Q: This may seem silly, but please do not mark it up to age. I have a 10- to 11-year-old female neutered cat (my cats generally live to be around 18-19) who has developed an irritating habit. She will sit in front of the kitchen door and hit you when you walk in or out. Mainly just my husband and I, not the kids/teens. We both feed her, and have food down at all times.
She will also hit my husband every morning when he gets ready to leave for work. She will sit in the middle of the room between the kitchen and front room where the front door is. She leaves him alone, except for an occasional need to be petted until the time he goes to put on his shoes. From that moment on she hits him either way he goes. She does not hit me when I get ready to leave, though.
I do not think she has a preference to whom she likes more. She gets in both our laps, sleeps on both sides of the bed, etc.
We wave it off as funny, and my husband will tussle with her when she does it, which he does many times a day anyway. We don’t really need a “fix;” we would just like to know why she has been hitting.
It probably has been going on for about a year or so. Also, she shows no aggression to her “sister” that we got a week after her. They are the same age and no real dominance is between them.
— C.S., Akron
A: This is a fun one and it sounds like you have a cat with a lot of personality! Why she is doing this behavior may be as simple as “because it works.”
In your description you included some helpful information — that you or your husband sometimes respond to her in a way that she enjoys, tussling/rubbing and laughing. Whenever we in the scientific community look at any behavior we look for ABC’s: Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence. In your case, you go to walk by (antecedent), she hits you (behavior), you may or may not respond to her (consequence).
Sometimes the consequence may be no response and other times the consequence is fantastic! For your cat this is somewhat like playing a slot machine at a casino — sometimes the behavior doesn’t pay, other times she cashes in big. This variable reinforcement is what keeps humans playing the slots and the same can be said for our pets.
If you wanted to fix it, you could break the behavior chain by inserting a different behavior in the departure sequence. For instance, before your husband goes to put on his shoes, you could engage her with a favorite toy, offer a food puzzle (yes, they actually make cat puzzles), or ask her to perform another behavior. At The Behavior Clinic it’s not uncommon for me to train a cat to offer another behavior such as going to a mat/spot, high-five, or sit.
For cat training ideas and how-to, check out Clicker Training for Clever Cats by Martina Braun (available on Amazon). Enjoy!
— Amanda Eick-Miller, veterinary behavior technician, the Behavior Clinic, Olmsted Falls
Please send questions about your pet to Kathy Antoniotti at the Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, OH 44309-0640; or send an email to kantoniotti@thebeaconjournal.com. Please include your full name and address and a daytime phone number where you can be reached. I will forward your questions to the expert I think is best suited to answer your particular problem. Phoned-in messages will not be taken.
