Some experts say that cats don’t appreciate being stared at. A full-on stare can make a cat feel uneasy and the cat may turn away to relieve tension created by the stare. In short, we should avoid eye contact. This is what we are told.
My personal experience does not support this advice and I wonder what others feel about it. However, the cat’s response is probably dependent on the individual cat’s personality to a large extent.
Domestic cat behaviour originates in wild cat behaviour and I have never read about wild cats staring at each other to intimidate or dominate. Domestic cats do participate in stand-off style pre-fight routines and look at each other but I don’t believe the stare during this ritual, is significant. Do domestic cats stare to threaten each other?
My understanding of the method of one cat threatening another is to employ body language such as making the body larger, pulling the ears back and down in preparation for a fight etc.. During these procedures the cats look at each other, and stare at each other, but I am not sure the stare plays as an important role in terms or intimidation as the other body language.
I have looked my cats in the eyes and they normally look back and that eye contact can be held for a while. Also we can participate in the slow blink. We know cats do this as a sign of contentment and recognition of friendship. But some experts say that when we make eye contact a cat blinks and then turns away. I didn’t recognise this behaviour with my late Charlie and neither do I see it in Gabriel.
Both of these support the argument that eye contact with your cat is okay.
Perhaps the reason behind avoiding eye contact with your cat is to avoid intimidating him because we are so much larger. There is this background problem in our relationship with domestic cats: we are much larger which can cause a default state of slight tension in the cat.
There is no reference to the need to avoid staring at your cat in a good book on cat behaviour: The Cat Its Behavior, Nutrition & Health.
It is said that a cat walking into a room with many people will avoid cat lovers because they are looking at the cat. For me this is nonsense.
We are bound to make eye contact in interactions with our cat. Sometimes the eye contact lasts a while and may be described as a stare. As I said I don’t recognise the need to avoid staring. I have just stared into the eyes of Gabriel while he is on my lap and he stared back. He looked very comfortable doing it.
There is also the argument that cats start to copy our behaviour and integrate into our lifestyles, which also supports the notion that eye contact between human and cat is normal and okay.
My experience with feral cat’s colony is that at the start feral cats don’t trust the behavior of human eye to eye contact and avoid human to come near them but as the basic needs are provided by a single caretaker i.e. food, shelter, water/ milk. The ferals start to trust with the passage of time. The time within the ferals will start to trust us is different, it may be 3 weeks, maybe months 🙁
After you have won the trust of the colony and a little bit socialized/ tamed them, they will recognize you by smell and your voice. Then you can easily look into their eyes and call them , even pat them and touch them any where you like. No matter whether that is a new entry or kittens in the colony , they will trust you and eye to eye contact will not more be a hazard of aggression as it was in the very start. This is what I have experienced <3
Enough Dee. And what about you? How many have you studied? Never mind.
Roger Tabor is an international authority on ferals/cat behaviour. His bio is on his page: http://www.rogertabor.co.uk/background.html
He’s not the only one that states that a cat’s stare is aggression. Most feral experts (if not all) will agree with him.
But I suppose feeding a back yard colony and having a few moggies at home makes one an expert too these days…
Cute in my book, Carolyn.
Cats are so terratorial.
Shrimp must be a little but mighty force.
Both males, btw.
How many ferals have you, personally, observed or studied, Oker?
I would love to have a fellow feral lover’s point of view.
Roger Tabor is a wildlife biologist whose focus isn’t specifically on cats. If I recall correctly, and could be wrong, he sided with Jim Stevenson (Woody) who shot and killed the feral cat in Galvenston.
hat is quite interesting, Dee. And you certainly are a trustworthy source on semi-ferals/ferals. Your comment reminded me of Shrimp’s reaction to Meowth’s(once a semi-feral) subtle agression: Shrimp gave a low growl and a hiss–which I had never heard uttered from Shrimp before, in his two-yr history w/Meowth coming in to the household. Meowth had been infringing on Shrimp’s “turf,” behind me on the couch.