Earning your cat’s respect is a journey, not a destination. As with dogs and most people, cats respond best to positive reinforcement and thoughtful care. Healthy relationships with felines require compromise, attention to detail and an understanding of where they come from and how they’ve evolved to inhabit more than 31 million households in the U.S. But the one thing you should never do if you want to earn your cat’s respect is to assume an alpha, pack-leader mentality. This attitude leads to fear-based relationships, which are not only ineffective when it comes to getting your cat to do what you want, but also rob you of all the benefits of cat parenthood (like cuddling and making biscuits).

What does it look like when a cat respects you?

Respect is similar to love and a lot like admiration. It is not following commands blindly or bending to your will out of fear or frustration. Cats aren’t huge on communicating emotions, so we must rely heavily on their actions to infer whether or not they respect us.

Veterinary behavior expert Carlo Siracusa and animal ethics and welfare professor James Serpell at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine say research on cat behavior reveals cats do actually love their humans. Like, a lot. Serpell created the Feline Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire and found cats express behavior issues when separated from their humans for a long period of time. They’ve also been known to respond to their names and come when called!

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