r/cats • u/Ali_isthe • 17h ago
Advice Why do (most) stray cats get scared but most stray kittens come to you
Ive seen more kittens who aren't afraid of me than grown cats
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u/SaveTheTreasure 17h ago
THey have yet to learn to cruelty of the world.
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u/Hour_Ad_7797 17h ago
Or the kindness of it.
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u/Stock-Side-6767 15h ago
Yeah, quite a few kittens gets rescued off the street. You won't find those as older cats.
It might even be selection bias, the kittens that get up to humans get taken home, kittens that avoid humans become cats that avoid humans.
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u/Common_Safety_8830 Void 16h ago
Like a 50/50 chance and that is so sad.
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u/P0werFighter 16h ago
You're very generous with those odds. I'd like it to be that way, but the reality is kinda depressing.
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u/Tru3insanity 9h ago
There's a window of opportunity around 2-4 months old where kittens are impressionable and mostly unfazed by everything.
Its really important to socialize them as much as possible in that time because their skittish instincts kick in when they get older. Cats that are never socialized with humans in that period will remain feral and become much harder to socialize as adults.
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u/2manynathans 9h ago
I adopted kittens a tad younger than ideal because they were sick and needed care. Once they started on their care we got them around as many people as possible and now when new people come over I have a greeting committee of cats and they will fall asleep on peoples laps 3 hours after meeting them.
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u/kfc77454 17h ago
Kittens don't have any negative experience with people. Probably not a lot of negative experiences in general. Their natural curiosity is overriding their survival instinct.
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u/sushicatt420 13h ago
Everyone keeps saying this but I’ve yet to see anyone mention that it’s a survival and self preservation instinct…
With kittens, depending on how young they are they likely haven’t developed their fear response yet. Unless they were from a feral mother who avoided humans altogether, then they’ll likely be more skittish. Otherwise, between the age of around 2 and 7-9 weeks old, kittens are primed to accept new things and because they're so small, hungry, and vulnerable, approaching anything that might offer food or warmth makes sense.
People in this thread keep anthropomorphizing cats and as much as I absolutely adore cats of all ages, they’re still animals with animal instincts.
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u/TurtleCabbage 15h ago
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u/farscry 14h ago
This is horrifyingly accurate
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u/RabbitSlayre 8h ago
I don't understand the image or how it relates can you help me out?
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u/mssngthvwls 7h ago
The picture represents survivorship bias. This is a diagram of a plane used in combat that returned home afterwards - the red dots marking areas struck by enemy fire. The idea is that other planes hit in the areas not marked by red dots were fatally damaged, and therefore did not return home. By focusing on the damaged areas, one may overlook the more important/vulnerable spots that should be reinforced.
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u/cattoplays 5h ago
engineers back in the day used to look at where planes where damaged upon their returns and kept trying to reinforce those areas.
The core issue was actually the undamaged areas because planes that got hit in those areas never returned so they were overlooked.1
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u/Fine-Pomegranate-920 17h ago edited 16h ago
Plenty of evil people abuse cats for simply existing, kittens have yet to experience what an evil place this is.
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u/wiccedclown 16h ago
Every true stray kitten I've come across is extremely feral and mean 😂 if they come up to you, they've had human interaction before
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u/burntwords 16h ago
I second this 😅 the stray ferals I give food to are very friendly (a term I use loosely) to me but when the girls gave birth, all the kittens wanted nothing to do with me; hissing and running if I so much as get within their eyesight. in the years I've been doing this, I've only had three cats and one kitten become sweet to me.
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u/wiccedclown 15h ago
Swear😂 I used to feed a pregnant momma. When she gave birth, the babies would spit and hiss SO hard at me they'd come off the ground a little 😂😂 genuinely giving it everything they had, every muscle in their bodies would go into those hisses
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u/Slysparrow9 16h ago
Cats have the experience of people being horrid. Kittens haven't learned yet that not all humans are friends. Which is horrible to think about. It's appalling how many people are horrible to strays and cats
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u/Ok_Audience_3079 14h ago
That's way off. Most cats are crepuscular, so most cats don't actually have experience with humans at all because well....they don't operate on the same schedule as them.
So your answer is WRONG in pretty much everyway, adult cats generally just want to be alone, even paired cats or cats in colonies end up wandering off alone as time goes by.
Not because "HUMAN BAD, HUMAN BEAT CAT AHHHH", no. Because they're Solitary.
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u/Slysparrow9 13h ago
Habits don't change with time without experience. Some cats are always that way. Most are not. They are one of the only species outside of humans to have domesticated themselves point blank, even if you're not, more people than expected are horrible to cats. 15 years in ER/ICU have taught me that.
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u/Rivenaleem 14h ago
Why so many wrong answers....
Kittens determine their peers early on in their development. They get so much socialisation instincts in their first weeks. If they do not get human interaction in this time, then they likely NEVER will. Kittens that get a LOT of human interaction, particularly with kids endlessly playing with them etc. will become super domesticated and be very interactive with humans as they grow.
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u/AdWitty9562 Turkish Angora 15h ago
Why do babies trust everyone but grown adults are wary of other adults?
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u/BetterReflection1044 16h ago
The sad answer is most kittens that don’t learn to be super cautious die early due to other cats etc
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u/Dark_Akarin 16h ago
It's probably just your country treating the cats badly. Take Turkey for example, they love cats, so as the cats age they get even more chill and friendly. Where you live people probably kick/scare/hurt the kittens so they learn to stay well away from humans.
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u/skighs_the_limit 17h ago
Fear of humans is a learned behavior
Kittens haven't been taught that yet and instinctively trust us
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u/zachotule 12h ago
Socialization. Adult feral cats often had very little socialization with humans when they were young, so never learned to trust them. Kittens, conversely, haven't learned to distrust humans so as long as the individual kitten is predisposed to be a bit brave and approach the unknown, they'll learn humans are nice if they approach them. On the other hand, if they approach humans who are unkind or cold to them (or just don't approach humans at all), they'll likely grow into adult ferals who don't like people.
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u/Ded-Lizzy 16h ago
Kittens have been trained by the CDS (Cat Delivery System) to do this. Adult cats retain their prior training, but reserve judgment for humans that they suspect are more willing to give them lots of treats and pets.
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u/Duct_TapeOrWD40 16h ago edited 16h ago
Kittens has no chance on their own. They need to find their mom, or a foster parent. They don't really have a chance to fight anyway.
Adult stray, feral and semi-domestic, semi-feral cats (like farm cats) can survive outdoors pretty well. So well, they are even considered invasive species in some areas where wildcats aren't natural predator. So they don't need more humans, or humans at all.
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u/blue-adept-djn 16h ago
They haven’t finished kittengarten yet and haven’t learned all the “hooman scary” lessons.
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u/Mousers211 15h ago
why are children more easily lured by predators with candy than adults? same question
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u/cooolcooolio 15h ago
Kittens are super naive, like children most of them haven't seen the bad side of the world yet
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u/NecessaryComplex1721 13h ago
There is a feral cat colony in my neighborhood, and most of the cats are quite friendly, both young and old—to the point that a big orange male has adopted me and brings half-dead prey to my doorstep almost every day. I think it has more to do with their past interactions with humans than their age.(Photo of the Big guy sleeping on one of my porch chairs)
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u/Ok_Ideal_6383 11h ago
It the same with people. When we are kids we are open and see people for who they are.
Once we start to grow up that’s when suspicion comes into play.
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u/ZookeepergameGood432 15h ago
After having visited Istanbul, where all the cats just about were friendly and approachable whether young or old, I sadly now think that the cruelty of the world in certain places does affect the skittishness of the adult cats.
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u/kalboozkalbooz 9h ago
they have yet to learn how evil and cruel people can be
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u/bipoca 7h ago
I think they could be reasonably scared of something that is 10 times as big as you, without said thing ever being cruel to them.
A grizzly bear has never been cruel to me, but I would be pretty terrified to be near one.
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u/FuckeenGuy 5h ago
Have you met cats? They don’t gaf about size, they regularly tussle with things they have no business with.
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u/Large-Assignment9320 16h ago
You might live in a bad place (from cat perspective), here kittens and cats alike are pretty nice, because they know people are kind and the chance of getting a bit of food is also high.
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u/SpencoJFrog 15h ago
Just like it's probably easier to find a naive child human than it is to find a naive adult human. The kittens are in that phase of their life where everything is new and exciting to explore, just like humans have, and when they grow a bit older with a bit more experience they know that we're sometimes dangerous and also just not as exciting.
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u/Letsjustexfil 14h ago
All the stray kittens that were too trustful die by cars, humans, coyotes, dogs, and hawks before they become adult stray cats.
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u/lumos_ai 8h ago
This is exactly same with us human. When we are young we are more stupid and take more risks. And when we get older we are more careful.
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u/SpunkMcKullins 5h ago
Same reason your kid is a lot more likely than you to climb into a stranger's van for the promise of candy.
They're dumb.
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u/Even-Government-5055 16h ago
Stray or not stray, kitten, puppy, or child, most babies don't have fear of adults.
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u/edingerc 16h ago
Central Command requires small agents to bond with human pawns. Up the Feline Revolution!
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u/Aggressive_Age_111 16h ago
Not all kittens are like that. I’ve had plenty of kittens outdoor hesitate and stay away from me from just being nervous. Meanwhile there brother or sister will come right up to me.
It really depends on the cat!
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u/littlp84-2002 16h ago
Most people are really nice to kittens because they are small and cute. When they turn into cats there are a lot of people who will attack them.
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u/The_Windermere 16h ago
Stray cats are neighbourhood watch. Stray kittens are part of the cat distribution system.
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u/zephyr_33 16h ago
Coz the cautious ones stay alive longer... The friendly kittens in my neighborhood would always die early as they dont run away fast enough when they see dogs and get torn apart by them...
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u/ZzLil_DuckyzZ 14h ago
Because the older strays learned the hard way that it isn't safe to trust everyone
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u/nikkijang63 14h ago
clearly you haven't met a feral kitten. we adopted a feral kitten and she still won't let us pet her and it's been months. she's getting used to us, but very slowly. she comes when called and we can walk within about five feet of her without her running now and she plays with us. she also eats treats from our hands, but no touchy lmao
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u/freehi_5 14h ago
I grew up on a farm with plenty of stray litters of kittens. If you don’t find the litter before they can walk/run they’re absolutely horrified of you and impossible to catch. But even one simple interaction when they are super young helps, and they will always run to you . So I would assume they have had some human action at some point, but I can’t say for sure.
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u/Superb-Grand5395 13h ago
A cat grown up in a loving society or in a college area or university area or in an office area where it got pets, affection from other humans will not fear...in fact they will come to you if you're being friendly and not being too much... because they can't handle over affection.
Kittens like any other kids are curious...so they will inspect.
Now a cat that barely got human interaction...will obviously see us as a threat as we're more than 5x size of them.
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u/baubaugo 13h ago
True the world around: small children are kind of stupid. Humans and cats included.
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u/TerrapinMagus 13h ago
A lot of people have fairly pessimistic takes here, and while I am not disagreeing with that, every cat I have ever owned was a fearless kitten with no quirks, and upon reaching adulthood they spontaneously develop an oddity™.
Sometimes they become skittish of any loud noise or stranger, sometimes they become extremely clingy, sometimes they take to staring out the window and growling at people.
Dunno. But it's always like a switch is flipped from adorable sweet kitten to adult weirdo.
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u/dcdc20009 10h ago
People don’t typically post the videos of kittens hissing and running away. And they never get the chance when the kittens remained quietly hidden and unseen.
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u/Agitated_Cry_8793 9h ago
Why do wild prey animals who have never interacted with a human run away from them?
Maybe because we're big and scary and they dont know if we're going to hurt them?
They didnt grow up with people, they dont know humans are safe, and with how some people do treat stray cats, it teaches them that humans are dangerous.
The kittens, however, are young. Much like a human toddler, they see anything as safe because they havent been taught what is or isnt dangerous to them.
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u/ROOCSTAR01 7h ago
Delusional top comments trying to explain cat behaviour by comparing with human learnt behaviour. Thank god there are some normal people also. Hate the idiotic answers.
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u/StrugFug 6h ago
Stray kittens’ survival instinct: I need you!
Stray cat survival instinct: Get the fuck away or I’ll scratch your goddamn fucking eyes out you psychotic piece of shit.
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u/daydreaming-g 3h ago
Another reason why I keep my cats indoor I wanna keep them innocent and trusting
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u/Healthy_Ad_1671 31m ago
Kittens r typically abandoned and so previous had zero reason to distrust—- as they get older and have things thrown at them, are chased etc they will grow more fearful
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u/Effective_Ad621 17h ago
Kitten thinks everyone big is momma. Cat have seen things... I think so.