For me the answer to the question, “why does my cat lick me?” mainly comes from personal observation. Mother-kitten relationship My cat looks upon me as a mother cat. All domestic cats do the same. Our cats are kept in a state of perpetual kittenhood with us as we provide for them and unwittingly dominate …
My conclusion from my discussion below is that domestic cats can get confused when they are licking their owner’s passive hand at a time when there is no petting and relate to the hand as food, perhaps a prey animal and bite it. It is an instinctive mental aberration brought about because of conflict between …
Cat licks your passive hand and then suddenly bites it hard. Explanation. Read More »
I have used the word “allogrooming” a lot. I discovered the word many years ago in writing articles for this website. You would not normally use it because it’s rather an unusual word. As you probably know it describes the grooming of one cat by another. And sometimes domestic cat groom each other simultaneously or …
You will see quite a lot of this: domestic cats grooming their human caregiver not only on their hand or their arm but also on their head. It is clearly impractical because the hair on a human’s head is far too long for a domestic cat to groom. The hair gets stuck in their mouth. …
Help needed. My eight-month-old cat, Wesley, grooms my wife’s hair at 4 AM. Read More »
When your cat licks your hair, she is allogrooming you. From her perspective your hair is unnaturally long. It makes the allogrooming process almost impossible which is why she struggles. However, she is licking you as another cat with normal-length hair. It’s just unfortunate that the hair on your head is much longer than the …
We don’t know everything that there is to know about domestic cat behaviour. That is the first point to make. Please don’t expect clean, definitive answers to every question about cat behaviour. This is one of those instances in my opinion. But the question is relevant to a study that I’ve just bumped into about …
Do female domestic cats lick more than male domestic cats? Read More »
Why do domestic cats lick each other? The answer is the one you’re thinking about! It is a social exchange that can follow the friendly tail-up greeting. Mutual licking between cats is called allogrooming. Incidentally, the word, as you might imagine, is a combination of ‘allo’ and ‘grooming’. You know what grooming means. The prefix …
I have my own answer on this but before I put pen to paper I decided to do a bit of research but couldn’t find a decent answer. Lots of words written but no clarity and really no definitive answer. These are my thoughts, for right or for wrong. The first and perhaps fundamental issue …
Why do cats expose their soft belly and then attack you for petting them? Read More »
The best way to communicate with domestic cats is through your entire body language coupled with touch. Body language and gentle petting (stroking normally) is a language which domestic cats understand very well. Speaking to cats can also help but the sounds we make are only an adjunct to the more important body language and …
This very fundamental question is asking whether cat owners/guardians they should let their cat lick them as a matter of course. The answer must be a very positive, Yes. In fact, it is essential that cat guardians allow their cats to lick them. There will be some questions about where it should be allowed to …
Is it all right to let my cat lick my face? You have to answer the question from the point of view of both the human who is asking the question and the cat who is doing the licking. There are different considerations depending upon the point of view. Why is your cat licking you? …
“Why does a cat lick me?” was a genuine question years ago. But 15 years of the cat internet and people have learned what it means. And what it means is what it looks like: domestic cats lick their human companion (owner or guardian) because they want to do them a favour and groom them. …
I have presumed that she is nibbling his ear. It looks like that. I do see pleasure on his face. There is the faintest of smiles and there should be because it is very loving. This is a real sign of affection by what I believe is a female cat towards this male. I am …
When cats groom each other it is called ‘allogrooming’ by scientists. It is essentially a bonding behavior which is what it looks like. Humans also engage in social grooming. It can happen after two cats greet each other with the tail up signal which means that they are not a threat to each other. In …
A visitor asks: I have one cat that likes to chew on my hair while I’m sleeping; why? There are three possible reasons as I see it. Yes, one more than in the title! Grooming – specifically ‘allogrooming’ When one cat grooms another it is called allogrooming. This is an example of allogrooming. The first …
I have one cat that likes to chew on my hair while I’m sleeping. Why? Two reasons. Read More »
