33 Compelling Reasons “Why You Should Get A Cat”

Luxury Cat Lodge, run by Jules de Santos in Australia, is a boutique cat hotel that offers beautiful rooms and professional care for feline friends while they are away from home.

Besides establishing a cat hotel, Jules qualified as a veterinary nurse and holds an advanced diploma in advanced feline behavior and cat psychology. We asked Jules to share her perspective on the unique psychological characteristics of cats and how understanding them can benefit potential cat adopters and current cat owners.

“Understanding cats and assisting owners and potential cat adopters to understand cats is 100% of what I do as a cat psychologist. I do not ‘train’ cats like a dog trainer would train a dog. Instead, I assist people in understanding their innate behaviors, both natural and nurtured traits. Once one understands ‘why’ cats do what they do, then a co-habit and behavior modification plan can be implemented. Sometimes, the modification plan is for the owner, not the cat! Once they change their behaviors, the cat changes theirs! It is critical to understand cat psychology.

My perspective on cats' characteristics is that they are grossly misunderstood. I marvel at their multifaceted, unique characteristics, and I continued to be saddened at how owners can not comprehend that they are not human babies, nor are they a dog,” wrote Jules.

Given Jules’s background as a cat psychologist, we wanted to know what are some common behavioral challenges that cat owners might face, and how adopting a cat addresses or mitigates these issues. Jules shared: “The most common behavioral problems are inappropriate elimination, e.g., urinating outside the litter tray, and aggression, both inter-cat aggression and towards owners. It is interesting that you ask this question as I also have founded a cat charity that rescued aged and high-care cats. I have found that most cats surrendered for inappropriate urination will not perform these behaviors in their new homes, proving my theory that this undesired behavior trait is nearly always (when it is not a medical cause) due to environmental factors.

Conversely, aggression is complicated and can take several hours or weeks to work through the underlying cause. Most often, the owner has failed to ‘understand’ the cat.”