A couple of questions to everyone who has cats that do this…
- Do you feed your cat at regular intervals, or do you have a bowl of food available all the time?
- Even if you do have dry food available all the time, do you still occassionally give canned food?
- Do you pet your cat after you’ve put food in its bowl and it’s eating?
My grandmother had a cat with some serious Pavlovian conditioning because pretty much the only time she had anything to do with the cat was when she has already gone through the trouble of bending over to put a can of food in its dish. The cat pretty much didn’t have anything to do with anybody (including my grandmother) other than that.
It would be wandering around and you could lean over and rub his shoulders and he’d crouch down and lick the ground and his front feet. You’d stop and he’d getu p and start to hurry off, at which point you could pounce on him and rub his shoulder and he’d do it again. So you’d stop and he’d start to spring away, but you’d rub his shoulders and he’d go back to licking the floor more and more frantically. I don’t think he liked it… which was fine, because I didn’t like him.
Every cat I’ve owned, male or female, has enjoyed a good tail scritchin’.
My brother had a gray long haired cat that at first wouldn’t let you touch anything but his ears… and then you could move back once he’d had enough of that. Then you could scratch at his tail, or go back to the ears if you liked, but he’d prefer you stuck with the base of the tail. Then he’d roll over, grab your hand, and poor unsuspecting souls would think “Oh, he wants a tummy rub” at this point, wouldn’t you? He counted on that, because he’d let you get a few pats in and then he’d push your hand down. Little pervert.
