6 signs that your cat loves you

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The need to touch and be in contact with their human caregiver is a sign that your cat loves you. Image: MikeB

Intro: If you are a good cat caregiver and you love your cat, you do not need signs that tell you that your cat loves you (based on science)! You just know it. But there are some useful body language signals and behaviours which, if you are interested, point to the fact that your cat loves you. Love: deep affection.

1. BE WITH YOU: They want to be with you. Your cat will want to be with you when you come back home, she might be waiting behind the front door. If she is not that does not mean that she does not love you ?. It’s just that she has her own mind and has been snoozing.
2. SCENT EXCHANGE: It is not enough for a cat to want to be with you when they love you. They want to deposit their scent onto you and receive your scent which is deposited on their fur. They want these smells to merge. They want to become one with their owner. It makes them feel more comfortable, more at home and it makes the human caregiver part of their family. So, rubbing against you is a sign that they accept you and love you.
3. TAIL UP: And when they come up to you if they been asleep for a while or if they been outside and they’ve come through the cat flap, and their tail is in the upright position a.k.a. the “tail up” greeting, this is also a sign that they love you. That’s because they’re pleased to see you and they know you. As they know you and they know that you are friendly they themselves can be friendly and the tail up position is a signal of friendliness.
4. SLOW BLINK: A lot has been written about the slow blink. It is said that the feline slow blink is a sign of love. I would say that it is more a sign of being relaxed in your company. Of accepting your company and liking it. I take a slightly more scientific viewpoint because we have to be careful about anthropomorphising cats. They are not little humans but quite positively domesticated wildcats. But as the slow blink indicates a contented and relaxed cat in your intimate company it is also a sign that your cat loves you.
5. BEING RELAXED: A domestic cat who is completely relaxed in their human caregiver’s company, even, for example, when the there is a human-to-cat nose touch (greeting behavior) which means the heads are very close together, is a sign that your cat loves you. It’s a sign of complete acceptance in which there is no anxiety in the cat. We have to remember that the cat does live in a land of giants, human giants. And they are living in the human environment. They are out of place in truth and therefore once they accept it completely it’s an indication that there is a very close bonded, trusting relationship between cat and human.
6. TOUCH: Domestic cats who love their owners want to be in contact with their owners. Therefore, they might jump onto their lap and stay there for a long time; long enough for the legs to go dead. But not all cats are lap cats. I’m returning to the point I made above that domestic cats are sometimes barely domesticated. You can’t expect them to always want to be lap cats, some are not. This can upset their owner. Being a lap cat is an individual characteristic and it has to be accepted. But cats who like other cats like to sleep next to them; in contact with each other. Touch is important to domestic cats when in a friendship. Cats in a close relationship with their owner like to sleep next to them or on them. They want that contact and warmth. It is both emotional and physical warmth. My cat right now is sleeping on my legs behind my computer as I dictate this.

Please share your thoughts on how you know that your cat loves you. I have listed 6 signs but there are more.

Morrissey, a longtime friend of PETA poses with his cat on his head for an advert. Photographer: unknown.

Below are some more articles on love.