A cat washes its owners’/carers’ hair or face, effectively grooming them as a sign of affection and tending for them – similar to allogrooming between conspecifics [other cats].
It is a way for a cat to bond with a loved one and to include them within their social group and is usually done when a cat is calm. Occasionally, a cat may excessively lick their owner/other people when they are stressed and where this occurs context should be considered in order to identify the stressor.
Cats rhythmically kneading their owners is a reversion to kittenhood where they knead their mother in order to stimulate milk flow – it is called the ‘milk tread’. They display this behaviour when relaxed, often on a knee/lap replicating the position of a mother cat curled around her suckling kittens.
A cat licking itself after being stroked by its owner is a completely normal reaction for felines. The purpose of the cat grooming itself is to exchange essential scent information and read the olfactory information that the stroker has deposited on its fur as well as re-establishing its own scent.
A cat scratches the floor as if they are trying to bury their food bowl as burying their uneaten food in the wild helped prevent both predators and prey from being alerted to their presence. As cats are not scavengers they will not return to the buried food; dig it up and eat it later they are simply doing it to protect themselves and to avoid detection. Not all domestic cats do this but it is a common behaviour even with indoor cats.
Comments