McNasty, indeed.
If a cat reflects the personality of its master, I must be the sweetest penguin around, because my babies are sweethearts. The Mighty Fang has always been a lovable lunk, but when I got Mencken, his general attitude was "I hate you, go away." I slowly trained him away from that -- not by beating him, but by listening to him. As I listened to him, he no longer felt the need to bite and claw me. When he bit me, I'd put him down and go elsewhere since obviously he was overstimulated and needed some quiet time. Biting me turned into baring his teeth and touching my skin with the edge of his fang at which time I put him down and went elsewhere, touching my skin with his fang turned into him simply getting up and going elsewhere when he got tired of me, and how he'll happily purr in my lap for hours and when he's done with that, rather than biting me when I try to pet him, he'll simply get up and leave.
But my suspicion is that if McNasty had a cat, the cat would be like the one above, or like this one...
-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin
I've seen that video before; it really upsets me every single time I see it. As a human owned by two cats (corny, yes, but true) myself, I shudder to think that got that little fella worked up into such a state.
ReplyDeleteSome kitties just get born into a world that continually wrongs them. I think I'll get up from here and go pet Manni and Lola.
i can tell a lot about folks from how their animals behave. i can judge a rider by the horse they have. i can judge a hunter by his dogs.
ReplyDeleteOne thing about my guys is that they trust me in a fundamental way. Starting with a cat like Mencken, who was picked up wandering the streets and was obviously a throw-away, who spent his first two weeks at my house hiding under the bed, and now he comes over when he feels like it and jumps up on my lap for me to rub his belly (the ultimate cat trust indicator) is pretty good progress. He's still paranoid as hell, if someone new comes over he'll run and hide under the bed (though now, if I'm around, he'll come out and sorta hang around me after a while) and if there's a loud noise he'll *really* run and hide under the bed (like a scalded cat, that!), but he knows and trusts me and with people he trusts, he's the sweetest cat you'll ever see.
ReplyDeleteBoth cats, when I take them to the vet, allow me to hold them for the vet without any kind of hysterics. I've seen cats who turned into whirling dervishes at the vet's. Not my guys. They make the fact they're unhappy well known (rrroooow! mrrrrrooow!) but when it comes time to be poked, they put their ears back, he pokes them, I give them one more kitty rubdown (away from the poke site) to reassure them, and put them back in their kitty carrier (actually, when I put them down in front of their kitty carrier they go right back in). No kitty hysterics involved. That's trust.
I can only imagine what happened to turn the cat in the cage into the cat he is. And the things I imagine aren't pretty :-(.
-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin
ah hmmm
ReplyDelete