Mary Allen
In the study, 1,853 cat owners were asked about the cat personality of their pets. The velvet-pawed study participants included both domestic and pedigree cats, kittens from shelters, outdoor cats, and indoor cats. Kittens that had spent the first eight weeks of their lives in the wild and hand-reared orphan kittens were also included.
Childhood Crucial to Feline Personality
The first eight weeks of a cat’s life are apparently particularly important when it comes to whether they will later be bold and trusting or shy and nervous. So a cat’s personality depends in large part on how the animal was raised and what experiences it had as a baby. This does not mean that its development is finally over after eight weeks. Even after that, a cat can still learn to overcome its shyness or, conversely, become more anxious due to bad experiences.
The essential character traits of the cat’s personality are nevertheless shaped in this first phase of life. A cat raised in the wild with no human contact will continue to be more suspicious and shy of humans than a human-reared kitten. Even animal shelter cats that have had bad experiences are usually shyer than their peers from breeders or private individuals. On the other hand, bottle kittens are more affectionate and “talkative” as adults than kittens who were raised by their cat mom. They also need more attention. Cats that have not had human children around for the first eight weeks of life do not get along well with children later on.
Genes Also Play a Role
However, not everything is a question of “early childhood” imprinting, certain predispositions of the cat’s personality are determined by genes. The study found that the kitten’s friendly, trusting tomcats were also more likely to be friendly and trusting. The offspring of reserved, shy cats, on the other hand, also developed into rather shy cats.
The cat father usually stays out of the cat education of his babies and goes his own way. That said, if the tomcat has any influence on his kittens’ feline personality, it’s most likely genetic. In the case of the mother cat, it is difficult to distinguish to what extent the kittens have inherited certain genes from her or copied something from her behavior.