The origin of the domestic cat ‘tail-up’ body language greeting is interesting and important as it highlights a central element in the human-to-cat relationship, namely that cat caregivers are perpetual mothers to their adult cats which serves to indoctrinate the adult cat into maintaining kitten behaviors one of which is the tail up greeting; …
This time I am not going to add many extra words as I want to see if Google and Bing search finds this page as well without them. The infographic explains the situation and makes this page a 20 second read and a 5 minutes cogitation. The reason why some cats like to take …
These side-by-side videos tell the story behind adult domestic cat kneading. PLEASE CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON AT BOTTOM-LEFT OF THE VIDEO TO PLAY THE TWO VIDEOS SIMULTANEOUSLY. Despite the copious amount of information on the internet about this form of feline behaviour some people don’t know the reason. Fair enough. Here is the reason. The newborn kitten kneads their mother’s breast to encourage the production of colostrum when feeding. The video on the left shows this clearly. Clearly, the adult cat is no longer a newborn kitten feeding at their mother’s breast but they think they are kittens because their every need is provided for by their human caregiver who acts as if they are surrogate mothers. This encourages the adult cat to never grow up emotionally and so they drop into the habits they had when they were newborn kittens even if it has nothing to do with feeding on their mother’s colostrum. It is entirely instinctive. The adult cat most often kneads their owners clothes while on their lap or their bedding as it smells strongly of them. Or as seen in the video they knead any part of their owner including their face. Just keep the claws trimmed please!
Kneading as an adult with a kitten’s mind. Infographic by MikeB at PoC. Click to see it larger if on a desktop or laptop.
In this TikTok video the cat owner thinks that her cat behaves weirdly. The video shows 5 different types of ‘weird’ feline behaviour. I thought I would try and explain them so that they are no longer weird but normal in the context of a domestic cat’s mentality. The voiceover is male but this …
This is a question posed by a social media user accompanying a video of a beautiful ginger tabby cat enthusiastically licking a young kitten who is also a ginger tabby cat. The questioner does not explain if the kitten is the offspring of the male cat. It looks certain that they are. The interesting …
This little ginger tabby fella seems to have started independence early. It seems to me that he is on the way to becoming an adult. He has left the natal den and gone out into the ‘wild undergrowth’ (the bedroom) of the family home to find a prey animal. He kills it – a …
This form of feline behaviour is a reflection on the fact that adult domestic cats relate to their owners as their mothers. They might not relate to their owners as their mothers all the time but in this instance they do. Feline mums lick the rear end of their kittens to stimulate defecation. It …
Note: Some older videos on this page were hosted on Vimeo. That account has now been retired, so a few video blocks may appear blank. Thanks for understanding — there’s still plenty of cat content to enjoy!
