How to Get Your Cat to Do What You Want - Softcover

Eckstein, Warren; Eckstein, Fay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0449912280 ISBN 13: 9780449912287

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1996

Synopsis

"A practical, down-to-earth guide...Well organized and easy to read and to understand."

CAT FANCY

World-renowed pet behaviorist Warren Eckstein shows you how to walk with your cat, make it come when called, play for hours without ruining your plants and furniture, and more, in this warm, readable guide for feline lovers everywhere. Here are on-the-mark observations, wonderful insights, and step-by-step advice for: Alleviating kitty stress and nervousness; Coping with feline old age; Exercising your beloved mouser, and much more. Plus: diet, grooming, and dentistry tips.

About this title

About the Author:

Warren Eckstein is a noted pet psychologist and has worked with the animals of such celebrities as David Letterman, Cheryl Tiegs, and Lily Tomlin. He has his own nationally syndicated radio show telling owners how to best treat their pets. Warren and his co-author and wife, Andrea Eckstein, live on Long Island, New York, with their dogs, cats, pigs, and birds.

Fay Eckstein was the co-author, with her husband, Warren Eckstein, of How to Get Your Cat to Do What You Want and other books on pet behavior. She and Warren worked with pets and their owners for more than twenty years. Fay died in 1990.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

INTRODUCTION
 
To own a cat is to understand the concept of living with a being of higher intelligence. Not amused by telephones, bills, and the mundaneness of everyday life, cats spend their entire day deciding on ways to improve their living conditions.
 
People don’t choose cats, cats choose the people with whom they wish to live. When I hear someone say, “I hate cats,” I don’t frown or view them with disdain. I simply recognize that they haven’t had the opportunity to be accepted and owned by a cat.
 
And how do you know when you’ve been picked to be owned by a cat? That’s easy. He tells you.
 
My cat Mowdy certainly did. In fact, Mowdy added a new dimension to the art of conversation. He showed me that a little simple conversation wasn’t enough. You see, cats have the capacity for well-thought-out discussions (and actions)—they just pick and choose on whom they want to use it. They outsmart us all the time.
 
Because I appear frequently on television and radio, manufacturers constantly send me the latest toys and gourmet foods for pets, hoping that after I try them out on my four-legged menagerie, I might mention them during one of my media appearances. So even though Mowdy had thirty thousand other people in my town to choose from, he knew that moving into my house was like moving into Kitty Disney World.
 
And that’s what he decided to do—move in. One day, popping up out of nowhere, Mowdy simply strolled into my life. Well, he didn’t actually stroll in—what he did was fuss and scream, so much so that he didn’t give me much of a chance to decline his decision to relocate. I have an office in my house and Mowdy, who was unnamed and homeless at the time, positioned himself ever so cleverly atop my neighbor’s car—which has a bird’s-eye view through my office window—putting him in the perfect place to stare me down while I was on the phone. Mowdy looked me square in the eyes and started meowing. Not just any type of meow, mind you—but short ones, long ones, and many of different octave ranges. I’m sure some of his vocalizations were clearly audible to the entire neighborhood—if not the entire eastern seaboard. It was clear that Mowdy was carrying on a full-length conversation with me. I could hear it in his voice, and I could certainly see it on his face.
 
I’m embarrassed to say that I did not take Mowdy too seriously. I was already the proud owner of too many pets. As a matter of fact, I had recently gone into debt to buy a second home, a farm in upstate New York, not for me but for my pets; my animals needed a country home. There’s only so much time you can hide a pet pig who weighs over one thousand pounds in a residential Long Island neighborhood. Sure, at first I passed him off as a very rare breed of dog. But it was easy then because he was small and I had taught him, like all my pets, to walk on a leash and harness. But with a pig there comes a point where you just can’t fool people anymore. So I packed up my favorite little porker, whose name was Spotty, twenty-two rabbits, my ducks and chickens (all of whom have names and are pets), the various assorted abandoned dogs and cats I had taken in from the streets, and off we went to find them a new home of their own.
 
But it wasn’t just our overcrowded feeling that caused me to ignore the talking feline. I assumed Mowdy had to be owned by someone in the neighborhood. He looked well fed, had a glossy coat, and seemed to be in tip-top physical condition. So because Mowdy didn’t look needy—and because there comes a point in even the most caring animal lover’s life when you just have to say “I have enough pets”—I tried to ignore him. But, the operative word here is tried—for there was no ignoring Mowdy. When I paid no further attention to him, he shifted gears and attacked my front door. It was as if Rambo had been giving this cat private lessons. Mowdy figured out a way to unclip the screen from the door, then managed to jump in, dumping himself between the screen door and the front door. Of course, he was stuck—or so he pretended. Personally, I don’t think this particular kitty could ever get himself into anything he couldn’t figure his way out of. But ear-shattering meows were now echoing through the entire house. Then the meows became screams. I ran to the door fully expecting to see some sort of catastrophe. But the very instant I opened the main door, plop!—Mowdy landed on his feet in the most regal manner and simply strolled into the living room. His mission was accomplished.
 
He had tried to tell me but I, being less intelligent, hadn’t listened. So he had showed me. He had gotten me to do what he wanted.
 
I firmly believe that your cat is a member of your family. If you keep that in mind, if you truly feel it, your cat will act like one. That’s one of the basic premises of this book. It’s the best way I know to get your cat to do what you want.
 
Okay. Once you accept that premise, we’ve got to decide exactly how to treat the new family member.
 
It’s really fairly simple—and the rest of this book is devoted to telling you just this: If you treat your cat with love, if you treat your cat with respect, if you treat your cat as if he or she is an intelligent, thinking animal, capable of making decisions, your cat will respond in positive, astonishing ways.
 
Can you talk to your cat and have her talk back to you? Yes. Can you get your cat to sit and stay and come and do other things that are normally considered impossible for a cat to do? Absolutely.
 
But first you’ve got to understand not only that a cat thinks, but how and what he or she thinks.
 
Then—and only then—will you be able to get your cat to do what you want.
 
And you know what? By the time you reach that point, your kitty is going to want to do the same things you want him or her to do. Not 100% of the time, of course. Nobody’s perfect. But remember: part of the joy of having a cat is the joy of being around a freethinker. We don’t want to turn Kitty into a robot, just into an intelligent and loving member of the family.
 

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0449912280
• ISBN 13: 9780449912287
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240