It is a misconception to think that Siamese cats are mean. They certainly are not mean. It is surprising that one of the standard questions asked about Siamese cats through the Google search engine is, “Are Siamese cats mean?”.
Misconception
For some reason, some people think they are mean and this may be a misconception which has arisen out of the fact that Siamese cats can be demanding partly because they are intelligent and inquisitive. You could also say that they’re nosy. They can certainly be noisy!
They are active and they tend to want to be as close as possible to their owner. But they’re not mean. The idea that they are demanding compared to other cat is because they are intelligent and like to be close to their companion.
Demanding
The Siamese cat’s human companion therefore needs to interact with his cat. Some Siamese cat owners say they can be obnoxiously affectionate meaning overly affectionate. I’m not sure that a domestic cat can be too affectionate because people own cats for companionship.
Towards Other Cats
I have presumed in answering the question that it refers to Siamese cats being mean towards their human caretaker. Siamese cats being intelligent and therefore perhaps opinionated (I have anthropomorphised the cat) may be more predisposed to meanness towards other cats when compared to the character of other purebred, pedigree cats.
They may also prefer being the only cat in the household. This may give the impression that they are mean but it would be an incorrect
impression.
Intelligence
In a previous post written some time ago I stated that the Siamese cat is the most intelligent pedigree cat together with the Sphynx cat. This intelligence may also show itself in assertiveness and assertiveness might on occasions be mistaken for meanness. Once again it would be a misconception.
Individuals
Also it has to be said again that individual cats have their own personality. It is slightly dangerous to generalize about an entire cat breed having a distinct personality and to anthropomorphize cats! Although selective breeding does predisposed breeds to a certain personality together of course with a very distinct appearance.
Aggressive?
One Siamese cat owner, Mark Decker, tells us that he grew up with Siamese cats. It says that you can’t categorise them as mean but he does say that they might be aggressive. He might be incorrect in this assessment but a small study in Norway did conclude that one in ten Siamese were regularly more aggressive to people compared to moggies at one in twenty.
Siamese Family
The temperament of the Siamese cat is not therefore predisposed to meanness. It’s worth mentioning that the other cats in the Siamese cat family; the Balinese, Oriental Shorthair and Oriental Longhair, to name three, have very similar if not identical temperaments.
