what they mean: i dont know how to handle small animals and consider them lashing out in SELF DEFENSE an insult
Usually what it boils down to is “I’m mad because the cat didn’t act like a dog”.
Pushing fragile things off tables and breaking them: Self defense.
Destroying Christmas Trees: Self defense, I mean the tree attacked them.
Scratching their owner’s eyeball: Self defense.
Scratching their sleeping owner’s face: Self defense.
Jumping on their owner’s back and clawing into their spine: Self defense.
Admittedly yeah
A dog doesn’t do those things because a dog’s version of self defense is to be a good animal who loves you and doesn’t attack you unless you attack them first.
I mean if a cat feels that threatened by everything in their owner’s household maybe the owner shouldn’t have gotten a cat.
Pushing fragile things off tables and breaking them: Playing. Cats are well-known to like to play with small objects. Your cat does not know what “fragile” means and does not understand the distinction between toy and not-toy objects. Place fragile things out of a cat’s line of sight and reach, and if you don’t provide them with enough enrichment items that they go looking for them, that’s on you.
Destroying Christmas Trees: Cats like to climb things. They’re not doing it to spite you.
Scratching their owner’s eyeball: Probably an accident, due to overstimulation when playing. It wasn’t trying to hurt you. Don’t anthropomorphize animals by attributing spite to them. Animals don’t do spite the way that humans do.
Scratching their sleeping owner’s face: Trying to rouse you with its paw, probably gently, because it loves you and wants to play with you.
Jumping on their owner’s back and clawing into their spine: Come on. If a cat is jumping on you, it loves you and wants to be close to you. Digging in with its claws is how it balances itself on an unstable surface and is purely a reflexive reaction. It isn’t intending to hurt you.
99% of cat behavioral problems stem from bored cats. Cats need to climb, need to scratch, and need small objects to play with. I only recommend adopting cats in pairs, so that they can keep each other entertained. Cats are not purely solitary. They get lonely, and lonely cats act out. Once again, your entire problem with cats as a species seems to stem from the fact that you don’t understand how cats express affection and it upsets you that they don’t do so the way that dogs do. Cats aren’t small dogs and cannot be expected to behave as such.
Some semi related cat facts I’d like to add:
Cats don’t have the same facial muscles as dogs and humans do. Dogs facial structures are similar to humans which allows them to make expressions that humans have an easy time understanding. Cats don’t. If you want to understand your cats’ emotions, you have to understand their body language.
A purring cat isn’t necessarily a happy cat. Cats do usually purr when they’re happy, but they also purr when they are in pain or when they’re scared. Purring is a method of self-soothing for cats and a lot of people just don’t know that.
A cat not wanting to face you is a sign of trust. When a cat turns their back towards you, it means they trust you to watch their back and make sure they won’t be attacked from behind.
A cat stepping on your laptop (or whatever you are working on) means they are interested in what you’re doing and want to participate. If you make them their own little cardboard laptop to sit on next to you, a lot of the time your cat(s) will sit on that next to you, allowing you to get your work done while still being able to spend time with your fluffy (or hairless!) family members.
Oh we’re talking cat behavior??? Hang on hang on
Okay
YES to everything that has been said about cat behavior but a few other things people don’t seem to understand that are important to understanding cat behavior:
BELLY RUBS: A cat showing you its belly is NOT necessarily asking you to rub it, like a dog is. A cat showing you its belly (when in a calm, sleepy mood) is saying “I trust you so much that I’m going to reveal my MOST VULNERABLE side to you and I know you won’t touch it!” When you then move in and touch it, you’ve actually broken that trust, which is why cats go from “showing you their belly calmly” to “attack!!!” so quickly. It wasn’t a TRAP. You didn’t understand what they were saying and you responded incorrectly. The best reward for the belly display is a nice scritch under the chin/cheeks or a gentle rub on the head.
(And before anyone says “well my cat loves having his belly rubbed!” –yes. There are exceptions to this general rule, because cats are HELLA unique creatures with distinct personalities. I have a cat who genuinely loves to have his side and belly played like bongo drums. Cats are weirdos. These are generalizations.)
Now: if your cat shows you its belly when in a playful/feisty mood, that IS an invitation, but beware: it’s an invitation to get attacked. Cats playfight. That’s one of the ways they play. This is very common in predatory animals, who use play to hone important hunting skills. A well-socialized cat will know not to go too hard, but a kitten won’t, so if you’re playfighting with a kitten and it bites too hard, go “OW!” really loud and take your hand away to help teach them. But yeah, if a feisty cat opens its belly to you: be prepared for a playfight!
PETTING: Cats are sensitive. Physically. All that fur builds up a lot of static electricity and when people pet them they tend to do it along the cat’s spine, which means a lot of energy and static along the spine, which means OVERSTIMULATION. If you’ve ever been petting a cat and suddenly it whips its head around and closes its teeth on your hand, that means you’ve overstimulated it and it’s asking you to please stop. (Incidentally, the bite wasn’t ‘sudden,’ you just missed the earlier signs of ‘please stop you’re overstimulating me’ and the cat had to take extreme measures–more on that later).
Petting a cat around their head/cheeks/chin will usually prevent that overstimulation (and once or twice down the back isn’t a bad thing, just be mindful of overstimulating!). And it’s also polite to ask permission first! Cats are TINY compared to us, and very independent creatures, so coming quickly at a cat with your big ol’ human hand can be alarming even if they know and trust you. Try this next time: How to ask a cat for permission to pet it.
OVERSTIMULATION: Cats can and DO get overstimulated! As I mentioned before, if you’re petting a cat and it suddenly bites (or gets up and leaves), it’s not saying “I don’t like you anymore,” it’s saying “please, stop.”
Watch for the following body language cues:
1) Ears: if the cat’s ears are starting to twitch back, it may be getting agitated. Try backing off and see what the cat does. If the ears twitch back forward and the cat seems to relax, then stopping was probably a good move. Try again in a few minutes and limit your petting to their head/ears/neck/cheeks.
2) Eyes: If your cat went from closed-eyed bliss to eyes open and pupils dilating, circumstances have changed. Your cat is getting agitated. Continue petting at your own risk but don’t be surprised if they attack.
3) Tail: This is a HUGE mistake I see people more familiar with dogs making. A cat’s tail wagging doesn’t mean “HAPPY!” like a dog’s does. A cat’s tail twitching or swishing means they are highly stimulated. Sometimes that means they’re having fun (check out this video to see a very enthusiastically stimulated cat having fun climbing a rock wall–and watch that tail! That’s an excited cat!). But often it means they’re agitated, not happy. If a cat’s tail starts swishing, that’s a good time to step back and let the cat find a way to calm itself down.
4) Body tension: this is a fairly straightforward one but if your cat went from totally relaxed to tense and tight, it’s probably not enjoying itself as much as it was. Maybe it’s about to launch an assault on something it saw across the room (another cat or a toy, for instance). Just know you may not have a sleepy contented cat in your lap anymore.
MIRRORING: One of the ways cats show affection is to “mirror” their companions:
Domestic housecats are not naturally pack animals but they DO have the ability to come together and form strong social bonds. You, their owner, are a member of their social group, and they will often try to mirror you, too! Meaning if you spend most of your day sitting on your laptop, they want to do it as well:
They’re not trying to be rude. They want to do what you’re doing! Because that’s how they show affection!
(Now: is it occasionally annoying? ABSOLUTELY. I’ve had to shoo my cat Sam away from my laptop several times while attempting to type this post. But I still love him and I understand he’s just trying to be close to me. He’s not being malicious because malice is a human emotion and cannot be attributed to cats. So is spite, scorn, arrogance, and any number of emotions that get falsely attributed to cats by people who just don’t understand that CATS ARE NOT DOGS and therefore behave differently!!! Please do not anthropomorphize your cat!!!)
Now, most of the things the cat hater up there said have already been addressed, but I’d like to expand on the Christmas tree thing, and then the scratching thing, because it segues nicely into another issue: claws.
The Christmas Tree: please picture this from the perspective of a cat. A cat has no religious affiliation. A cat doesn’t understand what significance this thing you brought into your home has. A cat just sees you have brought in A TREE, which especially if it is real will have VERY INTERESTING OUTSIDE SMELLS. It sees SHINY TWINKLY BAUBLES AND LIGHTS. It sees GARLANDS OF SHINY CRINKLY FUN THINGS. Sorry but you’ve basically just brought in the greatest jungle gym ever, full of interesting sights, sounds, smells, and textures, and told the animal that has NO CAPACITY to understand your words that ‘no you can’t play with that.’ Sorry but that’s just a little unrealistic. And to attribute malice to this behavior–to say the cat is attacking the tree with the intent of destroying it?–is to be so deliberately obtuse as to be almost malicious about it yourself.
The cat is having fun. A new novel unique thing has just come into its environment and a lot of the things about it resemble the toys it already plays with (balls, strings, crinkly paper, etc.). It is going to play. If you don’t want that, then either find a way to stabilize the tree, keep it out of reach, or DON’T HAVE A CAT.
Okay finally. The claws thing. Let’s talk about cat claws.
Okay so yes, cats will sometimes try to wake you up by gently patting your face. If that results in you getting scratched, chances are, your cats claws are getting too long!
Cats naturally sharpen their claws. They’re a good weapon, and the cat’s first line of defense and offense in a world where they are both predator and prey. They allow cats to climb out of danger or in pursuit of prey. They help cats catch things and hold onto them. They act as a deterrent if a bigger predator gets ahold of them. They help them stabilize themselves on the ground and in high places like trees. Claws are important.
That’s why cats scatch things (also to deposit scent markers from glands located in the pads of their paws but I digress): to keep their claws in good shape and sharpened, and to shed old claw sheaths (cat claws shed, did you know that? fun fact!).
HOWEVER, if your cat is an indoor cat only (which it REALLY SHOULD BE but that’s a rant for another day), it may not have enough wearing down the claws in return, and you may have to help your cat maintain their claws! There are a couple ways to do this:
1) Trimming the claw - gently depress the toe bean to extend the claw then use cat claw clippers to snip the sharpened tip. Watch out for the quick! You’ll be able to see it as the darker vein of blood in the cat’s claw.
2) SoftPaws or any other brand of cat nail tips! These stylish little claw tippers can be safely applied, and each application lasts about a month. These tips protect your skin and your furniture and do not bother your cat in the slightest! Plus your cat will look fancy af:
What you should NOT do, ever, please, ever, is declaw your cat. I know no one talked about this but, well, I pretty much jump on every chance I get to educate people about the inhumanity of this practice. If it changes one person’s mind about declawing their cat (or about getting one in the first place, if it’s genuinely just not a good fit) then good, I don’t mind cluttering up some dashes.
People seem to think that declawing means ‘removing the claws only’ when in fact, it’s a partial toe amputation. Look at your own finger. See that last joint before the nail starts? Yeah, that’s what’s getting cut off of your cat’s toes. That whole last joint.
I’m going to steal wholesale from an ask I answered on one of my other blogs to give you links to articles about the physical, psychological, and emotional damage declawing causes your cat:
“Some cats are so shocked by declawing that their personalities change. Cats who were lively and friendly have become withdrawn and introverted after being declawed. Others, deprived of their primary means of defense, become nervous, fearful, and/or aggressive, often resorting to their only remaining means of defense, their teeth. In some cases, when declawed cats use the litterbox after surgery, their feet are so tender they associate their new pain with the box…permanently, resulting in a life-long aversion to using the litter box. Other declawed cats that can no longer mark with their claws, they mark with urine instead resulting in inappropriate elimination problems, which in many cases, results in relinquishment of the cats to shelters and ultimately euthanasia. Many of the cats surrendered to shelters are surrendered because of behavioral problems which developed after the cats were declawed.
Many declawed cats become so traumatized by this painful mutilation that they end up spending their maladjusted lives perched on top of doors and refrigerators, out of reach of real and imaginary predators against whom they no longer have any adequate defense. A cat relies on its claws as its primary means of defense. Removing the claws makes a cat feel defenseless. The constant state of stress caused by a feeling of defenselessness may make some declawed cats more prone to disease. Stress leads to a myriad of physical and psychological disorders including supression of the immune system, cystitis and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).”
So basically I know I’ve interrupted this post with a PSA but PLEASE. Please do not declaw your cat. Either find another solution, resign yourself to scratched up furniture, or DO NOT GET A CAT.
In conclusion:
Not to add to a litany, because it might be in there, but if you take a cat gently and move it to a scratching post when you catch it scratching furniture, they will understand “this is where I scratch, not the furniture” and change the behavior gradually.
Cats WANT to do good for you. If you do not offer them an alternative for a behavior that inconveniences you, they will have frustration to take out somewhere else. If they do something you don’t like, offer an alternative and they’ll gladly take it, if it works.
To add onto this, if you have somewhere you really want your cat to scratch (like a new post) and they just won’t get started, remember that thing about mirroring? Just start scratching the post yourself like a cat would. They know what that gesture is and they’ll probably join right in, and that’s where you lavish them with praise and affection for doing what you wanted.
Also also, cats clicker train exactly like dogs do. Seriously. They’re not always quite as enthusiastically eager to please, but then, we didn’t breed that behavior into them. They’re still entirely capable of learning that the clicker means They Did It Right, and that Doing It Right means a little bit of high-value treat, and once they have that down, they can learn pretty much whatever you want to teach them. And it’s great enrichment and bonding time with them. Just remember they don’t have the stamina of an animal largely bred for human-directed work, so they might prefer shorter sessions, but you can start any time (my cat picked it up very quickly as a senior) and it’s a lot of fun for both you and your kitty.
ALSO
Not only can you train your cats, it can be a completely symbiotic relationship. When I first started taking mood stabilizers, I forgot them a lot, which is Very Not Good—so I started giving my cat a treat when I took my pills.
It only took about a week before every day, 3pm sharp, he’d “mrowwwww” and go to the kitchen table where his treats were kept, and if I treated him but forgot my meds he’d swat me until I ate my “treats.” He got treats, I got improved mental function, we both won A LOT.
Cats are not good service animals in the way dogs and ponies are, but you can totally train them to train you.
As if this post needs even more on it, but:
I can absolutely make a list like that one person did of “bad” cat behaviours for dogs. Thing is? Dogs needs are (marginally) better identified and looked after. The same, “and so don’t have small fragile things on shelves your cat can access and give them more appropriate toys for them to bat around,” solution to a cat knocking over and breaking things, which may not seem very common sense to people is a lot more common sense with a dog. It’s basically the same scenario as a dog choosing to chew on, say, shoes left out by the door. Give them appropriate things to chew and remove the inappropriate. A lot of people don’t seem to apply that same line of thought to cats as easily for some reason.
hi im laurence and i draw things. ive drawn a lot of things! if youre reading this you might have seen some of them. i made a little patreon to endeavor the further creation of things, and help me pay my rent ( to keep being in a place and making more things )
there wont be any art thats posted here that isnt eventually posted publically ( although there IS a tier for mailing out goodies that might have exclusive items, i dont know yet! ) so this is just a way people can say thank you if you wanna
no pressure! im just out here drinkin juice. thanks for readin!
Acoffee shop owner once told me he raised their prices because their electric bill went “through the roof” when people with laptops started using their (three) outlets. So I looked it up: it costs $8 A YEAR to keep one whole laptop charged. He could have off set that (maybe) 50 bucks A YEAR by replacing his lightbulbs with compact fluorescents. But instead he raised his prices on coffee .50 and made an extra 200-400 bucks A DAY.
Never take what capitalists tell you for granted.
To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.
“
—
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (via philosophybits)
Disney’s writer wage-theft is far worse than reported
Back in November, we learned that Disney had pulled a breathtakingly criminal wage-theft manuever on one of science-fiction’s most beloved authors, Allan Dean Foster, an elderly cancer-patient caring for his sick wife.
Foster is the bestselling author of some of the most successful movie novelizations ever, from the first STAR WARS novel to ALIENS novels and more. Thanks to Disney’s monopolistic buying spree of companies like Lucas and Fox, they now owned the movies and Foster’s contract.
Here’s where things get criminally weird. Disney argued that when they bought out Lucas, Fox, etc, they acquired their assets, but not their liabilities. In other words, they’d acquired the right to sell Foster’s work, but not the obligation to pay him when they did.
This is not how copyright contracts work, period. If it were, then any publisher with a runaway bestseller novel could incorporate a new company, sell its assets - but not its liabilities - to that company, and stiff the writer.
Both Foster’s agent and the Science Fiction Writers of America tried to negotiate with Disney quietly on this, but they were stonewalled and insulted (Disney insisted that they wouldn’t even *discuss* a deal without first getting nondisclosure agreements from Foster, another unheard-of tactic).
After failing to make progress with private negotiations, they went loudly public, launching the #DisneyMustPay campaign. The good news is, the campaign was successful, and Foster has been paid.
The bad news is that the campaign flushed out *many* writers who are also having their wages stolen by Disney. The company is stalling them, too - refusing to search its records or volunteer info unless the authors can name the specific instances in which they’ve been robbed.
In response, SFWA has joined forces with the Romance Writers of America, the Horror Writers of America, the National Writers Union, Sisters in Crime and the Authors Guild to form a coalition called Writers Must Be Paid.
There’s a reason for the anonymity: Disney’s anticompetitive mergers (culminating with the destructive Fox merger) has created a monopoly with vast market-power to destroy creators’ livelihoods by excluding them for speaking out.
The coalition has five modest demands for Disney:
I. Honor contracts now held by Disney and its subsidiaries
II. Provide royalty payments and statements to all affected authors
III. Update their licensing page with an FAQ for writers about how to handle missing royalties
IV. Create a clear, easy-to-find contact person or point for affected authors.
V. Cooperate with author organizations who are providing support to authors and agents.
More broadly, I hope this brings more creative workers into the discussion about competition.
Specifically, “monopsony,” the excessive buying power that happens when a companies dominate access to a market, which allows them to squeeze their suppliers, especially workers.
FUCK DISNEY.
Oh I get to say this now:
Speaking as a card carrying member of the Horror Writers Association, Disney can come here and suck my entire hog
This blog is mostly so I can vent my feelings and share my interests. Other than that, I am nothing special.
If you don't like Left Wing political thought and philosophy, all things related to horror, the supernatural, the grotesque, guns or the strange, then get the fuck out. I just warned you.
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