PUNISHING CATS IS WRONG

Good one man.
Id like to see those who punish cats in any way get the same done to them let them see how it feels.
Ive seen a lot thinking squirting is good how can they plan to frighten and wet their cat I dont understand.
Give me a water pistol and Ill squirt it at them with great pleasure.
Ed

I hate with a passion people who take on a cat but understand nothing about them and don’t even care. Cats are very sensitive and all those punishing methods will just make the behaviour worse because the cat will be scared out of his wits half the time! They will urinate where they shouldn’t because they are stressed!!

For gods sake don’t listen to anyone who states these methods are the best way because they just aren’t!!

Brilliant article and poster Ruth and my blood just like yours runs cold and the thought of some poor cat running scared all the time not knowing what to do or where to go out of utter fear!!

I never have and never will punish any of my cats(nor my kids or dogs either come to that)
I can’t understand why some people can’t cope without putting the fear of God into their cats.
All I can say is it must give them a feeling of power over their pets.
Look and learn all you whose cats live in fear of you and try putting yourself in their place and think how you’d feel.

An outstanding article and poster!
It irritates me a lot when people talk about punishing their cats, most of whom don’t even realise that the much recommended squirting which although doesn’t physically hurt the cat is as much a punishment as any other.
Imagine yourself every time you thoughtlessly put a foot wrong you were squirted at! There is no way you wouldn’t become nervous, worrying about your every move.
Those who advocate this punishment bleat that it works, do they really like ruling by fear rather than kindness?
Waiting there with a gun full of stagnant water to deliberately aim at and frighten their pet!
I hope this article brings home to the people using squirting or any other method of controlling their cat’s behavior, how wrong they are.

I thoroughly agree, punishment is an abuse of the power we have over our cats, we hold all the power and make all the rules, some of the rules are alien to a cat’s natural behaviour, does that mean the cat is bad? No, it means the cat is normal and our expectations of the behavious from our cat are wrong.
Punishment, shouting, hitting, scruffing, shocking, wetting are all abusive and self defeating, frightened cats, any frightened animal, only learn fear they don’t learn “good” behaviour, because they don’t know what they’ve done wrong. Time out is plain stupid, can you imagine someone trying to tell their cat what time out is and why she’s bundled into another room or a cage? Do you think the cat would understand and “learn”? No, nor do I.
Patience and more patience, repeated demonstrations of the behaviour you’d like to see and a little bit of a sense of humour are far better means of getting what you want from a cat and cause far less stress to feline and human!
I’d really like to bang the heads of the 4 people on the top of the poster together very hard, just for their own good you understand, just to “teach them”.

Excellent article. Personally, I have never had a need to punish my cat. Perhaps I am able to accept everything she or he has done. I am able to accept it because I decided to before I adopted my cats and because as Ruth says, it is natural behavior.

If we were punished for behaving perfectly naturally under the circumstances that we found ourselves we would have the right to complain. We would be living in a dictatorship.

We should not create a household dictatorship for our cats but an excellent democracy where cats are equal to humans. This promotes harmony and contentment for both parties.