#cats

‘The Trainable Cat’ by John Bradshaw and Sarah Ellis

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There is such a thing as cat whispering and it’s really not that difficult. This new book by self-proclaimed cat enthusiasts John Bradshaw and Sarah Ellis outlines simple ways that owners can make life happier for themselves and their furry four-legged friends.

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There are two kinds of people in this world, those who love cats, and those who are wrong. Or, if you want me to be a little less biased, cat people and dog people – no prizes for guessing which category yours truly falls into. One of the biggest gripes dog people seem to have with cats is their brazen ‘up yours’ attitude to anything and everything. A cat will do as it pleases, when it pleases, and there is little if anything you can do to stop them. Dogs are trainable, dogs are reliable, cats, on the other hand, are a law unto themselves.

While the idea of a trained cat might seem contradictory, in ‘The Trainable Cat’, authors John Bradshaw and Sarah Ellis show that stress-induced behaviour in cats, such as shredding furniture and fighting against vet visits, can be prevented, making life happier and healthier for cats and owners alike. Your cat is just as intelligent as the dog next door, and far from being untrainable and ignorant, is continually learning and adjusting its behaviour to outside stimuli. You may assume that when your cat jumps up onto the work surface for the fourth time while you are baking, it is deliberately ignoring your pleas for peace, but have you ever stopped to consider that your response to the cat is actually encouraging it?

Starting from the basics, Bradshaw and Ellis delve into the inner workings of the feline mind, to uncover how and why cats learn the way they do, and what cat owners can do to make training easy for the cat and themselves. Cats have excellent memories, they say, and are therefore perfectly suited to training, but are rather different to dogs and thus have their own specific requirements. Through multiple enlightening and often humorous scenarios, Bradshaw and Ellis lay out different training approaches and programmes that can be used to teach cats by rewarding good behaviour while limiting the less appealing sides of a cat’s psyche – including those that result claw-marked furniture and bloody corpses.

Think you can’t train a cat? Think again! The video below shows one of my own beloved moggies playing fetch cat-sized stick (aka hairpin). A bit of positive reinforcement in the form of delicious cat snacks goes a long way.

This book isn’t just a training manual, though. As well as offering advice for the cat lover who wants to ensure they are getting the most out of their relationship with their humble friend, it’s also packed full of awesome cat-related general knowledge titbits. The geek within me revelled in the discovery that the reason one of my cats sometimes sits with her mouth gormlessly hanging open is because she has smelled something interesting and is literally ‘tasting’ the air. The fact that cats like to seek out tiny spaces to hide is because, as retractably clawed animals, they are unable to dig and so, in the wild, would have had to seek out natural crevices to protect themselves from predators.

This book delivers on random information, psychological insight, scientific analysis and all-round cuteness, securing it a high position on my list of favourite books reviewed for E&T so far. I can’t confirm as yet whether Bradshaw and Ellis’s advice has in fact made life happier for me and my cats, but it has certainly given me a better understanding of crazy and endearing things they do. Whether you want to train your cat, are interested in the inner workings of the feline mind, or are a hard-core ‘dog person’ in need of a ‘reality check’, this book is guaranteed to make you think, smile and truly appreciate the unique personalities of these complex creatures.

This review was first published online for E&T magazine

The Guest Cat – Takashi Hiraide

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“What greater gift than the love of a cat.” ― Charles Dickens
One shining, sunny afternoon, slipping through a crack in the open door, four bright white feet stepped softly onto the room’s insulated drain board, and with a well-honed curiosity rushing through her entire body, Chibi quietly surveyed its meagre interior.

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A married couple in their mid-thirties live a solitary life in urban Tokyo, in a small rented guesthouse on the border of an estate owned by an elderly woman and her ageing husband. Both husband and wife work from home, freelance copy-editing, writing, and proofreading from their solitary desks – it has been a long time since either one has had very much to say to the other.

Late in the autumn of 1988 a small cat, tamed by a young boy who lives next door, invites itself into their humble kitchen and begins to explore its surroundings. The cat becomes a regular feature in the couple’s home, and brings warmth and love into their lives. As the cat comes and goes, seemingly set in her routine, the couple begin to talk about her, to anticipate her arrival and share stories about her. The arrival of the guest cat opens a door which had seemed closed forever.

In his New York Times Bestseller, Japanese poet Takashi Hiraide eloquently explores the remarkable bond between man and cat. When the guest cat enters the couple’s house, she brings with her a feeling of hope; suddenly life seems to hold more promise for the husband and wife, and their days are filled with a new kind of meaning.

It is not out of preference that I use the word fate – or should say, Fortuna – but as the young cat’s visits became more frequent, I came to feel that there were some things only this word could express.

I have been told that cats emit a certain type of pheromone which makes them more attractive to the people they are around. This, some say, is why so many people do not realise how much they love cats until they have one of their own. The husband, whose voice the novella is written in, describes himself and his wife as neither having a particular liking for cats. But this all changes when the guest cat first sets foot into their kitchen.

There’s a photographer who says cat lovers always believe their own cat is better looking than anyone else’s. According to her, they’ve all got blinders on. She also says that, though she too is a major cat lover, having noticed this fact means that she is now hated by all cat lovers, and so these days only takes pictures of scruffy-looking strays.

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It is almost as though the cat fills the empty space between the man and his wife, a space perhaps reserved for a child. I imagine that the cat’s name, Chibi, which we are told means ‘little one’, alludes to her importance to the man and his wife. She is so much more than just a cat to the couple; she is a friend, a companion, something which gives their life meaning. With Chibi in their lives, the house, the garden, the zolkova tree and even the dark ‘lightening alley’ all have more light and colour. Everything brims with a new beauty created by the smallest of pleasures – watching the cat play with a ball, or hearing the gentle tinkling of her collar.

I was bought the guest cat by my father-in-law this past Christmas; he has clearly noticed that my two favourite things in life are books and cats. There was no doubt in my mind that I would enjoy the book –  my father-in-law is an excellent judge of reading material – but I didn’t anticipate just how much pleasure I would take from such a short piece of writing. The book is gentle, and beautiful, simply brimming with imagery and poetics. In just 140 pages Hiraide manages to speak volumes about the complexities of life and the existence of joy in the most unlikely places.

The writing has a stunning eloquence that fans of Japanese literature will admire. There is something I find so appealing about Japanese translations; the words seem to possess a unique flow, a beauty completely their own. The translated words stream effortlessly across the page, swirling into stunning imagery and deeply profound passages of thought, the result of which is a rare and wonderful treasure of a novella.

Needless to say, I would recommend this book. It is gentle and poetic, yet captivating enough to read in a single setting. This one is not just for cat lovers.