Can we love a cat who is grown up?

We often want to get our cat as a kitten. There's nothing wrong with that. Except... we don't know what we are getting.

Three weeks old and we have no idea.

They are too young to give clues about their personality, and so much of their personality has already been set.

We don't think of kittens as already having a personality. We think of them as a blank slate where we can write whatever we want.

But this isn't true.

From the very beginning, our prospective cat's genetics could make them an Alpha, a Beta, or a Gamma. All great cats, but all very different experiences. And that's before they even emerge into our world.

Even at six weeks, which is really too young to leave their mother, our future cat has learned what beings they can trust. They have explored the world and formed opinions about it. They have learned to get along with their siblings... or not.

While kittens this young are learning all the time, they are not aware of it. Their short attention span means they are easily distracted and must be constantly reminded of proper behavior.

A cat past the kitten stage has full access to their thoughts, their collection of communication strategies, and a store of patience. We can establish a working relationship in a fraction of the time it takes to raise a kitten. When we meet our cat as an adult we can each discover things about ourselves, right away.

Of course we will make our own impression on our cat.

No matter what age we get them at.

Consider other cat ages with the cat acquisition continuum.