But when they do it on people, it’s usually a sign of affiliation – the cat is transferring its scent onto your skin, and at the same time transferring yours onto its fur. This used to be thought of as a kind of territory marker, like wild cats might do on trees or other landmarks in their territory. Take the way cats rub themselves against their owners. “If the dog has run around the room, playing with toys and occasionally coming back to the owner, we wouldn’t worry so much.” Researchers called this “secure attachment” – calmness when the owner returned, suggesting a strong emotional bond. “One interesting thing is that the majority of cats who were secure with their owners, when they returned, they greeted them and went back to exploring the room, with little moments of coming back. Vitale draws attention to her study at Oregon State University, in which cats and dogs were left in a room by their owner, with the owner suddenly returning some time later. Even turning their heads to one side isn’t necessarily disdain, but a sign of their relaxation. But a slow blinking stare – one that your cat probably gives towards you from the other side of the room – is something else entirely it’s their way of expressing love. As a result, cats’ stares can look cold and unfriendly, and two cats staring at each other can often be a prelude for fisticuffs. The bad news for cats? They lack this muscle. “Puppy dog eyes” aren’t just a cliché, they’re an evolutionary trick which has strengthened the bond between dogs and people. The change seems to have been the development of a muscle which raises the inner eyebrow – and it’s not something found in their wolf ancestors. A study from Portsmouth University found that dogs have learned to mimic the expressions of infants, which triggers a desire to nurture in their human owners. One vital feature may have allowed dogs to leapfrog cats to our affection. “I think it’s a lot harder for people to read their body language compared to dogs,” says Kristyn Vitale, a PhD researcher studying cat behaviour. Just like dogs, cats do a lot of communication with their bodies rather than through sound. So, if we’re wanting a strong bond with our cats, what should we be looking out for? ( Find out if your cat is controlling you.) Then there are the cats that live with us, but even this subset is a spectrum some keep a relative distance, while others positively thrive with human company. In Istanbul, for instance, the semi-stray cats are fed and looked after by locals, and have become part of the city’s identity, even spawning a recent documentary film. In places such as the Mediterranean and Japan, colonies of “community cats” thrive in fishing villages, friendly enough to ingratiate themselves with locals who feed them. Feral strays often hide or flee from humans, behaving far more like their wild ancestors. But why does this image of the aloof, unfriendly cat remain? And is there any truth to it?Įven the domestication of cats itself is a spectrum. Their detractors claim they only really show affection when a food bowl is empty.Ĭat owners will claim this is all nonsense, of course, and that their bond with their cat is as strong as any dog owner’s. The independence that many see as a bonus is seen by others as aloofness or selfishness. While we can reasonably be sure of a dog’s bond with us, despite the thousands of years domesticated cats have kept us company, they still suffer something of a bad PR image. The complicated truth about a cat’s purr.They’re a usually reliable method of working out if the cat is in friendly mode or best left alone. A purr usually (but not always) signals friendliness or contentment. We pick up their cues all too easily.Ĭats also have sophisticated body language – their moods are signalled through twitching tails, ruffled fur, and the position of ears and whiskers. Despite what the famous painting might want to tell you, dogs would be terrible poker players. Enjoy.ĭogs seem almost biologically incapable of hiding their inner moods – shuffling, snuffling, tail-wagging clues to contentment, nervousness or sheer, unadorned joy. What you won’t find is any reference to, well, you-know-what. You’ll find everything from the story about the world’s greatest space mission to the truth about whether our cats really love us, the epic hunt to bring illegal fishermen to justice and the small team which brings long-buried World War Two tanks back to life. We’ll be revisiting our most popular features from the last three years in our Lockdown Longreads.
CATS BODY LANGUAGE SERIES
So, now we’re dedicating a series to help you escape. BBC Future has brought you in-depth and rigorous stories to help you navigate the current crisis, but we know that’s not all you want to read.
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