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When Your Cat Is a Wallflower

VERY EARLY ON in my emerging career with cats, I began gravitating toward the Wallflowers. Especially in a shelter environment, the suffering I identified was unbearable to watch. Extreme fear in shelters was then, and in many cases today remains, a killable offense. I developed many of my techniques just to help get these guys off the ropes so that they could not only survive the process of moving through intake, evaluation, and adoption, but could do it while discovering their Mojito-ness at the same time. I was determined that they would leave with more confidence than when we met. That rule stands to this day—whether in a shelter, a foster home, or a forever home.

Of course, I’m not in any way unique—we all, to a certain degree, identify with, and root for, the Undercat. Where we might differ is whether we cater to the fear by cloaking it in sympathy, or whether we dare them to step into a different light. This recipe is about embracing the latter.

CAT DADDY RECIPE NO. 13—

THE BLOOMING

The Problem:

Your cat is demonstrating one or many of the classic fearful Wallflower behaviors (as outlined in chapter 5, page 61). She may be spending most, if not all, of her time invisible—in hiding spots like closets, cabinets, on top of appliances, under the bed, or even inside the box spring of your bed. Wallflowers head for the hills whenever strangers enter the territory, or even when somebody they know moves too fast. For a constellation of reasons, yours may not feel safe coming out into the open until everyone is asleep. If you do see her, the one thing she never demonstrates is confidence.

Part of the problem that needs to be addressed here is human collusion. It’s a combination of sympathetic intentions and, let’s face it, the fact that Wallflowers are the least squeaky wheel in your home, and so the problem tends to disappear with the cat. Many guardians tend to normalize the scaredy-cat behavior of their Wallflower: “This is her favorite spot, her hidey-hole.” “She’s just more comfortable in the closet.” “It’s okay—he uses the litterbox, but only after everyone goes to bed.” To be clear, hiding all the time is NOT normal, and shouldn’t be dismissed as being okay. In order to address the problem, it has to be recognized as a problem.

The Reality:

Cats may be Wallflowers due to their genetics, a lack of early socialization, threats in the environment, or a combination of these and other factors, although being a Wallflower is often perceived to be “their personality.” The goal is to allow your Wallflower to be the best version of himself, but first, we need to remember that there is no cookie-cutter result in terms of what his greater self looks like or how long it will take to get there; this is much more about natural change that will occur in the time it should when you apply the steps and are unflinchingly honest with both your cat and yourself. Your job is to provide love and comfort, but not in the hiding spots. You have to challenge your cats. If it’s left to them, Wallflowers will spend the rest of their life disappearing, because it works for them. At some point, you’re going to have to say, “This isn’t going to work for you anymore.” And in reality, it never did.

The Steps:

Mark your Mojo Map: When you take a hard look at where your cat spends his time, that will tell you just how small his world might be by identifying his Unconfident Wheres. It will also help you determine what some of the causes of small living might be—in some cases, Wallflowers are forced into a life of seclusion due to conflict with other animals in the home. At the same time, look for small indications of Dwelling Spots, of Confident Wheres. Then you will create destinations as you help him cross his Challenge Lines. Your job here is Detectivism—the map, at this point, helps you keep to “just the facts, ma’am.”
Identify Your Wallflower’s Challenge Line: Now it’s time to start applying the facts that you are gathering. Look at your map and look at your cat. For instance, if your cat has one specific hiding place, use painter’s tape to mark your cat’s Challenge Line—where you see your cat hesitate, beyond which he will just not venture. Put a bowl of food right at that line; tomorrow, you’ll move that bowl a few inches out. Then you reset the line by tiny amounts day by day. Find his Jackpot! Treat and hold it back at all other times except when his Challenge Line is being pushed. Your cat will welcome the challenge because on the other side of the challenge is this great reward.
Revisit Your Challenge Line: In chapter 9, we talked about your Challenge Line and the importance of always putting the best interests of your cat first—even as you feel those pangs of guilt when you watch your Wallflower experience a few growing pains. Stay the course here. Think about the rewards and what is on the other side for him: a better life.
Stop Living in the Under-World: Applying lessons learned about your Challenge Line, start getting serious about theirs. As an example, please don’t feed your cat under the bed. You can give your cat love and comfort but just not there. To help your Wallflower, you have to lay down a series of gentle but actual challenges, including closing off the spaces that represent caving.
Blocking off the Unders, however, is a gradual process (see page 110). Don’t remove everything all at once. Say you start with blocking off under the bed. Chances are that if your Wallflower caves under the bed, she goes all the way back under the headboard. That’s where you start blocking—at the heart of the cave, gradually moving out until the bed is no longer a caving destination.
Research tells us that it is critical that cats have safe spaces in which to spend time. While blocking off those Unders, you can give your cat cocoons that allow him that same sense of safety, without the ego-deflating choice of life under a bed.
Expand Their Territory (Bit by Bit): One of the most useful tools we have for our Wallflowers is base camp. Set up base camp like I outlined in chapter 8 (page 102)—make that room as pleasant as possible, using scent soakers, cocoons, perches, tunnels, and, of course, items that share your scent. While challenging your cat to come out from caving, you are presenting a closed environment that she will find safe and will marinate with her scent/Mojo. Then, using Base Camp Expansion (see page 103), you enlarge the world but keep it just as safe as before. Basically, you want to expand her turf bit by bit, spreading her scent throughout the home as if it were a new territory.
Catification: Allow the territory to become your Wallflower’s friend. Both when setting up base camp and beyond, add features that allow your cat to move around in those “comfort zones,” while you gently push his Challenge Line. Get your cat into the vertical world with a Superhighway using the basic teaching techniques outlined in chapter 8, demonstrating to him that he can move from that place of fear into a more confident world.
HCKE: Play therapy is critical for Wallflowers. The math is simple—when they pounce on that toy, they own that spot. Ownership of territory = Cat Mojo supreme. Unleash the Mojo! Encourage your Wallflower to play, paying special attention to providing small, quiet, interactive toys if that’s what he likes best.

The Mojo Moment:

With Wallflowers, it’s really about the journey and not about the destination. For me, with my cat Velouria, it was a big deal the first time I came home and she was sleeping on the bed instead of in one of her cocoons. That was when she was about six years old. That may seem like a long time, but as I developed my approach with her (yes, she is the original Wallflower), I noticed improvements that kept me going. For each Wallflower, it’s really about being the most Mojo-fied version of herself possible. She might always be shy, but you’ll find her having more and more Mojo moments—and that cocoon has allowed your cat to truly transform into a butterfly.

Getting Comfortable with Visitors

Progress with Wallflowers requires consistency and daily work to gain their trust.

Have people call instead of ringing the doorbell; many cats learn that the doorbell is a precursor to something scary. Instead, go out and walk back in with your visitors, and give your cat a Jackpot! Treat. You can also use basic desensitization techniques like the one I outlined in “Cats and Kids,” chapter 11 (page 204).
Visitors should not attempt to interact with Wallflowers on their first visit; they can just come in and do nothing. A gentle approach is important: revisit the Three-Step Handshake and the Slow Blink.
Another helpful technique is what I call the Santa Claus Effect. Every single time a human comes to the cat’s home, he must bring the cat a Christmas gift. Have people other than you feed your Wallflower dinner and play with her; every time somebody comes over, it’s Christmas.

Cat Daddy Dictionary: The Handoff

When cats are afraid of strangers, or seem to swipe at everyone except their guardian, you can use the guardian’s “insider status” with the cat to help widen the cat’s circle of trust. Being fearfully defensive toward people can shrink a cat’s world, because other humans will just stay away. That creates a vicious cycle of isolation, and that can lead a cat to become overly attached to the one person they trust.

THE HANDOFF TECHNIQUE can help break that cycle. It starts with that trusted human (guardian) teaching other people how to touch his cat. As the guardian pets the cat, the new human should slowly and quietly get closer while the cat is in a relaxed state, eventually replacing the guardian’s hand with hers. This widens the cat’s circle of trust, but keeps the cat feeling safe because the guardian is right there.

The Social Bridge

Some Wallflowers benefit from having a social bridge: a Mojito Cat who can act as a bridge between that shy cat and other cats or humans in the home.

Wallflowers will “follow the leader” when they see another cat demonstrate play and confident behavior, and may start testing out some of those relaxed behaviors themselves!