Tormented or about to fall asleep! The picture does give the impression that he is really troubled with a challenging, profound and philosophical question. Tormented. But I don’t think so. It is just that the picture is liked a lot on Twitter. It must have tugged at the heart strings of Twitter followers. Here are some example comments:
“Uhhhhhh. What did I DOOOOO last night? Why did you let me eat catnip?! Never again!!”
?All the things I said all I said said, running through my head running through my head running through my head??
“Happiness in an empty mind or happiness in a mind free from all types of animalistic insanity”
My explanation for the photograph is the following. This is about photographic timing and this male ginger tabby cat is curling up and about to go to sleep. He is pulling his paws over his eyes but the photograph was taken just before that moment. You must have seen it: cats placing their paws over their eyes to get some sleep in the middle of the day which is the middle of the night for a lot of domestic cats because they been active all night, sometimes to the chagrin of their human caregiver.
2 videos which go to the heart of domestic cat behaviour and health
I have said it before, the domestic cat’s circadian rhythm is out of step with the human’s. It is an interesting thought because despite the huge success of the domestication of the cat as a loving companion, they are active when humans are inactive. They are active at dawn and dusk (crepuscular) and sometimes in the middle of the night but also sometimes during daytime. Whereas humans have a very rigid nighttime and daytime circadian rhythm.
This out of sync lifestyle must be a barrier to the success of the relationship between cat and human but it doesn’t seem to have a major impact. People get around it. And cats adapt to the human lifestyle as well.
But when people say that their cat sleeps 14 hours a day what they are observing is their cat sleeping during the daytime because they been active at night. Either that or they are full-time indoor cats and they have no means to entertain themselves. So, they go to sleep instead. Actually, they snooze most of the time.
Below are some more articles on sleeping.
Happy cat campaign tip 1 – the discarded cardboard box
Given complete freedom what would a male domestic cat do?
How to heat your cat’s bed for free
Why do cats circle before laying down to sleep?
How to stop your cat waking you up – get him tired when you’re tired
Note: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified.