Do Cats Exhibit Self Discipline?

Interesting question...

I have noticed that my cat, after being neutered, doesn't seem to care very much about much of anything.

A self discipline? More of a self importance it seems to me; he has an inflated view of his station in life and his position of authority within my household.

I will tell you, after he sliced open the nose of my dog during a 'disagreement' (he is known around the neighborhood as 'Cowboy Scissorhands') the dog gives him pretty much whatever he wants!

"Felisity" is the name my wife and I gave to an adopted kitten/cat about a year old. At the time, we lived across the street from a small-town (Prosser WA, USA) high-school football stadium. During a game, I saw what looked like a rabbit running along the stadium fence. Out of curiosity, I went over there and found a bob-tailed gray adolescent cat that glommed onto me and followed me back home across the street. With a case of scabies, sad to relate, so we did the laundry routine and the special shampoo....

Felisity still remained a pretty feisty kitten. One time she clawed her way up the grille cloth of some Speakerlab stereo speakers, so I clapped her hard around the neck and tossed her into "kitty prison" (bathroom) for about a half hour. She was no dummy; she got the idea perfectly well, and it never happened again.

Not only that, but she came to know my time schedule and would be waiting in the driveway when I came home from work.

In her last days, she acquired a liver ailment that could no longer be treated, and so we needed to let her go. That was hard, but ultimately right.

I have had to many of these so called dumb animals over the years. They, like children are as smart as they have been taught to be, or allowed to learn. I have had a couple that my wife says were actually smarter then me (but, I think she might have been mad at me that day as well).

I also have lost some of the best friends you could ever have and I am sure they had made us as "Disciplined To Their Needs" as much as "We Made Them To Ours".

I'm not sure what you mean by "self discipline"

"conditioned response", to me, equates to 'training' or 'learning'- which may be by mothers discipline or example - or the human equivalent efforts.

Some cats absorb and "remember training" better than others

_{E.g. Del & Mrs Del}

Most cats are quite expert at training owners.

One thing about cats that surprised me is that they can be left alone for a couple of days with ample kitty liter and will not gorge themselves on the food that you leave them. They also do a fairly good job of keeping themselves clean.

There are some teen agers and dogs that you can't say the same about.

Self discipline implies the ability to reason a little bit more then a pets capable of doing To discipline it's self to do something other then doing something for it's own gratification. Don't think that there is many animals that can do that.

It's condition response to the person it's bonded to. Got several cats here at work and most are bonded to me as I feed them. Two are domesticated about another six that are feral. It's all about their conditioning to please so you will provide their pleasures food and attention. Just like their meowing. It is not a natural for a cat to meow. Feral cats usually will not do this. It is a conditioned response that domesticated cats do for attention. We are usually vocal to them so they are vocal back. So they have learned/conditioned (not sure which word implies here can't read their mind) themselves to meow to get attention. Usually so we full fill some desires at that time. Two of the younger feral cats have learned to meow at me. They do it as they arrive at feeding time to let me know they want to be fed.

I once heard it put this way: When you feed and take care of a dog, he says "you must be god." When you feed and take care of a cat he says "I must be god."

Dogs are pack animals cats are not. Even in feral colony most are family members and barely just tolerate each other. They hunt as individuals not as pack as dogs do.

A dog will look at you as pack leader.

Like you ozzb we had feral cats at work. The company provided food for them, they earned their keep. One had a bad habit of lurking on the buffer beam of railway trucks and then leaping out and attacking anyone walking past. I got friendly with one, he would show up during my break and demand to be fed.