{"id":162,"date":"2014-06-21T22:27:59","date_gmt":"2014-06-21T22:27:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ailurophileuk.wordpress.com\/?p=162"},"modified":"2014-06-21T22:27:59","modified_gmt":"2014-06-21T22:27:59","slug":"how-anthropomorphism-can-damage-a-feline-human-relationship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/?p=162","title":{"rendered":"How anthropomorphism can damage a feline\/ human relationship"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m going to admit something terrible now; I have a weakness for trashy magazines. They generally make me laugh with their rather \u201cCarry on\u201d type style of writing.<\/p>\n

I opened one fairly recently however, and felt I had to address an article they\u2019d printed. The article was about a lady who took on a cat; a tom named Sam, who it seemed she loved very much. The problem was that he\u2019d (in the magazines words) become a \u201ckiller kitten\u201d and had attacked her. After reading the article, I was saddened by quite a few things. The lady felt that their relationship had been damaged permanently and she didn\u2019t feel the connection she had with Sam could ever be repaired.<\/p>\n

What did jump out of the page at me was this; \u201cWe decided it was best to get him neutered. \u201cIt should make him less hostile\u201d Mum said.\u00a0 \u201cI guess\u201d I replied glumly. It was such a shame. I really wanted him to be a daddy.\u201d
<\/em>This, coupled with other things mentioned in the article can explain a tom getting rather more aggressive than you\u2019d expect. Hormonal urges are strong in cats, they don\u2019t rationalise what they\u2019re feeling; they act on it.<\/p>\n

Sam was purely reacting to hormones. The lady stated she was visiting a clients home and the home had other cats in it, at least three. Sam responded to the other cats smells very strongly judging by the article; this would\u00a0have been infinitely less likely if he\u2019d been neutered at the recommended minimum age.<\/p>\n

The article goes on to say that three months after his neuter, Sam is much calmer. I can\u2019t help but feel if the lady in question had considered all the reasons for neutering instead of looking at things from a humanised perspective, she may have done what was best for Sam initially. Instead, she applied a logic that had no bearing on him (Sam more than likely had no preference on if he was a daddy or not) and it damaged a functioning friendship.<\/p>\n

Anthropomorphism is something most people that love their animals are guilty of. And a lot of the time, it\u2019s nothing more than a reaction to the emotions they feel for them that does no real harm. But with things that are truly necessary to be a happy (and as mentioned previously, more likely to be healthy) cat we have to override the desire to attribute human reactions to them. We have to recognise a cat is not sat pondering if she\u2019ll ever get to be a mother. She is more likely to be wondering where the red dot went and when it\u2019s next going to reappear. Or if the human she is bonded to has picked up the meat she prefers for her evening meal. <\/p>\n

Recognising when it\u2019s safe to apply human personality traits to a cat and when it will be detrimental to them is a hugely important part of caring for them to the best level you can.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m going to admit something terrible now; I have a weakness for trashy magazines. They generally make me laugh with their rather \u201cCarry on\u201d type style of writing. I opened one fairly recently however, and felt I had to address…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}