My cat likes to touch me. The interesting part of this is that he just likes to place his paw against my hand. I feel sure that my hand or arm has to be bare so that he can feel the warmth of it and achieve a genuine touch, a connection, flesh to flesh.
He does this unprompted and he does it deliberately. He must like it. He must want to do it and it must give him pleasure to do it. He lies down over me while I am working and then reaches out for my hand or lower arm. He doesn’t do it all the time but these days he does it frequently.
I remember the picture by DW of Marvin, a wonderful ginger tabby feral cat turned domestic cat, who who did exactly the same thing with his friend Daisy the family dog.
This is a particular kind of contact. I think that it is important. The paw is placed gently as mentioned against the recipient.
I think that this is quite an important type of behaviour. It is a behaviour which seems to express the same sort of emotions that people have and which motivates people to touch each other in the same sort of way.
Some people are touchy-feely and some people are not but everyone who deeply likes someone will want to touch them and the classic way is to hold hands. This is an expression of togetherness and it is done because it feels good. It feels good emotionally. And I have to presume therefore that my cat does it for the same reason.
There’s lots of talk about cat emotions. We don’t really know much about the emotions of a domestic cat. We know they can be sad and happy and feel depressed or feel sprightly and playful. But some of the other emotions that humans feel we’re not sure about in respect of the domestic cat.
I hope that my cat touching me like this provides an insight into the emotions of a domestic cat. There is no doubt in my mind that he’s doing it because we are connected emotionally (mentally) and he wants to connect physically at the same time. It is a desire which confirms (if one is needed) that a domestic cat can form a deep friendship with a human.
I hope that cat owners everywhere realise this. If they do, I hope that it ensures that they are respectful towards their cat. The more we understand what is going on in the head of our cat the more we are likely to be respectful of her or him because a lot is going on contrary to what some people believe.
My cat does this. She hates being alone and we have a special bond. She is desperate for physical affection.
I feel that cats have a very similar psychology to us and of course they are as varied as us. I think some are more developed than others but their emotional levels are similar to a 2 year old.
The most peculiar thing I have noted in my cats behaviour is compassion. It is very odd, if I say ow she puts her ears back and stops what she is doing, if we play and she scratches someone she will refuse to play anymore and she is even careful not to dig her claws into my leg when she sits on me.
We did a mirror test to see if she was self aware and even though she didn’t clean the black blob off of her face, she also didn’t clean the one off of her foot. So, we waved something she could only see in the mirror and she saw it and immediately turned around to look at where the object actually was. The first time I realised she understood the mirror was when she walked past saw a cat, her tail fluffed up and as quickly as she jumped she relaxed in realisation that it was her own reflection.
Another cat I grew up with used to knock the phone handset off and meow into the speaker when no one was home. This was before answering machines in the late 80s/90s. He clearly did this to mimic human behaviour. Why? Why mimic human behaviour? I see this behaviour in my cat also. If I jump at something she becomes panicked just from looking at me. It would be very interesting to take blood tests to measure if these cats are producing oxytocin.
With only subjective data I can only assume that they only perform these actions because they make them feel good and they want to be close to us because it also feels good. To me this unnecessary behaviour looks like love.
Wow stop putting your human emotions onto your cats. Do you not notice you give your cat more attention when they put their paw on you? They learned they can get attention by doing that.head butts are them spreading their scent on you. I watch dog and cat owners and are amazed how the animals are training the human owners because owners see more to their actions then there is.
Thanks for commenting but I disagree with you. I am not putting human emotions onto cats. I believe that cats like to be in contact with people they are very friendly with and with whom they live. It is as simple as that. I believe my observation is perfectly reasonable and almost common sense. You see cats grooming each other. These are cat associates (friends). Touching us, as described, is very similar.
aww thats lovely ruth.