Sunshine Cat Rescue.




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6 comments:

  1. DiegoNovember 07, 2015

    This is such a cute video! I think you are a little nervous around the kitten but it is cute!
    Hope Abby will find soon a good and lovely home
    Diego

    ReplyDelete
  2. MinnieNovember 07, 2015

    Abby is adorable
    Minnie!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Carla, the tuxedo catNovember 08, 2015

    Toby, how can you teach her to play less rough? Maybe you can't!
    Maybe getting another kitten ....same age as Abby.... to play together is the answer!
    What Celia is saying?
    Carla, the tuxedo cat

    ReplyDelete
  4. TomNovember 08, 2015

    Oh dear! This might be a problem! Nobody wants a kitten who attacks when less expected.
    Hope you'll find a solution Toby!
    Tom

    ReplyDelete
  5. fantaghiroNovember 10, 2015

    Hi there,

    People should be kinder to animals especially stray cats and dogs. Please visit my new cat blog [Click here].

    ReplyDelete
  6. VegasNovember 12, 2015

    Any chance Celia adopting Abby?
    Vegas

    ReplyDelete

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Help for cats whose humans show behaviour problems.

This blog is devoted to the study of human behaviour. We cats, who live with this sometimes unpredictable and always feeble minded species, can benefit from seeing their behaviour in its proper scientific context. The study of feline dilemmas, training problems, and difficulties with humans, can only benefit all of us. All of us train our humans - to buy the right food, for instance, but many of us do not have knowledge of how to improve our training methods. The human species is obviously not as intelligent as the cat, but nevertheless can learn quite a lot - if properly managed. Topics of interest include the use of claw and order, purring as a human reward, rubbing your human up the right way, when to bite, spraying as a method of making our wishes known, ignoring the human, human harassment, human inattention and sheer human stupidity. I welcome your questions. Photos can be sent via my secretary's website, www.celiahaddon.com This blog has been chosen as one of the top 50 feline blogs by Online VetTechprogramms.org