THE PERSONALITIES OF CATS

by Joelle Steele

Some people think that cats are lacking in unique character traits. Obviously, they've never known very many cats, or they would have seen the extreme variations in the feline personality. I grew up with cats and as an adult I've had 18 cats. I've also known a lot of cats, and I've never found any of my cats or those I've met to have the same personality type. They are all so distinctly different.

My first cat was Candy. I got her when I was 8 years old. Candy was feisty and territorial. She was a good hunter, and she could intimidate the biggest, baddest cat in the neighborhood, because she was even bigger and badder than they were, at least in her own mind. She routinely drove them out of her yard with nothing more than a well-uttered hiss. But, she was always very affectionate and loyal – to me. I could put clothes on her, dangle her, even wrap her around my neck like a scarf, and she would be fine with that. She never scratched or bit me, never growled at me, and was always very gentle with me. But she scratched the daylights out of my mother twice, and my mother doted on her. Candy was unpredictable with anyone other than me.

I adopted a young stray named Pandora. She and Candy got along pretty well. Pandora was quiet, shy, kept mostly to herself, and was cuddly and affectionate. When I moved away from home, I left Candy and Pandora with my parents. Then a few years later I adopted two kittens, Puff and Whisper. They were raised together as kittens and were always very close pals. Puff, the female, was outgoing, curious, and very playful. Puff got into everything. You couldn't leave anything out because she would find it and play with it, usually destroying it in the process. In particular, she liked a little white stuffed rabbit that someone gave me as a gift. I even hid it on the top of a closet shelf and she found it, so I finally gave in and let her have it, and she treated it like a kitten, washing it for years until there was pretty much nothing left of it. Whisper, the male, was the shyest and most gentle little cat I've ever met. He truly could not have been sweeter. He absolutely adored my mother, and she felt the same way about him. As an adult, he became friends with my parents' cat, Lucky, following him around the yard – and probably the whole neighborhood – whenever we visited my parents.

Then I adopted the great love of my life, Twinkle. I got her when she was an abandoned, 1-1/2 week-old kitten. She was the greatest cat that ever walked the earth. She was very smart and could figure out how to open things. She could do a variety of tricks – she learned very quickly – and could dance on her rear legs and play fetch and retrieve. She and Puff only moderately got along, but Whisper raised her. Twinkle was disabled, but it didn't stop her from getting whatever she wanted out of life. She believed in the saying that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and when she wanted something, she really let you know. She loved shoes, and liked to sleep on them and partially in them. My shoes, the neighbors' shoes, any shoes she could find. She also liked to curl up inside of things, including the waste basket and laundry hamper, and she liked to sleep with something soft in her mouth, usually a sock that she pulled out of the hamper.

Twinkle went on to raise three other cats and to be friends with a lot of neighbor cats. She raised Misty, Muffin, and Timmy. Misty was very pretty, sweet, and a little shy, and she died very young. Muffin was not shy, but she kept to herself a lot. She and Twinkle were very close and they were never far apart. Like Twinkle, Muffin played fetch and retrieve. Muffin was also very accurate at predicting earthquakes. She would retreat under the bed for two or three days before a quake. She was also a good watch cat. She recognized footsteps in the hallway that didn't belong, and would walk up to the front door and stand there and growl at whoever was at the door. Muffin was also very good with children, as was Timmy. He loved everyone and never met a cat he didn't like. He actually had play dates with my neighbors' cats, and if anyone had kittens, Timmy would babysit them and keep them out of making mischief. When someone knocked at my front door, Timmy would get up from wherever he was and be right there to greet my friends and clients when they arrived. Everyone I knew, knew and loved Timmy. He was very agile and could jump very high and straight up. He used to walk along a very narrow dish rail in my old apartment. He also liked to eat bugs, and so my life was always bug-free during his 19 years.

I went on to adopt two adult female strays, Izzy and Hedy. Izzy was 6 years old, assertive and wanted to rule the roost immediately. Poor Timmy! He was used to making friends immediately, and Izzy made him work at it. In the end, those two were like an old married couple, always curled up around each other on a tiny pillow. As for Izzy and Muffin, they simply gave each other a very wide berth, as they never managed to form a bond. Izzy was very social and friendly with people, and she was affectionate, but only when she wanted to be, and only with people, not with other cats except Timmy. The rest of the time she kept to herself. Unlike Timmy, Izzy was afraid of the front door, and when it was open, she hid as far away from it as possible – probably afraid she was going to get locked out and become a stray again. Hedy was 15 years old, very cuddly, and she and Muffin bonded almost immediately. They both liked to lay in a sunny window all curled up around each other. Hedy's idea of a perfect day was one where she was in my lap for as long as I could possibly remain sitting.

Puff and Whisper went on to live with my parents and then I adopted T'ai and Tansy. They were both very sweet and affectionate, were totally bonded to each other, but were opposites personality-wise. T'ai was partially blind with congenital cataracts. He was very shy, while Tansy is quite outgoing and social. T'ai liked to go outside on the back patio and also liked to be walked on a leash, very much like a dog, although he didn't like to walk on trash collection day because he got freaked out by the trash cans. Tansy would go out on the back patio on occasion, and walking her on a leash was laughable because she just never completely got it through her head that there was a human on the other end of that leash. Both of these kitties were very vocal, but T'ai was the better communicator. You could tell what he wanted. Tansy was more of whiner with no obvious reason for all the noise. T'ai was very curious and very strong. He could open the heaviest doors, including the sliding glass door which weighed a ton. He didn't mind being wet at all. He wouldl walk through a puddle or walk in the rain. Tansy didn't even like it if you touched her with a damp hand, and she ddidn't go out on the patio if the patio was wet or if it was even drizzling the slightest bit. T'ai was definitely top cat, and while he and Tansy spent all their days sleeping next to each other, playing together, etc., T'ai would not hesitate to hiss at her if she got in the way of something he was trying to do, or if he wasn't in the mood to play. Tansy wais territorial and did not like other cats to be in her yard. T'ai was curious about other cats and, with the exception of some unneutered strays that showed up occasionally, was fairly friendly to them. We had my cousin's male cat staying with us on a couple occasions, and he and T'ai got along very well.

After T'ai died of cancer, I adopted a 12 year-old calico named Callie. She was incredibly sweet. We bonded within minutes of meeting each other. She slept on my desk while I worked every day. Tansy attempted to befriend Callie, but Callie had never lived with another cat. She and Tansy never fought but they just kind of ignored each other. Unfortunately, Callie had mammary cancer and died only a year after she joined the family. I was heartbroken because she was adorable in every way.

And now it's nearing the end of 2024, and I have two male cats, probably the last cats I will ever have as I get older. Pharaoh was a 14-pound stray who I adopted in 2019 at about 1 to 1-1/2 years old. At his first vet appointment, I met Oliver, who was only about 8 weeks old, and I adopted him just a few weeks later. Pharaoh immediately bonded with Tansy and took on Oliver as his little brother. Washed him, played with him, and slept curled up around him. Pharaoh is the most easy-going cat I have ever met. He is everyone's friend. He's affectionate, cooperative, and bonded to me immediately. The very first day I brought him home he hopped up on the bed and cuddled up alongside me, motor roaring the entire time. Oliver is much smaller than Pharaoh, weighing in at only 7.5 pounds. He is extremely affectionate and is also friendly. In his world, the best place to be is in a lap. Anybody's lap. Just a lap. But he's a little on the nervous side at times and if there's anything bothering him, like an odd noise, he opens my bedroom closet door, climbs up onto one of the shelves, and sleeps on my sweaters. Pharaoh is kind of the adult cat and Oliver is always just a big kitten. Both of them were very affected by the passing ot Tansy due to kidney failure in late 2022.

As you can see, just from my own cats, no two cats are ever truly alike. They may have certain kinds of typical feline traits in common, such as curiosity and playfulness, but they also have their own preferences for how they like to spend their time and who they like and don't like. If you don't have a cat and are thinking of getting one, remember that how you raise a kitten or adult cat will only affect part of their personality, and the rest is just the unique little animal that they are inside.