The Cat's Mind: Understanding Your Cat's Behavior

by Bruce Fogle

Offering insight into the complex personalities and sometimes unpredictable behaviors of cats, a guide for inquisitive owners explains feline communications, learning patterns, behavioral differences, and problems. Reprint.

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, Cats, Animals

Paperback

First published March 1, 1992

Reviews

[East Bay J · Rating 3 out of 5]

A friend has been having issues with one of her cats so I dug this book out to send to her. I thought I’d give it a quick read before I did. I find cats fascinating and they make great companions and this book goes a long way towards explaining cat behavior and psychology. Fogle’s attempts at humor are often (almost exclusively) heavy handed but his information is solid and very interesting. There’s a hilarious part when he’s talking about stopping your cat from suckling, his final statement being, “If your Siamese makes a bee line for your armpit, try using under arm deodorant.” Probably not intended as humor and probably good advice in general. He sites a lot of data collected through cruel animal experimentation, though he’s correct to point out that, now that the knowledge is available, it would be foolish not to use it for good. It’s still horrifying to think of the cats who suffered diabolical tortures in the name of science. His discussion of cat survival and injury after jumping/falling from apartment windows is surprising (they have a better chance of survival from short heights or very high heights, one cat surviving a fall from an airplane) and the chapters on solving bad behavior are invaluable to anyone with a naughty kitty.

The Cat’s Mind makes me want a cat. There’s a neighborhood cat that comes around begging for food. For now, that will have to do. This book is great for anyone who lives with a cat and wants to know more about what makes them tick.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but didn't really explore the 'mind' aspect all that openly.

I also didn't expect the age of this book to be an issue (perhaps foolishly), but a whole bunch of "we don't fully understand this yet..." caveats left me feeling unfulfilled/uninformed.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. Appears to be scholarly, but has no bibliography, graphs are difficult to interpret and seem to have little relation to the text,

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot about cats while reading this. Author was a little repetitive but very personable in his writing.

[Lisa Pielert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over all an interesting read. Some parts were slow, but I learned a lot of cool facts.

[Catherine Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was awesome and had a lot of good information in it. maybe i liked it so much since i like cats and i have cats but it was very good. it made me look at my want to document my cats every movement...just to find the deeper meaning in it and what she was thinking. something very interesting to learn about but also something that once you read can observe your pet if you have any.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

So interesting, I swear! Fogle also wrote a book on the dog's brain...it's actually more thorough than this one. But I don't like dogs...

[Keri]

Need to get.