Taming You with Love

How to get a stray cat to trust you, translated…

The Fox told Le Petit Prince that he couldn’t play with him, because he had yet to be, “domesticated”.

The Fox told Le Petit Prince, “If you tamed me, then, we’d needed one another. To me, you are, unique, and to you, I shall be, the only too.”

like how this cow managed???  Photo from online…

Le Petit Prince couldn’t understand it, the Fox explained it further: taming is actually, “building a relationship.”

This classic passage out of Le Petit Prince best described the process of domestication. The strayed cats normally don’t get closer to people, this is, a sort of a self-preservation defense mechanism, unless, you want to take the stray cat home to keep, otherwise, it’s best, that these stray cats keep their distances from people.

But, there is, this need, to tame these strayed cats, for instance, when you meet a seriously injured or severely ill stray cat that can no longer return to the streets to live again, or a young kitten, that’s with, that wildness inside, you’d hoped, that being able to domesticate it, can give them a chance, to live with people, to keep them away, from the dangers out on the streets.

The key to successfully taming a stray cat, is in making the stray willing to establish connection with people, not by force, but by their own willingness; the prerequisite of domestication is love, and a lot of time, patience goes into the process, and there’s no, one-dose miracle cure to this, everything, must be done, step, by step.

First, to establish this relationship, starts on the most basic needs, through feeding the stray cats, to establish a good interaction style. From a tasty can of cat food, feeding the food, scoop, by scoop, to the stray cat, so it can make the association of you, with the delicious food, and slowly, you can exchange the spoon with the longer handle that you’d used from the beginning, to a shorter handle, and, the next step is by placing the food into your palms, and allowing the stray cat, to get closer to you on its own, and, even if the food was, slapped off your palms by the cats with a stronger sense of guarding themselves, you’d still need to be patient, and continue feeding using this measure. The process of feeding the strays, if short, only takes a few weeks, and, if long, it would take up to months, and you can’t hurry the processes.

feeling guarded, as humans walk past it…NOT my photograph…

As the stray cats no longer feared humans and willing to come closer, you can attempt to make more physical contact, and slowly, build up that sense of trust, through your interactions with them, you can use force to start the relationship, or use punishment measures, and you couldn’t starve the cat to make it come to you either, what we want is domestication, NOT animal abuse.

The success or fail of whether or not you successfully domesticate a stray cat is in the space you give it to live in, first, you’d needed to keep the stray cat in an isolated space (a big enough cage should be at least three-feet in length); and, when you’re feeding or interacting with the stray cat, you should be at eye level with the cat, and if the kennels are on the floor, then, you would have to, squat down, or sit down on the floors, or, elevate the kennel, to steady it. At the same time, avoid hugging or touching the cat you’re not yet familiar with too soon, so it won’t fight back by scratching you, and ruin what’s already established in your ways of interacting with each other. Spend more time in the same space as the stray cat you took home, so it would acclimate itself with your existence, and even if there are no physical interaction between you, it’s okay. You can get closer to it a little more each and every day, but don’t do it overboard, through interactions in feeding and playing, helping it, to lessen its fear, to heighten the expectations, until one day, it’d become willing, to establish that permanent relationship with humans.

It’s such, a beautiful thing, to put in the mind and the time, to domesticate a cat that’s originally, aloof to humans, allowing it to spend its life peacefully by your side. Just like Le Petit Prince had stated, “Because it’s meaningful, it’s beautiful!” But, if you weren’t able to tame it, don’t get defeated, every cat has a different schedule, don’t give up on it yet, and turn it out onto the streets too soon.

After you’d successfully tamed the cat, it’s already, willing to, establish that relationship with humans in life and emotionally, and don’t put your true heart into it too, believing, that you had, tamed, and acclimated to one another. Don’t forget what the Fox told Le Petit Prince that’s most important, “You must always take responsible, for the ones you’d managed to tame forever!”

just observing everything else that’s going on around their environment here, NOT my photograph…

So, this, is on how to establish trust with a stray animal, and cats take longer to “tame” (are they really, tamed???) than dogs, because of the differences in their nature, but, just like this writer had stated, you needed to be patient, when taming an animal, because trust is so hard to establish, especially when the animal’s been betrayed from before, and this can be applied to human relationships as well.