My dear cat lovers,
I took a pledge.
It's hard to un-learn what we have learned to do so well, what we have always known, what has worked many times in the past.
It's difficult to learn we've been doing wrong all this time, but my eyes have been opened and I would like to share it with you.
It is the case of scruffing. I was unaware there was even a term for grabbing my cat like a "mum cat" would do to her kittens, and because of that, I took it as a normal, most safe practice.
Well, it isn't.
The International Cat Care has added a pledge to their site that I took after I learned these disturbing facts:
Scruffing can actually serve to provoke or escalate defensive aggression: the cat cannot escape, he does not feel safe, he "needs" to fight back. You're making it worse.
It is nothing like when the mum carries her kitten: being scruffed as an adult cat by a human is an entirely different matter to being carried gently by the scruff of the neck as a kitten by its mother.
There are many different ways of handling and restraining cats that do not involve scruffing or heavy restraint: such as towel-wrapping, and using gauntlets when removing a cat from its cage, which are more respectful, reassuring and renders scruffing unnecessary.
You can take the pledge too!
And you can read more in this link: https://icatcare.org/our-campaigns/pledge-to-go-scruff-free/
Love,
Andrea
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