C is for Cat. B is for Boundaries

Or, how my cat taught me about boundaries and co

Cats are a great example of a creature that clearly sets boundaries.

My cat likes being pet mostly on the head between the ears, but she will bite me if I pet her the wrong way. Though “bite” is a strong word, it’s more like a very quick nibble. Scary, but doesn’t actually leave a mark.

(She did bite harder her first year or so I think)

So, in a way, she’s trained me on her preferred way to be pet through positive reinforcement (lots of purring and closing eyes) and negative reinforcement (fast nibbling).

This is interesting to me because I’ve come w/ preconceptions like:

Don’t all cats like being pet all the time? Like on their back, too

Which my cat doesn’t like either. In fact, I gotta let her come to me if I want to pet her, lol.

Body Language

Before getting bit, there are also a lot of precursors to her biting me. These mostly involve her head jerking a little or her baring her teeth a little. Sometimes she even gets quite worked up and won’t accept any pets, even on her forehead. I feel I’m pretty good now at identifying these.

Letting Go of Petting My Cat

To properly respect my cat’s boundaries, this sometimes requires me to let go of my desire to hold her or pet her.

Sometimes I really do want to just pull her in close to me and force her to accept my love. It reminds me of that scene from Hercules:

Caption: Probably a bad idea to imitate the literal depiction of the devil.

However, I have resisted that urge so far; mostly out of love (partly out of fear).

Generalizing To People

This should work two ways, how to set your own boundaries and how to respect other’s.

Focusing on respecting other’s boundaries, cat’s can be a very easy case sinc

One barrier is role-based expectations:

- You’re a cat, you’re supposed to like pets

- You’re a girlfriend, you’re supposed to like great romantic gestures in public

- You’re a roommate, you’re supposed to clean up after yourself (lol, maybe this isn’t a boundary?)

Getting close to someone involves learning what their boundaries are and what their tells are when you’re getting close.

Another barrier is desires that contradict their boundaries, like wanting to pet a cat when they don’t want it.

I have seen other pet owners (or other people w/ my cat), just blatantly ignore their cat’s signals of discomfort. I’m sure they still love their cat and take care of it, but when it’s the cat’s desires vs theirs,

You don’t have to let go of your desire, you can force it on them if you’re more powerful than them. But if you do want to love others, it does require letting go. Relaxing.

Letting go is an extremely useful skill, which you can build in lower stake situations as well (like meditating).

It’s for Your Own Good

However, sometimes we have to violate someone’s boundaries because we know better than them. Such as taking a cat to the vet or giving your child medicine.

In the cases where this is indeed true, there’s still an extra step you can take to make it better. My cat is very food motivated, so we just feed her a fish puree thing while trimming her nails.

For kids, a common one is giving them a sucker after a doctor’s visit (though my mom would give me icecream after my shots as a kid.

This is, in a way, acknowledging that you’re doing something to them that they don’t want to happen, while trying to lessen the harm as much as possible.

Of course, justifying violating boundaries “for your own good” can go horribly wrong when there’s different definitions of “good”. The classic is parents forcing their kid to go down the career path that the parents want instead of the kid.

Well, since you’ve made it this far, here’s some more cat pics!