Encouraging Affection

[Letta]

Hi,
Ok this might seem like a silly post but I was wondering if they was a way I could encourage the affection of my cat. She is an 11month old female kitten (that I have since 10 weeks old and neutered). I love her dearly and we are quite bonded. I try to provide for all her needs: she has many window perches, cat tree, toys (tons), food puzzles, cat videos, quality food, cat fountains, tunnels, cat cave ect... We play a LOT (like at least 2 hours a day). And she bonded to me: she always welcomes me when I come home, when she is stressed she comes to seek me, she always ask for my attention, she wants to play a lot with me, wants to explore with me ect...However she is not very cuddly, and I made my peace with that and love her just the way she is. But the other night my bf noted that I always interacted with her through play and that maybe I never taught her how to interact differently with me. And I realized there might be a bit in truth with that, I was always afraid of losing her affection and was always afraid that she might feel like I did not respect when she wanted me to stop petting and so would stop as soon as her tail would be starting to move. She wanted to play so I played with her but she was not seeking as much petting so I did it way less. Do you think that maybe that can be partially the reason why she shows me her affection differently? Can I teach her that this is another way I show her how much I love her? Or do you think it's just who she is? Or her age? Or a bit of all above?
Sorry to bother you

 

[danteshuman]

You have a teen cat, who just wants to play. You can do what I did with my hyper punk when he was a kitten, mix affection in with the play. A minute or less of petting & back to play. She should calm down in the next year or so. I also had a 15 minute rule with my boys. If they got on my lap, I gave them at least 15 minutes before getting up. Also my punk/bud didn't want to be petted while on my lap; so I respected his space & let him set the tone. I still let him set the tone as far as petting goes. My hyper punk? A total lap cat that has a daily cuddle schedule

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Yeah, she's about the equivalent of a 13 year old girl, so she's gonna be a bit of a punk for a little while. And for the record, you did just right by quitting petting when that tail started going. Cats are, at all ages, little energy sponges, and they can over-amp in a hurry. Now, if you confine your petting to the head, down to the shoulders, they can tolerate that MUCH better! It is when you move onto the actual back that you get into issues.

So, yes, a bit of all of the above. She'll settle down in a very few months, and you'll probably get a lot more affection from her. Hang in there!

 

[ArtNJ]

The other thing is that while you can't train cats to like petting directly, you can find the situations where they want to be petted, like when tired, or on a certain dresser, and if you let the cat tell you when and where, they gradually add more spots. By contrast, put a cat on your lap, forcefully hold it there while it squirms, and you'll never have any success. Its like you have to let them train you, rather than trying to train the cat.

Let me give you can example. Rocky is around 7 or 8, and at this point she isn't too fussy about when and where, but she used to be. Somehow, somewhere along the way, she decided she liked crawling on our chests when we were lying flat on the bed. Now that I have started running again, and now that she is a lot less fussy about when and where, when I lay on the floor to stretch...she senses it no matter where I am and comes over to get on me, lol. Thats a pretty small expansion granted, just picked that one because its silly, but you get the idea -- let the cat select the when and where, go with that, and it will expand over time.

 

[Letta]

Thank you all for your answers. I sometimes feel a bit rejected when she does not want to cuddle for many days in a row. My childhood cat was very cuddly and she is not. I learned to love her just the way she is but sometimes I still feel a bit sad. I struggle with depression and eating disorders for so long now. And sometimes when I am feeling bad, I just want to seek physical affection from her. And it's hard when she does not want to to not feel rejected when you love her so much. But I love her enough to accept it and still love her. It just sucks. I hope you are right guys and that it's just a question of age and time.

 

[bluebirdy]

I adopted two kittens 10 months ago. They turned a year old in September. I had fostered their entire litter so I chose two kittens from a litter of six. The first was chosen because she was so playful and fun (and honestly gorgeous). The other was chosen because he was the most cuddly of the set (see picture). Lillie (our playful cat) enjoyed crawling into bed for pats most mornings, but has never tolerated being held. Mostly I would lie down on the floor, and give her pats there which she enjoyed and would flop over whenever she saw me for affection. In the last two months (since turning a year old) she has started to crawl into my lap some evenings for a patting fests, with each session gradually increasing in time too. I never thought she would be cuddly but she has been surprising me in a fantastic way. In contrast, Meow Meow has always been a cuddly cat, but he's become even more of a bunting, lap cat as well. Now that they're past that year mark they sometimes pick laps over play.

The only thing I did ever did was desensitize her to my and my son's lap by putting treats on on leg then another, one shoulder, my stomach etc. We played this game for a few weeks with her getting used to crawling all over us. I don't know if that made a difference but it was fun any way .