Daily BiscuitsWhy does she blink slowly at me?
A hard stare is a threat between cats. Narrowing the eyes and blinking slowly breaks the stare and says no threat here. In the study, cats returned their owner's slow blinks with more eye narrowing and half-blinks, and approached a stranger more readily after one.
What to do: Catch her eye, soften your face, close your eyes slowly, hold a beat, open, then look away. Use it before you reach for a nervous cat.
What does her tail straight up mean?
Tail up, tip often crooked forward, is the friendly approach signal. It starts as a kitten greeting its mother and stays for life. Cats use it toward people far more than toward other cats: in one study 97.8% of approaches to humans were tail up, against 22% of approaches to cats.
What to do: A tail-up cat is asking. Greet her, offer a hand at nose height, and let the head rub follow.
Source: Cafazzo and Natoli 2009, Behavioural Processes; Heads and Tails 2021, Animals
What are his ears telling me?
Ears carry the moment-to-moment state. Forward and upright means relaxed or interested; rotated out to the sides means frustration; flat against the head with wide pupils means fear. When two cats meet with both sets of ears upright, the meeting nearly always goes well, and when either cat's ears drop it usually does not.
What to do: Treat ears out or flat as a request for space. Only pet a cat whose ears are up.
Source: International Cat Care, Cat communication; Heads and Tails 2021, Animals
Why does she knead me?
Kittens push on their mother's belly to get the milk flowing, and the whole scene of warmth, scent and milk gets wired to comfort. Adult cats keep kitten behaviours toward the people they trust, so a relaxed cat on a soft lap runs the old programme. Her paw pads carry scent glands too, so she is also marking you as hers.
What to do: Fold a blanket between her claws and your leg and let it happen. Do not push her off; it reads as rejecting a friendly signal.
Why does he headbutt me?
His chin, cheeks, lips and temples are packed with scent glands. Rubbing them on you mixes his smell with yours. Between cats this rubbing is reserved for members of the same social group and builds a shared group scent. When he bunts you, he is filing you under us.
What to do: Offer a knuckle at cat height and let him do the rubbing. Stroke where he rubs: chin, cheeks, temples.
Does she actually know her name?
Yes. Cats pick their own name out of similar-sounding words, and out of the other cats' names, even in a stranger's voice. The answer just looks small: an ear turn or a head turn, not a run. Household cats also learn the names of the cats they live with from hearing them every day.
What to do: Use her name only for good things. Say it before food, play and greeting, and watch for the ear.
Source: Saito et al. 2019, Scientific Reports; Takagi et al. 2022, Scientific Reports
Does he actually love me or just the food?
In the same test used for human infants, about two thirds of cats and kittens treated their owner as a secure base: stressed when left in a strange room, settled and exploring again when the owner came back. That is the same proportion as human babies. The pattern held in adults and did not change after a training course, so it is a bond, not a habit.
What to do: If he is clingy or avoidant when you return, he is in the other third. Give him predictable contact on his terms rather than more handling.
Why does he bite me mid-cuddle?
Cats are built for short, frequent, low-intensity contact, most of it on the face. Stroking builds arousal, and past a threshold the same touch flips from pleasant to too much, so he bites the hand that is still there. The warning arrives first: tail tip flicking, skin rippling, ears turning out, a sudden look at your hand. Petting near the tail base gets the most negative reactions of any spot.
What to do: Chin and cheeks, three strokes, stop, let him ask for more. Watch the tail tip. Never punish; it raises biting.
Why does she go wild at 3am?
Cats are built to be busiest at dawn and dusk, when their prey moves and their night vision pays off. Indoors, two things push that peak into the small hours: energy she never spent in the day, and the lesson that waking you gets food or attention. Every response you give teaches her the timing.
What to do: Move her biggest hunt and biggest meal to just before your bedtime. Put a timed feeder on the pre-dawn slot. Ignore the noise completely for two weeks.
Source: VCA Animal Hospitals, Cat behavior problems: nocturnal activity
Why does she knock things off the table?
Cats explore with their paws because they have no hands; a bat tells her what a thing does, and if it moves, the chase circuit lights up. Then you teach the rest. Every time you look up, shout or run over, she has been paid in attention, and cats do not sort attention into good and bad. It is a bored cat's most reliable button.
What to do: Clear the edge, give the paw a job (puzzle feeder, ball track, a daily hunt), and do not react at all when it happens.
Source: Mikel Delgado, cat behaviour researcher, UC Davis (quoted in Upworthy)
Why does she scratch the sofa and not the post?
Scratching strips the old claw sheath, stretches the back and shoulders, and leaves a mark that is both seen and smelt from glands between the toes. Because it is a territorial notice, she scratches where the notice matters: by doorways and windows, next to where she sleeps, on the biggest stable object in the room. The sofa is tall, steady, textured and at the centre of family life. A post in the spare room is none of those things.
What to do: Put a tall heavy sisal post right beside the sofa arm she uses. Rub silver vine on it, reward the first uses, then move it a few inches a week. Never scold; it raises the odds of scratching.
Source: DePorter and Elzerman 2019, Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery
Which scratching fixes actually work
A 2022 study of 2,465 cat owners (Moesta et al.) found unwanted scratching in 57.5% of homes and measured which fixes worked. Adding more scratching posts lowered the odds (OR 0.62), as did restricting access to the targeted furniture (0.60), applying an attractant such as catnip or silver vine (0.68), using sisal (0.73) and rewarding use of the post (0.78). Fabric-covered furniture raised the odds (3.15), and so did verbal correction (1.56) and physical correction (1.29), so scolding makes it worse. A 4,105-owner survey adds the ideal post: sisal rope, vertical, at least three feet tall with a stable base, placed next to the furniture being scratched; cats under ten prefer multi-level trees and older cats prefer simple posts. In a triple-blind trial of 1,060 cats, Feliway Classic reduced scratching frequency in 83.5% versus 68.5% on placebo, a real but modest effect. Feliscratch did not increase scratcher use; catnip and silver vine did.
Why does he hide when someone visits?
Hiding is a cat's first coping tool. A cat that can withdraw and watch from cover calms down in days; a cat with nowhere to go stays stressed for over a week. In a shelter trial, cats with a box settled by day 2 and cats without by day 9. He is not being rude; he is regulating.
What to do: Never pull him out. Give him a box on its side or a covered bed on a shelf in a quiet room, and let him decide when to appear.
Biting and play aggression
Ankle attacks and biting during petting are usually play aggression or overstimulation, common in young, under-stimulated indoor cats. Never use hands or feet as toys. Schedule several prey-sequence play sessions a day, keep wand toys handy to redirect an ambush, and end petting sessions before the tail starts lashing or the skin twitches. Sudden aggression in a previously calm cat, or aggression with hissing and dilated pupils, should be checked by a vet as pain is a common cause.
Source: Cornell Feline Health Center, “Aggression”
When to call the vet
Sudden aggression in a previously calm cat, or aggression with hissing and dilated pupils, should be checked by a vet as pain is a common cause.
Source: Cornell Feline Health Center, “Aggression”