Helping humans recognise subtle cat bullying

Dumb humans often don't notice when one of us is bullying another cat. They don't recognise what is going on. 

So to help them, I am posting this this video showing a ginger cat bullying a tortoiseshell. What he is doing is pushing the tortoiseshell away from the owner who has the video.

There's no feline violence involved. Just a movement between the tortoiseshell and her human.

This is subtle bullying. The tortoiseshell needs her human to recognise this and see if she can help the cats avoid each other.

Seperate feeding bowls, three litter trays in three different locations, two cat flaps, lots of cat beds - so that the tortoiseshell can always get to what she wants.

And the owner should think of time spent with the tortoiseshell, when the ginger is not in the room and cannot interrupt.

Head lowers and moves forward... "maybe a mouse?'

When I see something that really really interests me, my head goes forward and lower. Something small and moving makes me do this, because it might just be a mouse. 

This isn't just an idle gaze, it is an intensely involved look. Sometimes if the object is high up, then the head looks high up too but it often moves lower than my shoulder first. Like the photo above. 

It is a quick instinctive movement which most dumb humans don't notice. Or if they do notice it, they don't really take it in.

But watch me! If I am sitting looking idly out of the window, and something important catches my eye, this is what I do. That something usually arouses my hunting instinct, but it occasionally happens if the something is an unexpected kitten. See that on my Youtube channel below. 

(Yes, I know it says it is Celia's channel but it is obviously mine because there are so many cats in it.)

• The playlist of what cats are saying is on my Youtube channel under Celia's name is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMH0Q-3hEcw&list=PLnwXtI1uuo884ABEOTorPYZNnIeTh04pV

 

Flank rubbing ... I'm friendly, notice me.

When we are friendly, and when we want your attention, we sometimes rub round human legs. It's the bit of human that we can reach if the human is standing.

We are likely to do this, just before our human puts down our food and when we are hungry. It's a way of making sure dumb humans remember we are here and we need feeding.

Even really stupid humans usually get this particular message.

I also like rubbing the side of my body round my human's legs when she is on the lavatory, the human litter tray. She is stuck there, so she can't really do something silly like picking me up.

Tabby starts a flank rub

We also do a flank rub between feline friends. Just a gentle pressure starting at the shoulder then moving the rest of the body against the other feline.

Sometimes this ends in a tail wrap. 

• The playlist of what cats are saying is on my Youtube channel under Celia's name is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMH0Q-3hEcw&list=PLnwXtI1uuo884ABEOTorPYZNnIeTh04pV

 

The dry mouth swallow.... I am very frightened.

 Read my body language... that is my message to human beings. So I am posting pictures and videos to help them learn what cats like me are saying.

I have a good human who loves me, but her attention isn't good enough for her to read me what I am saying. 

I can get her attention by making a vocal signal, but not a body language signal. And she can't read my face properly either.

So I have posted this video here showing the dry mouth swallow... it says "I am terrified." It is a small movement of the throat. 

If we cats could get humans to learn our body language and pay proper careful attention to it, we could stop them being so dumb. Dumb humans are the major problem in most cats' lives

Pay attention....

• The playlist of what cats are saying is on my Youtube channel under Celia's name is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMH0Q-3hEcw&list=PLnwXtI1uuo884ABEOTorPYZNnIeTh04pV

I scent mark my home - for reassurance and home-making.

The video shows Shirty Bertie making his rescue pen into a home by rubbing against it. 

A home has to smell right. My core territory has to smell of me (and my scent glands), my human and any other friendly beings that I live with. So I spend time rubbing my chin against the furniture to spread my scent.

My chin also smells of my human, since I have rubbed it against her when I am feeling friendly. Then I pick up the scent of the furniture, itself, and rub her again. It's a careful mix.

This is feline home-making. I need my home, my core territory, to smell safe and happy. So if I feel just a little insecure, or if I have come back from the cattery, I will remake the scent profile.

What I hate is when the home scent is destroyed by painting, or builders, or some kind of alien scent brought home by my human. When Celia came back from hospital, I had to re-rub her and the home, because she brought back medical smells, like the smells of a vet.

• He was called Shirty Bertie because he occasionally nipped his rescuer.

The shoulder lick - I am self-calming after stress

The shoulder lick. Does your human understand this? Or even notice it? this is me saying to myself: "Calm down." My friend Toby illustrates this in a video.The photo on the right below shows the lick, demonstrated by Boomer.

It is a quick short lick. It is short very short. The fur is only lightly licked and it is not followed by any further grooming. Toby was being groomed too roughly and felt a little upset by it.

Poor dumb humans cannot understand feline body language, so this is another attempt by me to help them wise up a bit. My secretary, Celia, is posting them on Youtube, if she has a video.

One or two bits of body language she still doesn't have a video for, so they will be in photo form. Stay tuned.

• For more cat body language videos, go to my Youtube channel (under Celia's name, alas) and press on Playlists. Choose Cat signals - what is my cat saying, - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQMXNyTVlCTxbGCe1QLO9tw

The head shake...I am resetting myself after stress

Watch the head shake. What does it mean? Educating humans about cat body language is not easy but I am still trying to do so.

When we repeatedly shake our heads, there may be a veterinary reason - like ear mites or perhaps a grass seed has got into the ear. We will probably scratch at the ear too.

But a single small headshake is a way of expressing ourselves. It means we are trying to reset our emotions after something has stressed us. 

It is usually only a small head shake - and humans often don't even notice it. If they do, they probably don't understand its meaning. 

• For more cat body language videos, go to my Youtube channel (under Celia's name, alas) and press on Playlists. Choose Cat signals - what is my cat saying, - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQMXNyTVlCTxbGCe1QLO9tw
  

Watch my head turn - what am I feeling?

Just a shelf and no way to escape staring humans - head turn

 Staring between us cats can be challenging or even threatening. So one way to lessen the tension is for one of us to turn his head away, breaking the mutual eye gaze.

Staring by humans can also make us uneasy or fearful. So we turn our head away, and break off the gaze. It shows we are uneasy, worried or even frightened.

Alas, in cat shelters we cats may be left with no way to hide or retreat from the staring humans. All we can do is turn our head away. There is video on Celia's Youtube channel here.

So, if we look frightened, stop staring at us. Turn your own eyes away or even turn you head and look sideways at us.

We will feel less worried.

Watch my tongue - what am I saying?

The tongue flick showing anxiety

 Humans don't know how to read cat language. We have to remember that they are dumb animals with no proper feline language - only an assorted number of meaningless vocalisations.

So watch my tongue, humans. It will give you a message to tell you how I am feeling.

If I flick my tongue upwards towards my nose, that signals that I am feeling slightly anxious. You can see it in a video that Celia has posted on her Youtube channel here. 

Toby is enjoying being petted but it is slightly too rough for him. So he gets slightly anxious. He flicks his tongue then he turns his head away to show he has had enough for the time being.

If your human wants to learn cat language, get her/him to watch the video.

Lessons for humans 6. Don't put up with groping.

 

                                        Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JiIDD6O_9k
 

We cats are quite clear about body privacy. We know where we DON'T want to be touched. Backside, belly, tail end of back - these are often our private areas.

We also are clear when we want humans to stop touching.

So when some insensitive human gropes us, we nip, bite or scratch. We make it quite clear - Take your hands off me. 

Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P5KysZq0FE

Humans could learn from us. Send a clear message if you don't want to be groped.

You can't bite most of the time. Your face is wrongly designed. You can't  scratch because you have pathetic nails not proper claws.

But you can shout, hit or slap. Humans, it is the twenty first century. You don't have to put up with groping. 

• For a video of lessons from cats go to Celia's Youtube channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBIJyISl3rA&t=55s

Lessons for humans 5. Check the toilet bowl

Tommy inspects his urination. Full video -

https://youtu.be/ujWARbL9tws

 One of the weirdest things about humans is how they toilet. They sit on a ceramic seat, do their business and then pull a lever which flushes water down the same ceramic.

Odd. Very odd, indeed. I have spent time looking into the human toilet and I still don't understand....

There is something they often forget to do... to take a good look at their eliminations before washing them away.

We cats always do this, unless we are interrupted or when the litter tray is covered in a way which makes it too difficult to turn round.

Tommy inspects the human toilet

Yet if humans did this every single time, they would learn more about their state of health. Did dark urine show that they needed to drink more water? Was there blood in their stools? 

So, humans, take a lesson from cats. Take a good look in that ceramic bowl before flushing....

Lessons for Humans 4. Learn balance

 

You can see this on video here _ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOkx5Ae5_1w 

Humans are clumsy animals with serious disabilities. As a result of having only two legs (bad) instead of four (good), their ability to balance is poor. 

So poor that some of the older humans try to add a  third leg by using a stick. It's pathetic to see them staggering along. Others go further and add four legs to their existing two by using a walking frame. That's verging on the weird.

In contrast we cats have excellent balance. It's not just that we have four legs. We are also superior in that we have a tail - a flexible tail that can wave from side to side and upwards and downwards. 

A dog has a tail but while it contributes to balance, it cannot help really difficult balancing actions. It is too stiff.

What can humans learn from us? Despite having no tail and only two legs, they can at least make an effort to improve their poor balance by occasionally using only one leg.

I suggest that all humans should spend five minutes standing on one leg, then on the other.  (Think flamingo!). If they do this conscientiously their balance will improve a little.

Of course, they will never achieve the graceful balance of us cats!

Lessons for Humans 3. Speak Your Gratitude.

Hear the purr at Celia's Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMH0Q-3hEcw

 

We show our pleasure and gratitude by purring or by snuggling up close. Or both. We do this when humans do something we like.

Gratitude works.... If we purr at them when we are eating specially nice food, they are more likely to give it to us again.  

So humans could learn from us. Humans are verbal beings. The poor things can't purr. But they can make a wide variety of vocalisations, which they call speech.

So humans, speak your gratitude. Remember to say thank you when other people do something you like.

And say a big thank you - with smiles and hugs where appropriate - when another human does you a favour.

Remember, gratitude spoken aloud often brings more favours! We cats don't purr for nothing!

 

Lessons for humans. 2. Avoid self pity.

 Humans don't deal with personal disasters as well as we cats do. We cats don't waste time feeling sorry for ourselves. We learn to have fun, even if we have major problems.

Take Tanni, for instance. She was only a kitten when she lost a front leg in a car accident. You might think that she would become some sort of invalid.

Not Tanni. Within 24 hours she was leaping around and playing with cat toys, determined to have fun again. She even chased a bit of fluff on the veterinary floor when she came to after the amputation. No languishing around in the cat bed. 

Later when she went to her forever home, she showed her humans how she could climb up trees with only three legs and catch mice with only a single paw. Anything that a cat with four legs could do, she did with only three.

Lessons for humans. Make sure you have fun, even if you have the bad luck to be disabled.

Lessons for humans. 1. Keep clean

I wish humans could learn to wash as often as I do - and to do a more thorough job. I clean every area of my body at least three or four times daily.

Indeed about 20% of my time is spent washing myself - my tail, my paws, my back, my belly and those intimate areas that I reach by pushing one leg in the air while balancing on my backside.

Humans can't do that.

Instead they wallow in water in a bath sometimes for hours, or what seems like hours. Too long I think.

Picked up as a stray, Caesar has a good wash

The impatient ones step into a shower and spend perhaps 10 minutes or so washing.  Not enough time, I think.

I could teach my human how to do a better job, just using her tongue. she could start with her toes and move upwards.... 

 

Don't forget the tail

Only she can't. She is just not flexible enough. And her tongue doesn't have those little hooks that mine does.

She has a pathetic tongue. It is sort of floppy and smooth on the surface. No good for washing fur and not much use even for the bald human skin.

Sad...

How to wake up your human

 

Chest kneading

Humans are lazy animals. Every now and again, they refuse to wake up on what they call "Sunday." (And, no, I don't know what that means.)

 It is necessary to wake them. Here are some methods contributed by various cats who have refined their individual technique.

• Heavy kneading on the human chest.
• The flying pounce.
• The loud purr in ear.
• The gentle ear nip.
• Walking up and down the body.
  
• Loud mewing.
• Jumping on and off the bed.
• Nipping toes protruding from the duvet.
• Face to face rubbing, with or without purr.
• Backing the butt close to the human nose.... yes, that works!
• Bringing a dead rat on to the bed.
  
  
  
  

But the ultimate wake up call is a living rat on pillow. That always works. And it works fast.

When forever isn't forever.

 Merlin, the beautiful grey cat in this photo, has had bad luck. He has had to move four times in the last 8 months. And he is a very lovable easy cat.

First he was handed into a UK rescue and adopted by a suitable woman. But she had just lost her previous cat and decided her decision had been too fast. She needed to mourn a little more.

So Merlin went as a foster cat to Celia, living in one room for about two months, before finding another home. This time with a charming young man who had just the right living quarters for him.

But then disaster struck. Merlin's third owner was given a new job in London, and could not afford to rent a home that was suitable for a cat.

So now Merlin needs yet another home. It will be his fourth, if you count the time he spend with Celia in her spare bedroom.

He's a beautiful grey cat, friendly, without any bad habits.