Friendlier cats: Male or female?

Male

9 of 29

by Jacqueline Price

• 

Write now Print Invite a writer™ Add to Favorites RSS Feed Contact this writer

While no expert on the matter, I am one of the world's biggest cat lovers and have had a few cats as pets over the last fifty years. From my experience the male cats have tended to be friendlier than the females, but there have been exceptions to the rule.

My first cats consisted of a brother and sister who had been born in our coal bunker in our back garden in England. Fluffy, the male, was laid back and affectionate while Silky, the female, was slightly more aloof. Unfortunately, long summer vacations abroad forced us to give the cats away.

My next cat was a female Calico cat named Micia who adopted me when I was about eight years old. I passed her once a week on the way to my dreaded piano lessons and would always stop to stroke her and talk to her. She started to follow me home and after a few weeks decided she was happier with me than her original owners. After a few phonecalls back and forth between my mother and Micia's owners, it was decided that Micia could stay with us. I was overjoyed and immediately stopped piano lessons. Micia became my best friend and confidante and would sit on my chest while I lay down and told her all my troubles. For the next seven years we enjoyed a warm and close relationship. I was devasted when she became ill and passed away - we had not realized how old she was when she adopted us.

After moving to Canada seven years later I was thrilled to discover three kittens born under our deck. After finding good homes for two, my husband finally relented and let me keep the final kitten - a black female we called Woodstock. However, Woodstock was never as friendly or affectionate as Micia, possibly due to both her parents being feral cats. My husband used to describe her as neurotic. She did like to be petted - but only on the head and upper part of her body. Touch her tummy and you would receive the sharp end of her claws. But once you knew her personality and teperament and respected her likes and dislikes, she could be quite affectionate - at least with me. She lived with us until she turned almost twenty and my two sons survived without too many scratches, hisses or bites!

After my experience with Woodstock I thought I would try adopting a male cat. I currently have two male tabby cats - a twelve-year-old named Tiger and a four-year-old named Pepper. Even though we adopted Tiger as a seven-week-old kitten, he is definitely not a lap cat and absolutely hates to be picked up. If he had his way, and if the city did not have a cat by-law, he would spend most of his days (and nights) outside hunting mice and would only come in occasionally for food when pickings are slim and for shelter when weather is bad. We probably should have given him to a farm when he was younger as he spends most of his time pacing like a Tiger from door to door and trying to get out. He has actually mastered opening our front door if the latch is not turned, has made a hole in our patio screen and has managed to remove window screens by jumping up and hanging on them! We should have called him Houdini.

Pepper, on the other hand, is the quintessential friendly male cat. He loves to be snuggled, picked up and made a fuss of. In fact, he insists on it. He is very vocal and will meow loudly and incessantly until he is either picked up or stroked. If he is ignored he will put his paw out as you walk by, literally grabbing your attention. He follows me around the house like a puppy - even to the washroom. I have finally managed to prevent him from jumping on my lap while on the "throne." He sits on the mat while I have a bath. Once he decided to investigate while I was in the bath and accidentally fell in! He hasn't repeated that incident. While I found it quite hilarious, I think he wasn't too impressed. Luckily the bathwater was not too hot at the time.

About eighteen years ago we were temporarily adopted by a ginger Tomcat who walked into our yard one evening while we were barbequing. He made himself at home and refused to leave. We nicknamed him Tom. We thought he was probably lost and decided to look after him until we could find out where he belonged. He was probably the friendliest of all the cats I have encountered. My son was two years old at the time and Tom let him use him as a pillow and would snuggle up next to him. It broke our hearts when we discovered that his owners lived across the alley and we had to return Tom. They said that he had wandered off before to live with other people and that we had to lock him out to make sure he didn't return to us. It was very difficult as he would leap onto the outside of our window screens and hang there, meowing to come in. He did eventually stop coming around.

It is not always possible to tell whether a kitten will end up being friendly as a full grown cat and females can be very affectionate too. I think a lot also depends on the breed of cat. Rag doll cats have a reputation for being very friendly, as do Manx cats. Ginger tom cats also tend to be affectionate. Also, once spayed or neutered, the differences between the genders seems to lessen as males become less aggressive and females more passive.

Whatever their personality though, cats quickly become members of the family and we learn to live with and love their quirks and individual temperaments. As for whether my next cat will be male or female, the jury is still out on that one. Hopefully I will have many years left to enjoy my one friendly male and the other not-quite-so-friendl y male companions.

Learn more about this author, Jacqueline Price.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.