Video: How cats greet each other
Editorial: “What makes the purrfect pet?“
The domestic cat is easily the world’s most popular pet, outnumbering dogs by as many as three to one. This popularity is undoubtedly helped by the fact that cats are simultaneously affectionate and self-reliant. They need virtually no training. They groom themselves. They can be left alone without pining for their owners, but most nonetheless greet us affectionately when we get home. In a word, they are convenient.
Even so, cats remain aloof and inscrutable. Dogs tend to be open, honest and biddable. Cats, on the other hand, demand we accept them on their terms, but never quite reveal what those terms might be.
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Will we ever know? I’m convinced that we will. I’ve shared my home with quite a few cats, but I don’t feel that this has taught me very much about what they are really like. Rather, it is science that has begun to reveal the cat’s true nature, especially in regard to their relationship with humans. This is a good time to take stock of what we know, and how we can use our knowledge to improve cats’ daily lives.
Cats and humans go back a long way. DNA evidence identifies the pet cat’s ancestor as the Arabian wildcat Felis silvestris lybica, and places its ago in the Middle East.
It is likely that the first people to tame wildcats were the Natufians, who inhabited the Levant from about 13,000 to 10,000 years ago and are widely regarded as the inventors of agriculture. As such, they were also the first people to be bedevilled by a new pest – the grain-loving house mouse. Wildcats probably moved in to exploit this new resource. Realising how useful this was – cats, after all, had no interest in eating grain – people must have encouraged them to hang around.
These were not pet cats as we know them. They would have been more like today’s urban foxes, able to adapt to a human environment while retaining their essential wildness.
Of course, the cat’s other qualities would not have gone unnoticed. Their appealing features, soft fur and ability to learn to become affectionate toward us led to their adoption as pets. The cat gradually insinuated itself into homes and hearts, changing from wild to domestic over several thousand years.
Despite their transformation, cats still have three paws firmly planted in the wild. The dog’s mind has been radically altered from that of its wolf ancestor. Cats, on the other hand, still think like wild hunters.
Cats are not humankind’s creation. In contrast to almost every other domestic animal, cats retain remarkable control over their own lives. Most go where they please when they please and, crucially, choose their own mates. Unlike dogs, only a small minority of cats has ever been intentionally bred by people. No one has bred cats to guard houses, herd livestock or assist hunters. Their domestication was therefore driven largely by natural selection. Cats co-evolved with humans, moulding themselves into niches that we unintentionally provided.
For these reasons, cats cannot be considered completely domesticated, and much of their behaviour still reflects their wild instincts. To understand why cats behave as they do – especially in their relationships with us – we must understand these instincts.
Cats can be very affectionate, but they are choosy about the objects of their affection. This stems from their evolutionary past: wildcats are largely solitary and regard most other cats as rivals. Domestic cats’ default position on other cats remains one of suspicion, even fear.
Domestication, however, has blunted some of their wariness. The demands of domestication – first the need to live cheek-by-jowl with other cats and then the forming of bonds with people – have extended cats’ social repertoires beyond all recognition.
Social behaviour probably started to evolve as soon as cats began to congregate around granaries. Any cat that maintained its antagonism towards other cats would have put itself at a disadvantage when exploiting this resource.
Even today, wherever there is a regular source of food, a colony of feral cats will spring up – assuming local people allow it. Colonies can build up until several hundred cats are all living in close proximity to one another.
Clawful mess
In these colonies, society is based on cooperation between genetically related females. Mothers often drive away their male offspring after a few months to avoid inbreeding, leaving them to lead solitary lives. Where colonies consist of more than one family, they compete with one another. Colonies are therefore far from well-regulated. Cats seem to be incapable of sustaining a large number of friendly relationships, or of forming alliances between family groups in the way that primates do; negotiation skills this sophisticated lie beyond their capabilities.
Nonetheless, the switch to social living required a quantum leap in communication. For an animal as well-armoured as a cat, a tiff might escalate into a dangerous fight unless a system of signalling evolves that allows cats to assess others’ moods and intentions. And this is precisely what happened.
For domestic cats, my research has shown that the key signal is the straight-up tail. In colonies, when two cats are working out whether to approach each other, one usually raises its tail; if the other is happy to approach, it raises its tail too. The tail-up signal almost certainly evolved during domestication, arising from a posture wildcat kittens use when greeting their mothers. Adult wildcats do not raise their tails to each other.
Once an exchange of tail-ups has been established, one of two things occurs. Either the cats rub heads, flanks and sometimes still-raised tails before separating, or they engage in mutual grooming, which has profound social significance in many animals. Both rubbing and grooming probably perform the same function for cats: cementing an amicable relationship.
The most important social skill a cat must learn in order to become a pet is, of course, how to interact with people. This must have its origins in interactions between cats – it has no other plausible evolutionary source.
Cats are not born attached to people. They are merely born with an inclination to trust people during a brief period when they are tiny.
Studies of dogs in the 1950s established the notion of a “primary socialisation period”, when puppies are especially sensitive to learning how to interact with people. For dogs, this is between 7 and 14 weeks of age.
The concept also applies to cats, but starts earlier. A kitten that is handled regularly between 4 and 8 weeks generally develops a powerful attraction to people. One that does not meet a human until 10 weeks or later is likely to fear people for the rest of its life.
Cats do not suddenly stop learning about people when they pass the eight-week watershed. We know that they learn a great deal more about how to interact with people throughout the first year of their life.
Cynics often suggest that cats trick us into giving them food and shelter through faux displays of affection, and that owners project their own emotions onto their pets. But we feel such affection for cats with good reason. The human-like quality of their facial features is a factor, but it cannot be sufficient. Cats owe their success as pets to the fact that they have evolved an ability to interact with us in a way that we find appealing.
“Cats owe their success as pets to the fact that they have evolved an appealing way to interact with us”
Even at the earliest stage of domestication, cats needed humans to protect and feed them when mice were in short supply. The cats that thrived were those that were able to reward people with their company.
Many , but what do cats feel for us? We know that they have the capacity to feel affection for other cats, and so it is probable that their attachment to their people is an emotional one.
Proving it is difficult, however, as we can only really judge cats’ emotions by their actions – and cats do not wear their hearts on their paws.
Most owners would say that their cat displays contentment by purring. But purring is not at all straightforward. It clearly does occur when a cat is contented, and this may be the norm. However, a purring cat may be hungry, or mildly anxious. Some continue to purr even when their body language indicates they are angry. Occasionally, cats have also been heard purring when they were in distress or even during the moments before death.
Purring, then, does not necessarily reveal a cat’s emotional state. Instead, it seems to be what behavioural ecologists refer to as a “manipulative” signal, conveying the general request: “please settle down next to me”.
However, other signals, ones we tend to overlook, may be more genuine displays of affection. Relationships between adult cats seem to be sustained mainly through mutual licking and rubbing, so we should examine whether these also reveal affection directed towards us.
Many cats lick their owners regularly, but scientists have not yet investigated why this should be. The most likely explanation is that the cat is trying to convey something to its owner about their relationship. The reason must be basically affectionate, because two cats that do not like each other never groom each other. But until we know more about why cats groom one another, we can only speculate on why they groom us.
Cat owners also engage in a tactile ritual with their pets when they stroke them. Most owners stroke their cats simply because it gives them pleasure, and because the cat also seems to enjoy it, but stroking may also have symbolic meaning for the cat. Most prefer to be stroked on their heads, the area towards which cats direct their grooming.
Many cats do not simply accept stroking passively – they invite people to stroke them by jumping on their laps or rolling over. They also indicate where they wish to be stroked by offering that part of their body or shifting position. By accepting stroking, cats are engaging in a social ritual that is reinforcing the bond with their owner.
While touch is very important, the upright tail is probably the clearest way cats show their affection for us. A cat approaching its owner with a raised tail will often rub on its owner’s legs. The form that the rub takes seems to vary from cat to cat: some rub just with the side of their head, others rub down their flank, some make contact with their tail. Many walk past without making any contact or perform their rubs on an object nearby.
Sometimes when this happens it looks as though the cat is scent-marking. But if scent is transferred, it does not seem to hold any particular significance for the cat. They seem to have learned that we are oblivious to the delicate odours that they leave on our legs. Cats presumably find rubbing against us rewarding in its own right – if they didn’t, they would probably stop.
The sound of mewsic
Because many cats rub most intensely when they are about to be fed, they have been accused of showing nothing more than cupboard love. However, few cats confine their rubbing to mealtimes, and when two cats rub they exchange no additional reward. So an exchange of rubs is a declaration of affection – nothing more, nothing less.
Another way cats communicate with us is to attract our attention, usually by meowing. The meow is part of the cat’s natural repertoire, but they rarely use it to communicate with other cats, and feral cats are generally rather silent. While all cats are apparently born knowing how to meow, each has to learn how to use this to communicate most effectively.
Once cats have learned that their owners respond to meows, many develop a range of sounds that, by trial and error, they learn are effective in specific circumstances. In this way, each cat and its owner gradually develop an individual “language” that they both understand, but that is not shared by other cats or owners.
“Each cat and its owner gradually develop an individual language that they both understand, but is not shared by others”
So cats demonstrate great flexibility in how they communicate with us, which rather contradicts their reputation for aloofness. We could consider some of this behaviour manipulative, but only to the extent that two friends negotiate the details of their relationship. The underlying emotion on both sides is undoubtedly affection.
Nonetheless, we should not kid ourselves that a cat’s relationship with people is its sole raison d’être. They form even stronger attachments to the place where they live. Well-fed, neutered cats should not feel the need for a territory of their own. Nevertheless, most still regularly patrol a small area around their home and are prepared to fight other cats to maintain control of it. What motivates them to pursue what seems to be an unnecessary remnant of their ancestral behaviour?
The answer is quite simple. Today’s pet cats have only evolved their behaviour during the past 10,000 years, from a time when every cat would have had to hunt and therefore defend an area in which it had access to prey.
The importance of territory is emphasised by the fact that many pet cats stray and get “lost”, even though they are well looked after. We see a clue from the significant proportion of owners – as many as a quarter in some areas – who, when asked where they obtained their cat, reply, “it just turned up one day”. These cats were not feral: they were other people’s pets, desperate for territory.
How can we use this new understanding of cats to improve their lives? Perhaps the most important lesson is that they retain much of their wild nature – especially with respect to other cats. Many spend their lives trying to avoid contact with other cats. All the while, their owners compel them to live close to other cats that they have no reason to trust, whether neighbours’ cats, or a second cat. They find it increasingly difficult to avoid contact with others, so while cats may be the most popular pet in the world, I’m afraid that their very popularity is increasingly causing them to struggle.
