Tag: cats

Some things I like about cats that people don’t tend to mention:

  • If you offer them an item, they’ll usually sniff it.
  • Sometimes when they get really interested they tuck back their ears to keep them out of the way. 
  • When things are Interesting they perk their whiskers forward. 
  • They use their whiskers to, among other things, figure out if a hole is large enough to fit through.
  • Sometimes the toe beans are different colors. 
  • Their voices come in a range everywhere from “banshee” to “dragon” with assorted offshoots.

Tips for petting cats

Don’t startle the kitty. Make sure they can see your hand, or announce your presence and settle your hand gently on them. If you don’t know the kitty, offer your hand for sniffing. 

Cats don’t always like long strokes down their back. It can wind them up and give them nervous energy. Instead, try scritching motions, like the hand motion used to scratch an itch. Slow scritches all down the spine, lingering on the scruff and tail base, are generally good. 

Most cats like it if you scritch their back just in front of where the tail connects. 

Spots that cats can’t reach on their own are good. Scruff, back of the neck, and back of the head are good for most cats. Don’t grab the scruff, but scritch. Between shoulder blades is also good. 

Cats either love being scritched under their chin or hate it. Try it, then go from there.

Behind the ears is usually good. Gentle scratching motions with one or two fingers. 

A cat showing their belly is generally either expressing trust or offering to wrestle. Most cats don’t like belly rubs. Occasionally you get a weird one, though. 

If you’re unsure, make scritching motions on top of the kitty’s head and let the kitty turn their head until they’re pressing your hand against a spot they want scritched. 

If the cat bites or slaps, you either hit a spot that hurts, hit a spot they really don’t like having touched (belly and feet are common bad spots), or you’re doing something that gives the cat a lot of nervous energy. 

If the cat bites, don’t yank away. One of our cats is kind of a high-strung kitty, and if you put your hand somewhere she doesn’t like, she bites. It’s not hard, though, you only end up with scratches if you yank away. Left to her own devices, she bites, holds for a moment, and then lets go with no damage. Make a high-pitched, unhappy noise, remove your hand when the cat lets go, and try to figure out what happened. Cats don’t bite or hit without good reason. 

If a cat is pulling away from you, stop petting! 

To lift a cat, put your hands under the ribcage/belly and lift. As soon as possible, cradle the cat in your arms so the hindlegs and chest/belly are supported. One arm slung under the hind end for support and forelegs hooked over the other arm generally works. If the cat starts struggling, when at all possible, put them down.

To put a cat down, you just kinda point them towards the ground slightly, open your arms, and they sort things out. They don’t like being gently set right on the ground like you do with dogs. 

sidras-tak:

here are some things I just heard:

  • a door slamming
  • someone exclaim “oh, you sneaky bastard”
  • the sound of a bell jingling down the hallway
  • someone at the end of the hallway gasping “hello beautiful!!” in that very special I’m-talking-to-an-unexpected-cat voice

Cute: cat trying to murder a string

Less cute: cat trying to murder earbud cord

Alarming: cat trying to murder earbud cord directly over my chest with nothing but a T-shirt between my boobs and CLAWS.

Some observations on our cat and how cat fur works, based on watching our cat regrow her fur after the vet had to shave most of her side and part of her leg: 

She’s a black kitty with random white hairs scattered around. Under that, her skin is dark grey and has white flecks, and each white fleck grows a white hair. 

For some reason, the white hairs grow faster than the rest, the black hairs are only two-thirds the length of the white ones.

Kitty flank hair grows faster than kitty foreleg hair. 

Cats don’t like the feeling of their tongue on bare skin either! She groomed very carefully on that patch while the fur was still missing, and is gradually getting less careful as the fur grows back.