Give your cat the time they need to use a new product

This little episode in my life reminded me to be patient when buying a product for your cat. They sometimes hardly use or even ignore a carefully chosen product such as a cat bed or toy. It can be a bit dispiriting. It can be off-putting in fact. It can stop you buying nice stuff for them. About 8 months (or was it 12, I’ve forgotten!) I bought a nice cat bed for my boy. It was a troublesome purchase as unbeknown to me it had to be shipped from continental Europe and that put extra expense on the already high purchase price. I managed to negotiate a price reduction before delivery.

On day one my cat jumped in for around 10 minutes and that was it. He never went back for around 8-12 months. It became a nice-looking small item of furniture, clogging up the floor space until today when he jumped in and stayed. He is there now as I type this.

Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

I left a catnip toy in there the entire time. That probably played a part in getting him to use it. But I think the bigger reason why he is using it is because cats don’t see the urgency to use something new. We might be anxious that it is used but cats of course don’t see it that way.

And cats tend to move around their home and try different places where they decide to sleep. They seem to have a rota system almost. My new cat bed has suddenly been placed on the rota which delights me of course.

They do things at their own pace. The same to applies to responding to a call from their caregiver. They might not respond immediately and probably won’t. But give them time and they’ll process the request and come. It might take a few minutes. And of course, it takes a while for them to get the gist of coming on your call.

The results of some research was recently published in which it was revealed that cats respond more positively to the voice in combination with body language and actions. You can read about that by clicking on this link if you like.

Infographic on slow blink communication between cat and human

“Cat Talk” – communication via intimacy and familiarity