Jeannette's story
I grew up in a house where there were lots of animals: gerbils, hamsters, terrapins, tortoises, rabbit, dog, birds – lots of different birds because my father was known by the RSPCA for caring for birds that had been injured. My first encounter with a cat wasn’t the best of starts. My memory is that I was about 5 years old, playing in the garden with a visiting cat, trailing a piece of string after me and then the cat wrapped its claws around my ankle. I ran screaming inside the house and my sister, a trainee nurse, then applied iodine – that part I remember very clearly.
Many years on and I adopted my first cat, Maisie. She was about 6 months old and she was with me for 16 years and brought real joy to my life. I then went house-sitting, caring for other people’s pets, mainly cats and mostly happy, ‘normal’ cats. Some cats though obviously had some issues and these stood out for me:
These experiences made me want to understand more about the cat’s motivations and triggers for behaving in this way. My first course was ‘Cat Psychology and Training’ which was a good introduction. After that I knew I wanted to study cat behaviour in far more depth and use this knowledge to help resolve cat behavioural problems and also help people better understand their cats’ needs.
I selected the Advanced Diploma of Feline Behavioural Management (ADFBM) as a programme of study that provided comprehensive coverage of what influences behaviour and behavioural changes. Topics included:
Many years on and I adopted my first cat, Maisie. She was about 6 months old and she was with me for 16 years and brought real joy to my life. I then went house-sitting, caring for other people’s pets, mainly cats and mostly happy, ‘normal’ cats. Some cats though obviously had some issues and these stood out for me:
- Tortoiseshell sisters, adorable separately but when together one attacked and dominated the other horribly. The one attacking seemed overly territorial and the other was so stressed that she had licked her fur from one side of her body. I’d never seen a bald cat before. This was a long house-sit and by the time the owners returned home, their cat had a full body of fur and both cats could be in the same room without fighting which was such a rewarding experience.
- Another cat toileted around the house, including urinating on the kitchen countertop and in the shower (she turned out to have a medical condition as well as marking her territory due to serious anxiety).
- A cat with idiopathic cystitis due to underlying stress.
- Another cat would grab my ankles as I went up the stairs; also attacked my feet from under the bed (normal stalking behaviour but not for use on humans!).
These experiences made me want to understand more about the cat’s motivations and triggers for behaving in this way. My first course was ‘Cat Psychology and Training’ which was a good introduction. After that I knew I wanted to study cat behaviour in far more depth and use this knowledge to help resolve cat behavioural problems and also help people better understand their cats’ needs.
I selected the Advanced Diploma of Feline Behavioural Management (ADFBM) as a programme of study that provided comprehensive coverage of what influences behaviour and behavioural changes. Topics included:
- History of the cat’s journey to domestication.
- Genetics and typical breed characteristics.
- The early years, kitten development and learning theories.
- Internal influences such as the structure and functions of the mammalian brain, the brain’s chemistry and the physiological mechanisms that interact to influence behaviour.
- External influences (which are many!).
- Pharmacology (this topic was studied in order to understand the effects that some drugs have on behaviour, not to prescribe them which is entirely the domain of the veterinarian).
- Factors affecting the human-cat relationship.
- Behavioural diagnostics and the systematic methodology for assessing the motivations for cats exhibiting particular behaviours.
- Small research project plus 10 case studies (as part of the final module for examination).