Understanding cat behavior by FELIX THE CAT
Cat behavior is a very interesting area to study. Once you start to learn about cat behavior you will have a new appreciation for our furry friends. Most people only become interested in cat behavior when they have behavioral problems.Cats have a unique characteristic. They have a double status: they are very efficient predators and at the same time, they can be hunted by bigger predators as dogs or others carnivores. So, they need to have a wide range of behaviors including agonistic and defense behaviors and need to be able to adapt very quickly. This necessity will explain some sudden changes in behavior that can surprise the owners. Cats can switch from a play behavior to an aggressive behavior, from a confident posture to a fearful position in a glance. Owners many times don’t understand and can be upset because the cat that they were petting one minute before can suddenly bite. The first therapeutic act is to educate the owner about “normal” behavior in cats.
We can define an “aggression field” in cats. Entering into this field can provoke an aggression. When cats are in a good mood, with no internal problem, with no stress, the “aggression field” is smaller than the cat and we can touch him, make an injection, and take the rectal temperature. However, in a snap, the aggression field can increase and be confounded with the limits of the cat. At that time, any contact can lead to an agonistic response. In the worse situations, the aggression field draws a territory around the cat of some meters and any intrusion in that field will trigger an attack. This is really different in dogs and cats!
This double status, the ability to switch instantaneously from one kind of activity to another, are important in better understanding and explaining feline behavior. When the vet does that, he prevents the owners from thinking that their cat is “mad” when he scratches after being petted.
Cats are territorial animals and they organize it by many ways. A cat territory has a precise structure, mixing fields that the animal can share with others and restricted areas where he doesn’t wish to meet anyone else. Part of the consultation must consist in finding how the cat’s territory is built and if the conditions of living allow the animal to organize his life between different activities fields such as an elimination field and an isolation field.
As important as the physical organization of the territory, the chemical one is much more important. In rubbing its face, scratching, or eliminating, the cat is putting different marks that have a signification for him or for other cats. The urine markings at the entrance of precise fields contain spacing pheromones for other cats as well as a visual signal (the urinary spot). The scratches too are a way to keep other cats away from the isolation field that is typically a place the cat doesn’t wish to share. In this case there is again a double signal: visual with the vertical lines made by the scratches and pheromonal. It is thought that because of the weak power of volatility of pheromones, it is useful for the cat to add a visual signal to increase the chance for the signal to be read by other cats.
Signs of anxiety can be really different in cats: rolling skin syndrome, decrease in face rubbing, decrease or increase in self-grooming don’t exist or don’t mean the same thing in cats and dogs. But the first work, if we want to treat more cats, is to understand better how they live, starting from their genuine ethology and including all what they have added living alongside humans. It’s a great challenge for the vet because they are the only partners for the owners and they must not miss their chance.
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