Do You Nibble Your Cat’s Ears?

When the mood takes me, sometimes, briefly, I like to play with my cat’s ears. I’m trying to work out why I like it. This article was inspired by Jo’s article about how pleasant it is to sniff her cat.

There are three things that I like to do with my cat’s ears. Firstly, I like to tweak them and at the same time make an odd sound that sounds a bit like an ear being tweaked! At first, when I did this, Charlie my cat, used to shake his head afterwards – understandably!

Now, he seems to like it. He purrs when I do it and he doesn’t shake his head afterwards. It has become a sort of ritual and I believe that for him it is a sign of my affection because when I tweak his ear I also do other things with him such a stroking him and talking to him, intimately, which he likes and which are also signs of friendship.

So, messing around with his ears is part of the way I interact with him and an exchange of friendly behaviour between us.

I also like to warm up his ears. In the winter, at night, he sleeps on my bed next to me. As the bedroom chills down the tips of his ears, quite naturally, become cold because they are very thin and exposed. The tips of a cat’s ears are vulnerable, in fact, as they can get sunburnt and frostbitten if the cat is an outdoor cat.

Anyway, I warm the tips of his ears between finger and thumb. I’m not sure whether he likes it. Does a cat feel that the tips of his ears are cold? You know how we feel when our hands are cold in the winter. Do you think that a cat feels that his ears are cold in the same way? I don’t believe they do.

Well, I do it anyway because I want to warm his ears up! I also like the feel of his ears. And this is another thing, and I think it is the reason why some people like to nibble their cat’s ears.

A cat’s ears are quite delicate and smooth. They actually feel nice to the touch. We use our lips to kiss someone, sometimes (if you’re lucky!). The lips are quite a sensitive part of a person’s body. A person’s lips have a sense of touch rather like the fingers of a person’s hand. I think this reason and the fact that a cat’s ears are pleasant to touch is why some people like to nibble them.

I confess that I do, on occasions (rarely), nibble my cat’s ears. These are the 3 things that I like to do with my cats ears: tweak them, warm them and nibble them!

Do you have a confession to make?