The more I learn about cats the more amazed I become. No wonder they have been around as long as man kind. They adapt quickly and have learned to use humans to there advantage. So lets jump right into some cat behavior facts.
Most felines have their own very special welcoming meow which they will use only for his or her human servant or main care provider. Other people even companion cats will hear a different meow as their greeting. They will often rub against the owner’s legs and this might be accompanied by a chirruping noise that is also considered a greeting.
Your felines greeting may also include other subtle body language such as arched back, tail held high that might also include shaking or twitching of the tail as a sign of excitement.
Maybe the most important part of the greeting to your cat is the rubbing. Cats rub like this because they have scent glands around their chins, sides of the lips and also the anus for butt rubbing.
When the feline king of the jungle rubs they transfer this scent onto whatever they have touched. This can assign ownership or just be a way of making the object smell more familiar. An owner who has been outside for a time will have lost some of his cat’s scent, so the cat renews it.
Good Cat Behavior Facts
When greeting a feline pet a returning owner might get a few different hello’s. Since they are not known for patience they may be in such a hurry to say hello that they skip using any of his scent glands to re-mark the human as their property. In this case he simply rubs his side along the owner’s legs.
When you observe the bouncing cat behavior, the feline is trying to reach higher, and he would probably like his owner to come down to his level so that faces can be rubbed together. Cat behavior facts, When you are on a cat’s level and he sniffs at your face and then rubs against you must sniff back do not blow.
Expelling air in your cat’s face is the same as another cat hissing at it, and is seen as a very unfriendly gesture. When a human is invited to sniff back at a cat’s face this should be considered an honor!
This invitation is usually accompanied with a raised tail and sometimes a little tail shake also. A cat’s sense of smell is much more developed than ours, and one of its uses is to identify other cats. With practice we can distinguish between different cats by smell alone, too.
Cats living in one household develop a scent which is different from that of a group living in another household. And within their own household scent, each cat has his own individual scent. Most cat owners could probably identify their own cat just by sniffing at his nose.
Each breed of cat probably has his own scent and it is possible that each color of cat may smell different. Certain breeds and certain colors of cat appear to get on better than do others. When cats greet each other they sniff faces first then rub along one another bodies and sniff at the base of the tail.
From this each can tell if the other is a cat they know. Also if he has been close to unfamiliar cats, where he has been, and what his sexual status is. Often cats from the same household will hiss at a companion on his return from a visit to the vet because of the unfamiliar smell which still attaches to him.
Cat grooming behavior by licking not only settles the fur neatly and keeps it clean, it also gives it the right smell. Lets say that there are several cats in one household.
Most often they will eat the same food so their saliva can be expected to smell similar to each other. This can help mark the fur with a scent familiar to all in the family or this case pride. Unfamiliar cats will be shown they are unwelcome by a range of cat behavior and body language, beginning with the hiss and the swooshing tail.
Another interesting cat behavior fact is they will only fight when a fight is unavoidable in their mind. They try to discourage any physical confrontation by doing a good amount of trash talking if you will. They use body language and verbal insults and have a range of body postures designed to frighten off an opponent.
If a hiss is followed by a short sharp spitting noise and this does not scare off the opponent the feline can turn sideways to his adversary with his back arched and his tail upright. The hair on the body may fluff out, and so will the tail fur until the tail looks like a bottle brush.
This is designed to make the cat look bigger and more threatening and I think it does a good job of accomplishing both of these. If he is not sufficiently frightening the angry feline will execute a sideways skipping dance.
This is a stiff-legged bouncing up and down motion accompanied with growling or making a high-pitched yowling sound. We call this terror dance the Halloween cat maneuver as it is quite scarey. It looks like a standard depiction of the arched back and hissing black Halloween cat.
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