The truth is, cats aren’t great at communicating in the same way as more social species such as dogs. They evolved as solitary hunters with very little need for social communication skills. Mother Nature decided not to give them all the facial muscles that we have, which enable us to show emotion. So even if…
Scratching is a normal feline behavior that usually starts from around 5 weeks of age. There are several reasons why cats scratch. Firstly, it’s important that they exercise the muscles and the claw-motion used in hunting and climbing. Secondly, it helps to remove the worn outer claw husks (or sheaths), revealing nice sharp claws underneath….
Knowing how to tell if cats are playing or fighting is an invaluable skill for cat parents. Fortunately, it is usually possible to tell the two apart based upon the cats’ ages, body language, and other clues in their environment. Although sometimes there are gray areas between playing, play fighting and real fighting. And it’s…
Cats are instinctively very clean animals, and they have a strong dislike of soiling their home. So they will hold their bladder and their bowels for a surprisingly long time if their usual toileting area isn’t accessible to them. A healthy adult cat can go for 24 hours, and sometimes even 48 hours, without using…
Cats use slow blinks to communicate goodwill and affection. When they wink, it might be to send a similar message, or it could be that a foreign body is irritating the surface of their eye. Alternatively, when a cat winks it could mean that their eye is damaged, injured or infected. It’s important to be…
It’s a unique sound, almost mystical sound. None of our other pets make a noise quite like it. We take purring as a sign that our cat is happy, but there is so much more to it than that. In fact, the vibrations that cats make have a unique power that almost seems like magic….
In my mind, the archetypal image of a cat has always been of one basking in a pool of sunlight on a bedspread. As you can probably guess from that, the cats of my childhood were all champion sunbathers and bed colonizers! But do cats like sunlight generally? Do they need to spend time in…
It’s a commonly held belief that most old cats become calmer, slower and more tolerant. But no one passed this message on to my tuxedo cat, Oscar. He is now rapidly approaching his fourteenth birthday, and the last couple of years of his life have seen some rather different changes to his personality. Now, I…
Cats pull their hair out in clumps or on their tails more frequently than most people realise. Sometimes this behavior is accompanied by visible weight loss, but often it’s the only sign that something is wrong. Most of the time it’s a result of pain, allergies or a skin problem. But occasionally this can be…
Cats have plenty of habits which appear perplexing or inexplicable to us, and eating hair is definitely one of them. I know one long haired cat who makes a particularly lip-smacking performance of swallowing shed hairs as he washes himself. In fact, all felines consume large volumes of fluff as a by product of grooming,…