Fighting the demands of instinct
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Thep gets a drastic haircut while Wan-Wan just smiles sweetly
JUST HOW long does it take for an animal to learn not to do something?
My poodle-pup Wan-Wan learned in minutes that I don’t want her to go into the cats’ litter trays. It sounds terrible, but I suppose cat droppings have that certain something that will attract any doggie.
I simply told her “Get out of there!”, accompanied by my standard gesture to tell her not to do it again.
This gesture, a finger I move across my throat, as in “Something bad will happen if I see you going into a litter tray again,” seems a great way to communicate to her.
When she sees this gesture, she knows what I’m telling her: “Don’t let me see you going in there again”. Violence is not an issue. She knows that I’d never hurt her. She does, however, want to please me; so she smiles and walks away from the tray.
It takes the cats a bit longer to stop doing something, depending on what that something is. Manohra has learned that she isn’t allowed into Phantom’s room. She’d like to go in, just to claim some new territory, but she’s learned from the expression on my face that it’s forbidden territory.
Soi cat Thep hasn’t learned from my face what to do or not do, but does seem to have learned not to jump on the faucet in the patio. Last week when he jumped on it, it broke, and water gushed out and covered him. As a result, he’s avoided the faucet entirely.
Bad experiences are sometimes good teachers, I suppose.
Thep, though, has also been dealing with instinctive behaviour, and I’m not sure I’m the one to teach him how to control these instincts.
A day or so after his encounter with the faucet, he came in for breakfast a bit upset. On his back between his shoulders were some scratches and missing fur. The wounds weren’t very deep, nothing requiring veterinary assistance. I sprayed some antibiotic powder on him, and he disappeared into the soi again.
Obviously, he had had a violent encounter with another cat. I was surprised. I hadn’t heard any cat fight outside. Besides, Thep isn’t a fighter. He tends to watch and wait.
People tell me to get Thep neutered. “He’ll never fight again,” they say.
Well, Thep is neutered. Territoriality, however, is not only a question of whether or not an animal has balls.
Manohra is neutered, and her territoriality is a source of trouble in the household. Her ownership of an area depends on the time of day. It also depends on if her chronic infections have returned.
I did hope that Thep had learned a lesson from the cat he had encountered, one that would make him less eager for a fight.
Instinct is instinct, though. “Don’t go out again, Thep,” I ordered him, then begged, but he returned to the patio. The other boy was out there. From Thep’s point of view, it was time for a reckoning.
The cat fight around four in the morning was short but violent. When Thep came in for breakfast, his back was bleeding. The vet, checking more thoroughly, found that scratches covered his entire body. The wounds weren’t deep, but in order to treat him, the vet had to shave his whole body.
Poor Thep. I guess he lost that fight.
When he returns home, will he have learned his lesson and now avoid fighting this other cat? Probably not.
And, as I’ve written before, Wan hasn’t really learned her lesson either. She’s figured out that it’s okay to go into the kitty litter as long as I don’t see her in there.
Her instinct to please me hasn’t changed. Neither has her instinct to do whatever she wants.
