How an owner’s personality can affect the way cats behave
New research shows the relationship between owners and their cats is more important than ever. UK researchers found an owner’s personality can affect a cat’s behaviour in the same way a parent’s personality affects a child.
Singer Taylor Swift would be the first to admit her two beloved cats are just like her. The Scottish folds — Olivia Benson and Meredith Grey — like to live the good life and even have their own range of merchandise.
So Swift likely wouldn’t be surprised to hear that new research out of the UK shows the relationship between owners and their cats is more important than ever.
Lincoln University researchers found an owner’s personality can affect a cat’s behaviour, in the same way a parent’s personality affects a child.
“The most overwhelming finding for me was the relationship between owner personality and the cat’s behaviour and welfare, and the extent to which this appears to mirror that within the parent-child dynamic,” researcher Lauren Finka tells BW Magazine.
“Outside of humans, relatively little is known about the impact of caregiver personality on the recipient’s general health and wellbeing. It’s very likely that the way we behave around our cats will certainly affect how they generally behave towards us.”
MORE FROM MERCEDES MAGUIRE:
CATCH BEVERLY HILLS: 90210 ON 10 ALL ACCESS
HOW PARENTS CAN TALK TO KIDS ABOUT SEX
With cat ownership rates rising around the world, the close way in which we relate to our feline friends and their increasingly enclosed urban environment is having a greater impact on the way they behave.
There are about four million cats in Australia, with 29 per cent of households claiming one as part of their family, according to the RSPCA.
Applied animal behaviourist Kate Mornement often sees clients whose personality affects their cat’s behaviour. And it’s not always in a positive way.
“We know cats pick up on our feelings and emotions and respond to our personalities,” the founder of Pets Behaving Badly says.
“One of the more common cat behaviour issues I see is fearful and anxious cats, but this is often seen in cats that have been adopted and who were not socialised or treated well by the previous owners.
“The new owners then have to take on the problems created by the previous owners’ personality. When a cat is not treated well, their default is to become fearful.
“New owners will often react by trying to integrate the cat and, in a way, force themselves on the cat with lots of love and consoling but that’s the worst thing they can do. These cats need to be virtually ignored until they’re ready to integrate.
“There’s a slew of examples of how a human’s personality can adversely affect a cat’s behaviour.”
Ed Sheeran’s famous kitties, Calippo and Dorito, are following in their famous dad’s footsteps with their own Instagram account called The Wibbles, which has almost 400,000 followers. Vampire Diaries star and cat dad Ian Somerhalder says caring for orphaned kitties was the perfect training for becoming a dad to 18-month-old daughter Bodhi.
“To get up in the middle of the night to bottle feed eight kittens that would die without you gives you a sense of what it’s like to care for something that depends on you for its survival,” the actor said.
Mornement says pet research, previously focused mainly on dogs, is now starting to be applied to domestic cats.
“In the past 10 to 15 years, dogs have attracted a lot more scientific attention,” Mornement says.
“But a lot more research is now looking at our domestic cats, which is wonderful.”
Dog trainer’s shocking videos after stabbing
A highly-regarded dog trainer from Sydney’s eastern suburbs filmed herself admitting she had stabbed a man with a kitchen knife during a bloody altercation.
Dog trainer’s shocking videos after stabbing
A highly-regarded dog trainer from Sydney’s eastern suburbs filmed herself admitting she had stabbed a man with a kitchen knife during a bloody altercation.