Rachel came over today for Maggie's birthday party. She brought Hero, her new kitten, which is the sister of our new little Rosie kitten. Even if they didn't remember each other after their two weeks apart, we hoped they'd enjoy playing with another kitty. After all, Rosie wants so badly to play with our middle-aged cat, which will have nothing to do with her.
But Rosie has learned from Athena how to behave when there's another cat around. Hiss. Spit. Growl. And bop the interloper with your paw. So Hero was trying to be friendly and play, but Rosie would have none of it.
The moral of the story? Socialization is best accomplished by not learning bad habits from others. Hero, who lived with her family and then went to live alone with her people, knows how to be nice. Rosie had to fit into a pecking order, and learned to hit and growl.
So what do human children learn when they're thrown into a pecking order at school?
Monday, June 25, 2007
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Your kitten has also learned what territory is hers, and that the other kitten, sibling or not, on her territory! We see this with our rabbits.
ReplyDeleteWe have to keep them separated after a certain age, but when we want to breed, the female has to be brought to the male's cage, because he's more eager to see her than she is to see him, and so if he comes into her territory, she's likely to beat the snot out of him.
As far as pecking order with kids go, it is kind of scary, isn't it? We have gotten a small taste of it in our town, both in our VBS (where when we had a proponderance of school kids who didn't go to church here, they tried to bully the kids who did, last year), and in things like 4-H and Scouts. Since there is only once school, the pecking order finds its way there, too. And then they just have no clue what to do with you if you aren't in the school, so they just ignore.
That's why for these things we've often gone to a different town and to new groups that are forming and such so that this dynamic isn't there.
Okay..the other kitten IS on her territory. Grammar is a struggle today :)
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