Introducing a new cat to your resident cat
Cats are not small dogs, and cat introductions are not dog introductions. A cat brought into a home is being asked to enter a territory another cat already considers entirely…
Cat Behavior · 11 guides
Cat behavior & training
Cats are not small dogs. These guides are written with cat brains in mind — gentle, science-based, and built around how cats actually learn.
Introductions & first weeks
Introducing a cat to a dog
If your home already has a dog and you're adding a cat, the playbook is essentially the dog-to-cat introduction in reverse. The cat is the slower animal here and sets the…
Cats and children
Cats are not small dogs. Their tolerance for being handled, held, carried, and squished is usually much lower than a dog's. They show stress quietly — for a long time — and then…
Common challenges
Litter box problems & urine marking
When a cat stops using the litter box, the human jump to 'they're mad at me' or 'they're doing it on purpose' is almost always wrong. Cats don't do anything 'out of spite.' They…
Redirecting scratching to appropriate surfaces
Scratching is not a behavior problem. It's a fundamental cat behavior — for nail health, for stretching shoulder and back muscles, for marking territory (paws have scent glands),…
Cat aggression toward people or other cats
Cats can absolutely be aggressive — and almost always it's communication, not pathology. The kinds of aggression we see most:
Rough kitten play and bitey kittens
Kittens between roughly 8 and 16 weeks are little hunting practice machines. Their job, evolutionarily, is to wrestle, pounce, stalk, and bite — that's how they learn the skills…
Anxiety & fear
Shy, fearful, hiding cats — and decompression
Cats are wired to hide when they're scared. From a cat's perspective, a brand-new home is a brand-new territory full of new smells, new sounds, new humans, and possibly new other…
Daily life & enrichment
Cat enrichment, play, and vertical space
Indoor cats live longer and safer lives than outdoor cats — but only if we give them an environment that meets their hunting, climbing, scratching, and ambushing brain. A bored…
Managing multi-cat dynamics
Cats are not group-living animals the way dogs are. They tolerate each other — sometimes deeply love each other — but they need enough resources and enough space to never feel…
Reading cat body language
Cats are constantly communicating. They are just much quieter about it than dogs. Once you learn the basics, every cat you meet becomes a much more readable creature, and your…
