9 Cat Behavior Lessons & the Front Page of Reddit

It’s a mystery why some cat videos go viral or blog posts land on the front page of Reddit. It’s like winning the lottery for blog traffic and we got lucky once on Jan 21, 2013. Our post, Nine Cat Behavior Lessons hit the front page of Reddit and exploded into 77,465 page views on one day! We’ve never come anywhere close to that milestone again but reaped the residual rewards until recently. I thought re-posting a new improved version would be a fun and went in search of our original post on Reddit but they’d removed it. When exactly or why is another mystery. The site is moderated by geeks with Draconian rules of behavior and maybe I unwittingly broke one? Who knows but I’ll always relish our moment in the sun. To celebrate, we’re re-posting an updated Cat Behavior Lessons. The information is valuable and I hope you enjoy it enough to share, even on Reddit, if you dare!

9 Cat Behavior Lessons by Dr. Letrisa Miller with Layla Morgan Wilde

It’s our mandate at Cat Wisdom 101 to share information to improve the human-feline bond. We never stop learning. What I find amazing are the never-ending lessons our feline friends can teach us. Even if we’ve already read some of the information before, it bears repeating. There are never ending exceptions, twists and nuances to be explored further.

1. Cats are social and left on their own will form matriarchal groups as witnessed in feral cat colonies. However, they do not need feline or human companionship in most cases. In fact all cat must be socialized as kittens or they will behave feral. Much research has been conducted in feral colonies that in recent years. Observing these colonies, researchers have found that mothers and their daughters tend to form groups, often sharing in kitten-rearing duties. Related males may also stay in the group, and unrelated males may join it, but unrelated females typically are not allowed in. This is one reason why two solo, unrelated adult domestic female cats in the same household can be difficult since females like to “rule the roost”.

2. Cats form social groups with as few as one member in multicat households. It’s common to adopt one cat and some time later another and so on expecting these complete strangers to suddenly co-exist happily but it’s complicated. For example: A household with three cats could have three groups (each comprising one cat), two groups (one with one member, the other with two), or a single group of three. Cats in the same group will groom one another, play together, and sleep together. Figuring out which cat is in which group can be difficult without a lot of observation over a fairly long time period, but mutual grooming (the technical term is allogrooming) is an important clue. In general, only cats that are in the same social group groom each other. How close cats hang out together or sleep together show the depth of their bond. Some cats spoon each other while sleeping while others will sleep in the same room but in opposite corners.

3. Cats and subtle art of aggression. Cats that physically fight or not may or may not belong to the same social group. Many cats display aggressive toward others simply by looking at them. “The Stare” is a behavior commonly used by cats that are litter box guarding. One cat will position itself so it can see the access route to a litter box. When another cat enters the access route, the guarding cat will give the other cat an aggressive stare, and the cat needing the litter box will go and find a less dangerous place to urinate or defecate.

4. Violence begets violence. If you have an upset cat, yelling, spraying it with water, or using other aggressive means to break up a fight or unwanted behavior may cause more violence because it further excites the cats. Punishing a cat NEVER works. A better approach is to startle cats with deflection in order to shift their focus away from each other. Throw a pillow or toy in their direction to distract them. If one is cornered, create another exit route, open a door. If possible separate the cats if you can do so without endangering yourself! Never try to pick up and agitated cat. Cats are highly visual. Thus, if two fighting cats can’t see each other, they will usually calm down. Placing a piece of cardboard between two cats so they can’t see each other often works to stop the yowling and growling. If you need to modify behavior in an aggressive cat, try using time outs at the first sign of any aggression. Just be sure you send the aggressor to timeout, or you’ll be rewarding bad behavior! For this method to work, you’ll need to apply it consistently over not just days or weeks but possibly months.

5. Cats are master communicators. They use a sophisticated interplay of social signals including scent, vocalization, body posture, and facial expressions to communicate.

The most commonly used scent signals are face marking and tail marking. Cats rub their faces and the tops of their tails on items to mark them as places they feel good or at home in. This marking tells other cats who has been there and that another cat considers this area to be a part of its domain. Urine and feces marking is a stronger signal that cats most commonly use when they are threatened by the presence of cats not in their social group or to advertise that they are sexually available. Both male and female cats mark in this way, and unspayed and unneutered cats do this a lot more commonly than “fixed” cats.

Sound or vocalization is used extensively in communication between cats. Cats can make many vocalizations and appear to engage in complex vocal interactions with other cats. If you are interested in hearing examples of cat communication, the following link may interest you: Cat Vocalisation (Editor’s note: if you have cats within hearing distance, keep the volume low for the angry samples).

Most humans can recognize a cat that is happy to see them: it puts its tail straight up and shows a “friendly” face. At the opposite end of the body posture spectrum are the postures a cat might use to it help avoid a close confrontation with an unknown cat. These postures are menacing and designed to make the cat look larger by, for example, arching its back, standing its back hair straight up, and fluffing its tail. Body posture can be seen from a considerable distance, so it is most useful to cats that aren’t in close proximity.

Facial expressions are for close-up communication. Eye, whisker, and ear positions are all important in these expressions. If you think about the look on your cat’s face when you pet it, compared to when it is getting ready to pounce on a favorite toy, you can get some idea of how cats use their faces to communicate. And feline facial expressions aren’t all about showing aggression. Cats don’t smile like we do, they do have an expression that means the same thing! Most cats try their best to avoid physical contact with cats outside their social group because physical fights are dangerous to the well-being of all cats involved. Feline signaling methods are a useful way of keeping an unfriendly cat at bay, as well as for communicating with friends.

6. Cat have superior senses of sight, smell and hearing and humans communicate very differently. This leads to mis-reading what a cat is trying to communicate. Humans can learn to improve their cat signal skills. It requires spending more time observing cats, reading cat behavior books or consulting an expert. Keep a journal, make notes, take photos and practice. Making the effort to learn more about how your cat communicates will pay off richly. Check out our infographic on cat tail communication.

7. Cats do not like to eat near their water. Cats consider water that is near food to be contaminated. It goes without saying that cats don’t like to eat or drink near their litter box. This goes back to the fact that cats are hunters. When they catch prey, things can get messy, leaving nearby water contaminated. While our indoor cats are not usually catching prey, the instinct of the hunter is still strong. (Editor’s note: I recommend separate food and water bowls at least a few feet apart and an extra water bowl in another room).

8. Each cat will have a core area where it likes to eat, drink, and play. If you’re uncertain where your cats’ core areas are, watch for where they take naps. These are great places to position toys and scratching posts or scratching pads so that when the cat wakes up and wants to stretch and sharpen its claws it has an appropriate surface. Cats, like people, don’t like to live in the bathroom, so litter boxes should be placed somewhere other than their core area. In larger room with multiple floors, there can be a core area on each floor.