Saturday, August 02, 2025

Eyeballing - the stare that says "Don't come closer."

When I meet a cat I don't know, I usually stop and stare. So does he. We can learn a lot by this simple eyeballing.

If he is in my territory, he will often be slightly uneasy. So instead of keeping eye contact, he will turn his head away to one side. He may even begin to retreat.

Then I feel as if I have won! It's a good feeling. 

But sometimes these staring matches can go on for a long time. So I just sit there and stare and stare and stare.

Of course, if I am intruding into his space, l may be the one that has to break off eye contact. I don't feel very happy about this, but it is a contest which is both silent (no cat yowling) and safe (no fights).

By the staring contest, we can both keep our dignity and stay w don't have to fight.  

 

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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