Do you really understand what your cat is trying to communicate with you?

Cats are incredibly intelligent creatures and learning about their behaviour is so rewarding.

For example, when your cat rolls on their back are they really saying they want you to tickle their tummy?

The answer is no. This behaviour is a social greeting and if we then tickle the tum we may well be swiped with an angry paw as our feline friend makes their disappointment in our behaviour known to us.

The following guide can really help us understand our cat’s body language;

https://www.cats.org.uk/cats-blog/feline-behaviour-explained-cat-body-language

Ultimately, we all want to live in harmony with our pets and that entails us understanding what our pets are trying to say to us. As we all know, it is very stressful if we are trying to communicate and the people around us don’t appear to understand or aren’t listening.

It is the same for our cats.

It is important that we learn to recognise when they are stressed. Whilst we all appreciate that feeling stressed is unpleasant emotionally, for cat’s stress can also lead to physical illnesses such as cystitis which will need veterinary treatment.

Take some time to ensure you understand your cats behaviour, and ensure that you would recognise signs of stress;

https://www.cats.org.uk/cats-blog/feline-behaviour-explained-recognising-cat-stress

For more information on cat behaviour see the following link;

https://www.cats.org.uk/help-and-advice/cat-behaviour

If you are concerned about a problem behaviour, please contact us.

There is also useful information below;

https://icatcare.org/advice/problem-behaviour/

If you are interested in learning more about cat and dog behaviour, the following courses are free of charge and accredited to recognised sources;

https://icatcare.org/event/international-cat-care-webinar-open-access-covid-19/

https://www.coursera.org/learn/cats-and-dogs

As always, please contact us for any help and advice. Sometimes a behaviour problem can be a sign of a health problem and we are happy to offer help and advice on both.

We recommend that cats visit us for regular health checks and ideally every 6 months.