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Feline Body Language Tips
Posted by Ingrid Newkirk at 5:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)
You can tell a lot about a person from their body language. Well, the same applies to our four-legged friends. Here are some tips from my book 250 Things You Can Do to Make Your Cat Adore You to help you better understand the messages your cat is sending you.
Kittens who were weaned too early, or who just plain miss their mothers or the pleasant sensation of nursing, kneed at the air with their feet as if still pumping milk out of their mama’s chest. If they chose you to do that to, what a high compliment indeed.
Cats in cages at the animal shelter flatten their ears back in fear or as a warning, call out plaintively, and frantically push their paws through the bars. Some bat at people passing by, appealing to them in the same way any prisoner might. In less desperate surroundings-your kitchen, for instance-cats may paw at you to let you know it is past suppertime and your watch has stopped. It is rude to ignore being batted, so even if the cause of the swat is not immediately apparent, try to figure it out.
Your cat sends messages by stretching and yawning. Of course, tense cats don’t do either. Chances are, your cat feels wonderfully contented if she throws back her head, bends her spine, extends her legs, and unwinds with a yawn. Let her enjoy the feeling without being moved, asked to play, or called to a meal.
Lions and tigers and the smallest of small cats also stretch to show off to others of their kind or to predators. Such stretches mean, “I’m so in control here, I can relax.” The show of teeth that accompanies yawning can mean, “See these? Pretty big, eh! So don’t try to take advantage.”
Grooming is carried out for practical reasons, of course, but also to cover embarrassment. When a cat does something that doesn’t quite work, like jumping up to catch a moth and missing, she will immediately sit down and start vigorously cleaning a limb.
It’s as if your cat is saying, “That klutsie-seeming thing you just was actually quite purposeful. I was about to catch that fly when I remembered some grooming that needed to be done and, look, here I am doing it now.” Even if kitty does something extraordinarily silly, never laugh! Laughter is indeed a universally understood language.
How do your little ones communicate with you? What have they been telling you?
Posted to Family & Friends | Posted to Tags: Cats, Ingrid Newkirk
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angelina says...
May 29th, 2009, 4:37 pm
well i dont know much about cats but my sister has 3 and well i love them all dearly papa samson is my love and birthday is my doll little or mittens she well is shy i guiess she doesnt like to pet i love them alll though when ever i go into the room and lay down on my sisters bed i always get the meows and bithrday wants of course a rub down and papa just sits down back faced by me i dont like to ignore one and put my attention towards the other so i take turns petting them both my sister told me that when the quikly swish their tales that means they are irrated so i try not to make them mad but for some reason when i meow like birthday she meows back and the same with papa samson they dont like their bellys rubbed but my friends cat lilly loves it my old cat loved it can you tell me why thats rare but yeah once when we brought little/ mittens home as a baby kitten my papa samson sniffed her and picked her up real quickly and ran off with her a little ways away from me and my sisters and then sat down and kept her by his side still to this day he loves her and well they sleep together and gang up on the other cat birthday can youtell me why he did that and well he loves my sister he never leaves her side when she is home he is always by her side even when she goes to the bathroom and well always meows when he hears her voice and doesnt stop until he sees her and she comes in the room can you tell me why he does that
thanx
Mariana says...
May 29th, 2009, 5:10 pm
I had the sweetest ever cat for more than 12 years. The last year she began to pee on my clothes and places that I could not pass by and not see. Even twice she peed on my husband when he went to the bathroom. Although very annoying, I had lots of patience with her because I thought she was just getting old, and that this circumstance made her have this weird behavior. She also began to sleep with me under the covers, which she never did. A month ago she passed way. She suddenly suffered from kidney failure and couldn’t make it. The Vet told me, cats do not present symptoms but that probably with her behavior she was trying to tell me something was wrong (in fact, kidney failure makes them hypothermic so that why she slept under the covers with me).
She certainly did, and I missed it, so please take your cats for a check-up if they begin to act strangely. Also, something to bear in mind is, that my other cat, just like a month before the other one passed way, began to change her behavior significantly. She turned to be way less shy, sweeter, louder, and began to let my kids pet her which she never liked before.
I cannot help but regret I should have really paid attention to the signs and not just believe they were normal because she was getting old. I miss her everyday and thank God for giving me such a blessing and so much joy during the time she was with me. I write this because maybe this advice may save a cat from what happened to mine, if I had read the signs timely.
Mandi says...
May 29th, 2009, 5:51 pm
My female cat, whom I have had for almost nine years, does the weirdest thing and I have always wondered why. When I am sitting on the couch, she will come over to my head and sit behind it. She will then proceed to “bite” my hair. She doesn’t chew it, but takes small sections (only when I have it up) and bite. Similar to if you were gathering hair to put into a clip, but done repetitiously all over my head. It doesn’t hurt at all but I am curious why she is doing this and what it means. She and I have special bond because when I was pregnant with my first son, so was she with her first litter. She ended up miscarrying at six weeks. When she did, she would not let anyone go near her but me. I tried to go to the bathroom (baby was really sitting on my bladder) and she jumped out of the box to follow me while in labor! Needless to say, I didn’t go and sat with her and just comforted her. I never left her side, not once during the 3 hours it took (at the time, we did not know she was having a miscarriage) . After she had the babies and we realized they were stillborn, my husband immediately removed them from the box. She immediately began crying out for them and circling the box. Me being pregnant and super emotional, I sat there and cried with her trying to comfort her. The next day, she had to have an emergency hysterectomy because she had a serious uterine infection and the vet said she would not have made it through the night.
Thanks for any light you can shed on this.
~M
Tonia says...
May 29th, 2009, 6:05 pm
We have two cats and a dog. All super sweet but our youngest cat bites us all the time. It’s playful but it hurts. He does this to our visitors too . . . except for kids. He loves kids and just cuddles them.
We found him (Frankie) in a dumpster so we thought maybe it was just a wild streak. He’s very sweet to our older cat (Friday), most of the time. He will clean Friday and always moves over if Friday wants to lay down where he is. Then out of no where they start wrestling and biting each other! If we pull them apart Frankie will then go after our dog (Willie)!
What’s all the biting and fighting about?
What’s all this about?
Lise Ringuet says...
May 29th, 2009, 7:17 pm
You are so right! I’ve had the pleasure of living with my cat for 14 years now and I understand him by just looking at his eyes. I also know all his moves and their meaning. I even “speak cat”.
Lee says...
May 29th, 2009, 7:43 pm
How true, my Midgey girl will suddenly drop to the floor and lick a leg, paw, tail whenever she misses that damn fly! Of course she attempts it again, relentlessly until the bugger is caught!
Eirik Mellevold says...
May 30th, 2009, 4:38 am
I never thought of the yawning! My friend isn’t really an animal-person, and I think he shows affection in a weird way, by being rough.. I’ve never, in our 19 years of friendship, seen ANY of his cats yawn and stretch out, but our family cats has yawned from the first day they arrived (from the cat-shelter).. It’s sad
Amy Brown says...
May 30th, 2009, 9:52 pm
wow! that’s so cool and lots i didn’t know!! thanks so much ^.^
Irish says...
May 31st, 2009, 10:28 am
My cats all stretch and yawn so it makes me happy to know they are relaxed and content :O)
Haley says...
May 31st, 2009, 4:37 pm
My kitty Goalie, who turned 5 May 6, is the sweetest thing! He got his name because he enjoys playing soccer with our dog’s kibbles and it’s hilarious to watch. But for the past few months, he’s been following me to the bathroom whenever I go in there. Whether to shower or to use the bathroom. But when I use the bathroom, he jumps on my lap (Awkward) I don’t know if that means anything, but he does that.
Sandra Deneault says...
June 1st, 2009, 10:16 am
Hi, I have for ever tamed alley cats for my partners,the joy in their eyes everyday makes me so happy.The younger ones always play with the oldest, I think it is in their nature to attack anything in their imagination.
I love them….
Living // Feline Body Language Tips // PETA says...
June 1st, 2009, 6:19 pm
[...] following was originally posted on PETA Prime by Ingrid [...]