Maybe you don't have a close relationship with your cat but you want to. Here's the good news:
All it takes is . . . A SMILE.
You just have to know how to smile at them and chances are, you're doing it wrong. Oops. In the cat world, smiling doesn't involve your pearly whites at all. 😀 At our house, we call it "soft eyes" and we know from our own experience with cats that it works.
The new study, "The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat-human communication," published by Scientific Reports, has shown for the first time using an eye narrowing technique with felines helps build your relationship. Simply slow blinking at your cat sends a message to them that you are safe and can be trusted.
Here's how we learned to use the technique in our own House of Cats: On a Saturday morning in 2013, we entered a shelter to meet a cat described as "every cat in the shelter's favorite cat but scared of humans." He would become our black cat Riley's best friend in the whole world proving the "he's a cat's cat part" correct but with this little "slow blinking" trick, he became known around here as "Mama's Baby" and if you follow me on social media, you know him as Rhodey, the joy boy!
That day we met, Rhodey was TERRIFIED. He hid in a red & blue cat toy cube shaking and wide eyed. I know the volunteer was telling us all he knew about this little black furball of fear but I was only tuned into the young cat's eyes. After a few minutes of both my husband and I looking like we desperately needed to put glasses on - squinting and blinking - the tiny furball of fear BLINKED back. And that was the moment he became ours.
It took many weeks of slow blinking and slow cat introduction techniques to get Rhodey to trust us but it was all worth it.
No matter where you are at in your relationship with your cat, if you start smiling at them with your eyes, you may just end up with a "Mama's Baby" too.
Warm wishes and whisker love,
KJ
Your Kitty Correspondent
Looking for more answers on how to build your bond with your cat? Reach out to me at kj@kjmediaco.com to learn about my Kitty Konsultations.
To follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, just go to KJonair.com.
And, keep watching Pet Pals TV for more uplifting, inspirational stories about life with pets!
