The Cat-and-Dog Theory of Attachment Style

Our pets teach us how we love and how we defend ourselves from that love. We breed their personalities for our own needs. They survive by adapting to human needs (just as we do) and so they reflect our inner selves.

Anxious Dogs

Dogs never get enough of you. Spend all day with a dog, and they never tire of you. Walk away for a minute, and they get anxious. Come back after a minute, and the dog wags his tail. If only we had tails, we could wag our feelings.

Dogs were bred to be clingy, unconditionally loving, and will continue to make love to your leg even after you castrate them. They represent the part of us that gives beautifully and loves openly — and can never be secure on our own. This is the beauty and pain of anxious attachment.

The Anxious partner wants the validation, attention and connection they will not give themselves. They connect to others as compensation for not connecting with themselves. They continuously seek love while believing in its lack because that was what they learned as children.

Avoidant Cats

Cats never let you take them for granted. Scratch a cat just right, and she is purring. And then, she suddenly walks away and stares out the window.

‘What’s wrong, kitty?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Then why did you walk away?’

‘You gave. I’m full.’

Full is a concept the dog never fathoms, a lifestyle that keeps cats aloof in the wake of your insecurity. The Avoidant partner detaches without an apparent cause, and this brings out the Anxious partner’s fears. Fear leads to clinginess, clinginess leads to suffocation, suffocation leads the cat to the window.

Cats receive your love as if they are doing you a favor, one they stop abruptly. Yet cats teach dogs love is there even when it is not happening. You let the cat have its time, and it will return to you, recharged from solitude just as the dog is recharged from togetherness.

The Avoidant pulls away from love because they were taught as children not to seek it. They will not reverse their childhood to make up for yours. But they can learn to give what the Anxious wishes they would receive.

Dogs and Cats as Each Other’s Teacher

The Avoidant and Anxious partners are equally insecure as perfect opposites. The dog teaches the cat to be vulnerable, affectionate and initiate connection. The cat teaches the dog to be independent and trust in love without controlling it.

We are triggered by our opposite for the same reason we fall for them. Rather than believe we must turn the cat into a dog or the dog a cat, we can ask what our partner teaches us about ourselves.

Also read Attachment Style is Actually Detachment Style, Codependence is an Addiction to People, and What it’s like to be Codependent: Being Addicted to a Human.

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