My Cat’s Quirks: 15 Odd Ways Avery’s Personality Shines Through

I’m convinced that a huge reason why cats feel so much like people to those of us who live with them – it’s their quirks.

Cats do behave similarly, it’s true. They all seem to like roughly the same things: cardboard boxes, bags, crinkly things like paper. They enjoy knocking things over, they hate when doors are closed off – things like that, though the list feels like it could go on forever!

But besides those common-to-all-cat behaviours, there are many individual quirks that each cat seems to display him or herself. It’s these odd habits and behviours that are very different from one cat to the next that I think makes us really love our cats and feel like each and every kitty is completely unique from the next.

I’m going to try to address some of the kitty quirks my Avery has here, and I’d really appreciate it if you shared with me some of your cats’ quirks in the comments.

Picture from post Backlogged

15 Ways Avery’s Personality Shines Through His Odd, Quirky Behaviours

1. Avery rarely ever has his tail still. Unless he’s completely asleep. Very uncommon for a cat! While most cats I’ve seen will show their displeasure or anxiety through moving/wagging their tail, with Avery, if it’s not moving, he’s not as relaxed as he could be.
2. Avery’s pretty much a lap cat – with one caveat: he hates it when you move. So if you sit with him in your lap for 20 minutes without moving an inch, he’ll very happily keep sitting in your lap with you, but once you shift, he’ll open his eyes from his nap, give you a second to adjust, but if you keep moving, he’s off! Definitely likes what he’s sitting/sleeping on not to move too much. I think maybe because he’s a large cat, and shifts he can feel very easily.
3. Most annoying quirk ever: sometimes Avery wants to play and so will whine and whine, chase after me, hit my pant to show his interest, and then whine some more. Then when I go to play with him, he’ll be completely disinterested and not play. I mean this, I’ll attempt to engage him for around 20 minutes and he’ll not do a thing besides watch me. And then when I stop, he’ll whine for me to come back and play again.
4. This and other things led me to conclude that Avery’s idea of playing actually seems to be watching something rather than engaging (yet again, very annoying). Going in line with this point, I recently bought the Petsafe Frolicat Bolt (finally got a review out here). At times when he starts whining for me to play, I’ll turn it on, but he will barely engage. After some time, it turns itself off, and he’ll whine at me again, though yet again when I turn it on for him he barely (I mean 1-2 swipes in around 10-20 minutes) plays at all. Which is a huge part in what led me to my theory that he prefers to watch and stalk with his eyes than actually play. Strange one he is! (Or lazy, really!).
5. The most patient cat award should definitely go to Avery. We normally make him jump to get a bit of kibble from the bed to the dresser to the bed again (etc.) before he’s fed his full meal. In the past year he’s begun every once in a while to literally stop chasing the cat food to see if he can wait me out, hoping I’ll just give up on him and pour the cat food into his Catit Food Maze (review). Of course, I don’t give in and usually put away the cat food until he comes back and meows at me, ready to continue his exercise session, but 100% sneakster this one is.
6. Oh and, he knows that if he meows next to my closet door, I’ll open it so he can takes naps in it. But to get my attention (say yet again that he wants to play, but I’ve tried and given up since he’s not engaging) – he’ll meow at the closet, wait until I go to open it, then dash back to the carpet to show me he wasn’t after the closet at all – just wanted me to get up to play. Yes, cats really are very clever, and they probably understand human psychology better than we do 😉
7. Avery probably deserves a master’s degree in human psychology, actually. He’s changed many of his behaviours over the years to elicit the kind of reactions he wants out of us. It started with his meow. When we first met him (he was a stray we found), his meow was a little more raspy and low pitched, but he quickly discovered that when he meowed a little more high pitched and cute, we found it just that much more difficult to say no to him. So now he has probably the most adorable meow I’ve ever heard. Recently, he’s discovered that meowing relentlessly gets him nowhere, but if he meows once or twice to get our attention, and we turn around (initially a bit annoyed considering it’s often when we’re busy) and discover him lying on his back with his arms outstretched (in the position of the picture above) we just can’t resist fawning over him, coming over and giving him a cuddle or two, or even going so far as to pick him up and putting him in our laps. So there’s that… (I swear we don’t neglect our cat, he just likes attention A LOT).
8. Speaking of which, Avery mostly only wants your attention when he hasn’t got it. When he does have it, he’s a little indifferent to it, unless he specifically wants cuddles. Meowing until he’s got your attention, and then not wanting anything in particular, not cuddles, not playtime, not anything really, it is a complete norm for him.
9. Lately he’s discovered that cuddles while lying in the sun is probably his favourite thing on earth. So he’ll lie flopped over in the sun happily, then meow and meow until one of us comes to pet him. If we stop and leave, however (we do have things to do, after all we work from home!), he’ll quite annoyed meow again so that we come back to give him yet another stroke & cuddle.
10. Avery likes carpets on carpets. Or rugs on rugs. He’s also a fan of sitting down on pieces of paper. Or digging in mail envelopes and then sitting on them. It makes no sense, and I’m guessing this is a normal cat thing, but maybe not to the extent that Avery’s passion goes. Sitting in and on things is more entertaining for him than playtime. By a lot.
11. Whenever my husband or I have a nap, there’s around a 95% chance that Avery will leave wherever he is and come to the bed to nap with us. The exception being if he’s full on asleep in the closet.
12. Avery has to go look out the window before we go to bed. I used to joke that he was “keeping a look out to make sure we were safe.” Back when Thomas and I were living at my grandmother’s house, he’d hop onto the window, beat out a rhythm with his tail for around 10 minutes, then finally settle in to bed with us. If we got up to do something and hopped back into bed, he’d do his window routine all over again.
13. Avery specifically likes to be cuddled in the morning, and will often whine without really knowing what he wants until he’s picked up and cuddled for a good chunk of time.
14. Ever since Avery was a kitten, not only did he not like the door to the bathroom closed (he’d meow relentlessly behind it until we opened it a little), but if it was always left a smidgen open, he’d find his way in and keep us company while we were in the loo. Then at the sound of a flush, he’d dart back out, knowing we’d be out soon after we washed our hands.
15. In general, Avery hates being alone. If Thomas is in the kitchen with the door closed and I go to the washroom and close the door behind me, he’ll meow at one of our doors until we open. This is true even if he was happily napping away previous to us temporarily disappearing.

Bonus 10/14/2018: Recently, Avery has developed a taste for “fresh” food; thing is he’s come to associate the taste of fresh food with the sound of a jar opening, so if you open a jar, even if you pour nothing into his feeder, he’ll start munching away at the kibble like it’s just come straight out of the bag.

Picture from post Can I have some attention please?

What About Your Cats’ Quirks?

Do any of your cats have some of the same quirks as Avery?

What are some of your cats’ other quirks?

Don’t you just love how each and every cat is so unique? I love learning how different they all behave from one another. Definitely people-like!