The sun was shining, the flowers were blooming, the birds were singing, and Pixie was hunting… It was a goldfinch. Claire knows it because Pixie came to show her her prey in the kitchen before coming down again in the garden.
She played a moment with her bird before giving it to me. A real teamwork : she hunts, I eat !
She would have all the same to decide to eat her preys one day : I am going to gain weight with this system, me… Really, it’s soon double ration every day !
Tag Archives: Behavior
Feline communication for beginners
Over time, your domesticated became more or less expert in communication with you : you mutually learnt to decode your verbal and nonverbal language, and to interpret several signals given simultaneously.
We address the not domesticated humans, as well as the future domesticated ones. Imagine that you meet a cat on the street, or at somebody’s. This cat looks at you, or not. He emits sounds, or not. He’s standing in some way.
How to understand a cat (beginner level) ?
Listen : if the cat growls or hisses, it’s better not to approach him !
Look : look at the eyes, at the position of the ears, and at the tail of the cat : an expert in feline communication will have very subtle information by combining this three information, but a beginner can already understand roughly the basic message.
By Hannibal Poenaru from near Paris, France (flickr.com) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Eyes
- half-closed eyelids : comfort
- wide opened eyelids and dilated pupils : aggressiveness or fear
- fixed look : warning !
Ears
- raised forwards: interest
- folded back : threat or been afraid (drop ears)
- folded aside, like a plane : anger
Tail
- non hérissée, verticale, rectiligne (extrémité recourbée ou non) : accueil amical, contentement
- not bristly, vertical, rectilinear (hooked extremity or not) : friendly welcome, satisfaction
- not bristly, horizontal : interest, curiosity, neutral
- bristly, vertical, rectilinear : aggressiveness
- bristly, low, rectilinear : fear
- pulled down against paws or under the belly : concern, fear
- movement of the extremity : small annoyance
- fast movement : excitement
- jerky movement : big annoyance
Of course, feline communication is much more elaborated : our posture, our mimes, our moving, all these other elements also give information to humans who can understand them. We repeat it, what we presented to you here represents the BASICS of feline communication for novice human. We voluntarily left aside several visual and acoustic signals which the majority of the domesticated know how to recognize.
Between us, between cats, we communicate also a lot by chemical messages : deposits of urine or poop, secretions of our glands put down in the environment, or still secretions and smells which spread directly from us. However, this form of language remains inaccessible to humans : they don’t have the sense of smell developped enough, and their vomero-nasal organ is vestigial for a very long time. In other words, they are underequipped !
How do cats get ready for winter ?
We had cold, rain and wind yesterday, a real autumn weather ! Leaves begin imperceptibly to change color and to fall, and we begin discreetly to get ready for winter.
How do cats get ready for winter ?
They moult.
The renewal of our coat accelerates, and we lose many hairs : our summer hairs fall and are replaced by our more thick winter hairs. It’s important to brush us regularly ! Indeed, we spend a lot of time to lick ourselves to have a wash, and the excessive ingestion of hairs can cause digestive problems : hairs gather together in our stomach and form balls. If we can vomit these hairballs, so much the better, but otherwise, we risk an intestinal obstruction.
They eat more.
Zorro increases his daily ration of about 50 grams. His weight increases by at least 300 grams in winter ! He bards literally himself with bacon, eeh, fat, to protect himself from the cold, because he goes out almost as much in winter as in summer.
As for me, there are few differences between my summer rations and my wintry rations, because I go a lot less outside as soon as it gets a little bit chilly.
They sleep longer.
As there are fewer small critters to be observed, we get a little bored… Fortunately, our human is attentive to play every day with us to make us move ! She also places puzzles feeders in strategic places to distract us.
They spend more time inside.
It’s normal, we get cold pads after a while !
Indoor cats are also subject to these changes, but in a much less marked way.
