#I actually picked mal and vice by looks specifically because I didn't really have strong personality preferences

[hellenhighwater]

This may be a mildly weird question, and I apologize if it is, but do you have any advice for how to figure out if a person (specifically oneself) would be a good cat owner? I love cats, and a lot of my future dreams involve owning one (or several). However, I often worry that I wouldn't be a good cat owner. When I was a kid, I was often nervous/skittish around animals because I couldn't predict them and was afraid of getting scratched or bitten. I'm a lot better now than I used to be (will actively seek to interact with my friends' pets, have been trusted to look after peoples' dogs for short periods of time), a lot of my instinctive reactions to being startled by animals are still . . . not entirely helpful. (Not directly harmful! I would never! But stuff like freezing up or pulling away in such a way that it can give the wrong signal to animals.) Plus, I'm not always great at picking up cues/body language from people, and based on what I've read, that's about 75% of how animals communicate, so even during good interactions, I'm always a little worried that I'm doing something wrong because I'm missing some cue.

Again, I love cats and would very much like to have one or more someday. But I only want to do that if I can be sure that I'm going to be able to give any cats of mine a good life, and I don't want to get a cat only to have to rehome it a few months later. Any tips on how to handle all this?

Thanks so much for your time and, more generally, for the delight of seeing Malice and Vice (and the kittens!) periodically on my dash. Your posts about them always brighten my day. <3

It sounds like you'd be a good owner to the right cat, and that you may want to find someone who can help you pick that cat out when you're in a position to adopt one. If you're lucky, a local shelter or rescue may be able to help you with this. If you can, call ahead and explain that you're looking for your first cat, and would like some help finding that one; ask if there's a good time to come meet some cats where someone who knows the current cats well could maybe point you to one that might be right. Also, if a personality profile for a cat includes "good with kids," that probably means they're going to be tolerant of any mistakes you might make re: body language.

You should definitely look for an adult, at least six years old, maybe even a cat in the senior category (which, depending on how a shelter or rescue categorizes cats, can be any cat over the age of 10. Cats can live a long time, so 10 is really not that old.) Try to not get attached to specific looks and just go by personality.

Cats have a lot of personality variety, and there's tons of cats out there that are truly very friendly and cuddly, and really just need someone to meet their basic needs and shower them in affection. An adult cat that has lived with people before, or who was just a friendly stray is probably going to take it fine if you freeze up or pull back suddenly, and if they're old enough to have become chill, will just walk away if you're bugging them. Crucially, you do not want to try to take a difficult or traumatized cat as your very first one. Those cats need help, true, but you need to learn first.

You can learn a lot about body language for cats online, but mostly you learn it by exposure. Plus, cat body language can be very individual-specific, so it's fine to just learn over time what your cat is saying.

There's tons of cats that are just sweet-natured. A'Tuin, my momma foster, would make a great first cat for someone! She's not shy about coming up and asking for attention, and will even use her paws to pull my hand to her face for ear scratches. She's good with not using her claws, has never tried to nip or bite, and mostly just wants to be looked after and cuddled. And there's tons of cats like her out there.