APPROACHING STRAY CATS
The key to approaching all cats and dogs, regardless whether they are strays or not, is to treat them like you will treat any other human being, with respect. Respect can come in many forms - respecting their physical private space, respecting their social comfort zone and respecting their own characteristics and behaviour.
To put it simply, like humans, cats and dogs have their own level of comfort around others. To approach them, you must understand their characteristics and behaviour, which us why Part 1 of this series is introducing the different groups of community cats.
I have mainly adapted my points from the below poster:
Below are some tips that I find useful when I approach community cats that I have never interacted with before. I believe these tips are fairly universal and can be applied to approaching stray dogs and other pets.
(1) Recognising their boundaries
Every cats and dog has their own personal comfort zone. Once you enter it's comfort zone, they will feel that you are infringing their personal space and security and their limbic system will kick in - meaning that they will either choose to launch an attack or flee.
Recognising that each stray cat and dog has different level of comfort around people is the first step to successfully approaching a community cat or stray dog. But this also means recognising that some cats and dogs find it hard for people to approach them and there are times when it will take a long time before you will be able to approach a cat or a dog and successfully pet it. It also means recognising that you might never ever fully gain full confidence from a stray cat or dog.
The key to approaching all cats and dogs, regardless whether they are strays or not, is to treat them like you will treat any other human being, with respect. Respect can come in many forms - respecting their physical private space, respecting their social comfort zone and respecting their own characteristics and behaviour.
To put it simply, like humans, cats and dogs have their own level of comfort around others. To approach them, you must understand their characteristics and behaviour, which us why Part 1 of this series is introducing the different groups of community cats.
I have mainly adapted my points from the below poster:
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| (Photo Credits: Sophia Yin Blog) |
(1) Recognising their boundaries
Every cats and dog has their own personal comfort zone. Once you enter it's comfort zone, they will feel that you are infringing their personal space and security and their limbic system will kick in - meaning that they will either choose to launch an attack or flee.
Recognising that each stray cat and dog has different level of comfort around people is the first step to successfully approaching a community cat or stray dog. But this also means recognising that some cats and dogs find it hard for people to approach them and there are times when it will take a long time before you will be able to approach a cat or a dog and successfully pet it. It also means recognising that you might never ever fully gain full confidence from a stray cat or dog.
Knowing the comfort zone will allow you to build trust with the stray cat or dog too. Like humans, stray cats and dogs will start to trust you when you respect their physical and social comfort zone.
You can build this essential trust by always standing at a safe distance between the stray cat or dog and you. Let them smell you from a distance. If they don't look alarmed, then approach them slowly (more on this in the next section). This is especially so for the community cats I have categorised as "The Wild" (see Part 1) as they need more time to trust you.
(2) Approach slowly and calmly
Would you like it if a stranger runs towards you and start touching your head and your body? Definitely not! Women will start shouting "Molest!" and men will start giving punches and kicks to this rude boundaries.
However, you will most likely be cordial if a stranger approaches you slowly and calmly, looking at you from the peripheral vision (more on this later) and asking for verbal or facial recognition before proceeding to "touch" you.
Similarly, the best way to approach community cats or stray dogs will be to approach them slowly and calmly. This will not alarm them of you as a perceived threat.
(3) Using your peripheral vision
It can be a scary experience if you realise someone has been staring at you. For stray cats and dogs too, staring at them and approaching at them head-on is a very scary experience as well.
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| What a "stare" means to a dog (Photo Credits: Sophia Yin Blog) |
This is especially so if approach with your mouth wide open and your teeth showing. To the stray cats and dogs, they will treat the sight of teeth as a sign of aggression, so they might respond consequently with a bite or a scratch.
Using your peripheral vision means approaching the community cats and stray dogs sideways, and looking at them calmly from the side of you eyes. This lets the stray cats and dogs know you are interested in approaching them, but yet not making yourself seem like a major threat.
(4) Understanding body language
Unlike humans, stray cats and dogs do not use much verbal language to communicate. Hence, to understand the community cats and stray dogs requires a good grasp of what their body language means.
The poster below is a good summary of how dogs in general behave.
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| The language that never lies - body language |
Most cats behave in the same way. However, there are a few differences to how a cat behaves.
A cat that feels threatened and that is about to attack rarely "meows", like how a dog will bark. However, threatened stray cats will first move to show its whole body, then proceeds to hunching its back to increase the surface area before showing its teeth.
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| A threatened cat - look at the hunched back and open mouth showing teeth (Photo Credits: Google Images - Pet Wellbeing) |
*Some of the above tips are adapted from Sophia Yin's "How to Greet a Dog and What to Avoid".
Otherwise, you can download her eBook from by clicking here.
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