Things Cats Hate: What to Avoid Doing

There is one reason in particular why cats are one of the most popular pets on the planet – their huge personalities. Just like humans, cats possess complex character traits that constitute their hilarious dispositions and make their humans love them even more. But although we may find our cats reactions to their aversions amusing, your grumpy feline will think otherwise. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of stuff our cats love to hate so you can try avoid them, encouraging them to be the happiest versions of themselves possible.

Baths  

The rumors are true: cats hate baths. As fastidious creatures who spend at least five hours a day grooming and cleaning themselves, they become understandably irked when we humans throw them into the tub.

Although cat owners cannot avoid bathing our felines entirely as it is unfortunately a necessary evil, we can avoid several of the tendencies that make bathing unpleasant for our cats. Using a shampoo made for bathing cats, filling the bath up with only a few inches of water, and keeping the water temperature extremely mild are only a few things you can do to ensure bath time is a much more pleasant experience for your cat.

Related Post: Cat Shampoos for Bathing Your Feline

Car Journeys

Consider this: although you’ve surely seen plenty of images featuring pet dogs having the time of their lives hanging their heads out of a moving vehicle, have you seen any images of cats doing the same thing? If your answer is no, we can’t say we’re surprised. Cate hate car journeys. They’re prone to motion sickness and, as creatures of habit, are happiest when in their own territory surrounded by their own scent.

Therefore, don’t take a cat on a car journey unless there is no way around it. If needs must, however, you can plan ahead so your cat dislikes the car journey a little less by acquainting them with their carrier beforehand. In the upcoming weeks to your trip with your cat, we recommend feeding them around the carrier with the door open. Right before the trip, pad the bottom of the carrier with something that smells like you like a jumper or towel so your cat will feel more at ease with a scent recognizable to them. Head over to our review of cat travel carriers for more options.

Direct Eye Contact

Many humans consider direct eye contact as a meaningful display of vulnerability towards others. For cats, however, direct eye contact is a behavior considered to be threatening – a majority of wild animals only make direct eye contact with another when getting ready for a fight.

To alleviate your cat’s uneasiness, why not mimic behavior that your cat will understand as affectionate instead? For example, when a cat blinks slowly, this is their way of saying that they love you. By relaxing your face and blinking slowly in a very exaggerated manner, your cat is bound to feel that warm and tingly feeling inside that we like to call love.

Loud Noises

It’s no wonder cats are affected by loud noises such as firework displays. After all, excluding fireworks, when was the last time you heard an explosion that was a good thing? Considering that the shape of a cat’s outer ear augments the sound as that sound is passed through to the middle and inner ear combined with their hunting abilities, their bodies are programmed to detect everything that’s going on around them.

In order to protect both your cat’s eardrums and their sanity, don’t go around your home slamming doors and consider doing away with your doorbell altogether. Another trick to protect your cat from the unpleasant noise of your vacuum is to coerce them into a “safe room” with a blanket over the door to muffle the noise. And although it needn’t be said, we urge you not to put on any firework displays in your own backyard!

Picked Up for Hugs

Although cats are portrayed as not needing any attention, the majority of cat breeds actually need more undivided attention than we think. However, the type of attention they desire doesn’t come in the form of hugging. Cats really hate being picked up for a cuddle – understandably so, given that they have no control over the situation.

Therefore, if you approach your cat with a smile and your arms wide open only to find them scuttling off into a corner, consider this behavior as a sign that they’d rather be left alone than scooped up into your arms.

Scents

A cat’s enhanced scent of smell is far superior than our own. In fact, cats have a whopping forty times more odor-sensitive cells than the human nose, resulting in them relying far more on scents rather than their eyes. Cats even possess what’s known as a “second nose” referred to as the vomeronasal organ– located in the roof of their mouth, this organ picks up pheromone signatures that our plain old noses are incapable of detecting.

As a result, a cat cannot cope with even slight changes in scent around their home. What we humans deem to be pleasant smells, cats often detest. Take the smell of fruits such as lemons and oranges for example – although humans may love breathing in the fresh aromas that are included in many of our favorite cleaning products, these scents are repulsive for cats. Therefore, purchase a scent-free detergent to please your cat and leave your favorite fruity cleaner to spray on kitchen counters that you’d rather your cat didn’t venture on anyway.

While we’re on this rather smelly subject, avoid leaving your cat’s dirty litter box to clean another day – in fact, stop putting it off and do it now! Cats dislike smelly litter boxes to such an extent that they’d rather hold it in which can be fatal for their kidneys and overall health.

Finally, cats feel most comfortable when they’re in an environment that contains a few familiar scents. That’s why putting on a wash specifically for your cat when you throw all the stuff they’ve ever owned into the machine will certainly bother them, as they’ll have few things that smell familiar to them. Your feline would be much happier if you rotated cleaning their half their items one week, with the other half the next.

Learn to Cherish Our Cat’s Quirks

Reflecting upon this article, it’s quite overwhelming how many things that annoy cats exist. Nevertheless, all we can do as dedicated cat owners is treasure them as they are – quirks and all! And we bet that by switching your habits to make your animal happier, your cat will feel more and more loved every day.