for your approach to cats ...

 - I2I - beta - meow
Tips, see Thursday 014 & misc list 088

Well, I can actually ask the same this week: did you read the whole thing and if you use any of them, did you see any change at all?

Since as I was writing this with my cat on my side, I might want to give some hints on how to approach them or even any other wild animals. It might work and it might not but I since they work for me with my cats and even the strays (my friends even call me the cat whisperer), you might be able to get the same results as mine. Here we go ...:

#040: look at me!

Learning of this fact just in the recent few years, I began to have eye to eye contact between me and the cat in question in order to see if it is docile enough for me to approach or just too scared of human overall to allow me to even take a step closer. When you've done these many times already, you can already tell by the expression it wears on its face, how big its eyes are looking back at you and its stance, whether in cautious mode ready to flee quickly or in that relax prone position. The quickest way to tell is if you're looking to its eyes directly, try to blink once in awhile without breaking eye contact and see if it blinked back to you. I can guarantee you if it did that it does not sees you as a threat and wouldn't mind you getting closer. Just be timid, don't move too fast or you'll scare it away!

#041: be as less intimidating as possible

Okay, here is something that might escape you if you're not paying enough attention. Consider this: you're just like an animals (albeit a hairless one that wear strange clothes) to other animals and in nature size and behaviours depicts at first impression who is potentially hostile or not. Since we are mostly bigger than any critter you came across in your daily life, you might want to alter how you look to them, by maybe turning your body to the sides and not look directly at them if they're not returning your gaze back.If they don't run away right away, try to approach by still keeping your body position, leading by your shoulder step by step and see their reactions. I'm using cats as an example since I come across them the most and my defining moment every time with them is when I raised my hand towards them with the palm down, letting them the opportunity to smell me and judge me as friendly or not. They tend to sniff a lot especially if they're not familiar with you so give them the opportunity to do so.

#042: meow to meow

Oh, I didn't mention the most critical thing you have to do every time when you approach cats: grab their attention by meowing to them. They actually communicate with each other without using any meow at all, just physical interaction and knowing looks, and smelling each other (except for the loud meow when the males are about to get into a fight for example). Meow is only used by them to grab our attention and since they have been besides us for hundreds if not thousands of years already, it has been ingrained in their DNA and in their subconscious minds to use it whenever they want to interact with us. If you initiate the meow first though and the cat responded, you'll know if you've done enough before which ones are just passive meows and which one are annoyed ones or curious ones. Practice makes perfect for this point and the aforementioned ones as well, but the no pain no gain, right?

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Well, that's all folks! Thank you for your time and please do come back for my future posts! :-)