A Michael Broad Blog
In a suburban environment where there are houses and backyards (gardens) close together and where there are cat owners, often the backyard of one home is shared by more than one cat as each claims it as part of their home range. In areas of dense home and cat owning families there will be …
With more multi-cat, full-time indoor cat arrangements, it’s important that people understand the natural social organisation of cats. And perhaps the greatest problem for a cat caregiver when looking after cats in a multi-cat home is adding a cat to the “colony”. In effect a multi-cat home is a managed colony of cats. They …
Lion and tigers, the two biggest cats have the ability to regard humans as dominant if humans stare into their eyes when under attack by either. If a human stares like this is signals dominance and the cat is taken in by it as it seems they have the ability to perceive us as …
Both the behaviour of the dominant cat as well as that of the submissive cat are discussed here. There are two sides to this form of feline behaviour. Dominant cats will block the movement of subordinate cats. Sometimes they will replace or supersede the movements of the submissive cat. The dominant cat might bat …
In general, cat owners don’t like the fact that their domestic cat companions hunt. Clearly, I’m referring to cats allowed outside. A lot of cat owners also want their cats to go outside so that they are mentally stimulated and can express their natural desires. But they don’t like the fact that they kill …
The question in the title should be extended to feral and stray cats and the answer is the same in any case. Territory The root cause of the majority of domestic cats fighting is a defence of their home range. The ‘home range’ is the territory which they consider their own. It is interesting …
This is a video showing a classic example of feline dominance in what is probably a multi-cat household. The dominant, grey cat is imposing his authority over the other cat by controlling access to resources which in this case is food in the shape of a fish in a bowl! This is my interpretation. …
In multi-cat households a hierarchy might naturally develop where the cats are unrelated and have joined the group at different times. There may be a dominant cat and some bullying to impose dominance.
