Cat Facts

Tail Signals

Ear Signals

Eye Signals

Purring

Dreaming

Miscellaneous Cat Facts

Safe and Toxic Plants

Toxic Household Items

Tail Signals

Cat to cat language is largely made from body language and signals. This form of communication is in essence the main source of cat to cat expression, of course cats will meow, hiss and spit at each other. But when you actually observe your cat most of the time they are silent, but even so they are communicating through ear, tail and body posture and postion. The tail is an important part of the cat to watch and de-code to understand your cat.

Contented

Tail curves down and then up a the tip - this means that the cat is peaceful and contented.

Tail slightly raised and gently curved - the cat is curious and interested.

Tail held vertical but with tip tilting over - the cat is interested and friendly and in a greeting mood but is also slightly cautious.

Tail held vertical with the tip stiffly held upright - the cat is very happy which is ready and willing to greet, with no reservations.

Tail held vertically and quivering - this often happens after the cat greets you and means a friendly hello.

Unhappy

Tail lowered, maybe even between legs - this is a signal of submission. Your cat may be feeling lowly and defeated

Tail held low and puffed out - the cat is fearful

Tail arched and bristling - the cat is in a defensive mode, but also a cat ready to defend itself if pushed. A cat will always puff itself up when challenged to try and make itself appear bigger and scare the challenger

Aggressive

Tail held straight and bristling - this is the sign of aggression

Tail swishing violently side to side - the sign of conflict in its most angry state, usually a sign that the cat is about to attack.

Tail still with tip twitching - the cat is mildly irritated. If the tip starts to twitch more vigorously then the cat is becooming more bad tempered.

Sexual

Tail held to one side - this is usually performed by the female. This is an invitation to the male when she is ready to be mounted.

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Ear Signals

Unlike humans ears play a large part in cats communication.They have between 20 and thirty muscles that controls their movement - they can swivels through 180 degrees and move independently of each other. There are five basic ear signals - relaxed, alert, agitated, defensive, and aggressive.

Happy relaxed cat

The cat will usually sit with its ears facing forward and tilted slightly back, as it listens for interesting sounds. When an interesting sound is detected the ears change into alert mode.

The alert cat

The ears will become more pricked as the muscles in the forehead pull them in. If the ears begin to twitch or swivel, the cat is probably feeling a little anxious or unsure of the noise or situation.

An aggitated cat

If the cat is feling in a state of conflict, frustration or apprehension or apprehension, the cat will often display a nervous twitching of the ears.

A defensive cat

A defensive cat will display its ears fully flattened. This is also a practical defense mechanism so that if the cat gets into a fight its ears won't be damaged.

An aggressive cat

The ears are rotated but not fully flattened, with backs visible from the front. This is the most dangerous ear signal a cat can transmit.

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Eye Signals

Fear or excitement

If a cat feels threatened and also if it sees something pleasing the cat's pupils will become dilated.

Annoyed

An annoyed cat will turn its ears back, while its pupils constrict and its whiskers bristle forward.

Playing and hunting

The ears are pricked, pupils dilated and whiskers thrust forward.

Relaxed or friendly

A relaxed cat will have perked ears and whiskers. Dilation of the pupils depends on the light.

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Purring

Purring in cats first occurs at about one week of age. It serves as a signal to the nursing mother cat that all is well with her babies and that the milk supply is reaching its destination. She, in turn, purrs, letting the kittens know that she too is in a relaxed and co-operative mood. It is believed that purring among adult cats and between adult cats and humans is derived from this primal parent-offspring context. Contentment is not the sole condition for purring, however. A more precise explanation is that purring signals a friendly social mood and can be employed by an injured cat to indicate the need for friendship and help. It has been observed that cats in great pain often purr loud and long and can hardly be considered to be contented.

Unlike our small domestic cats that purr with both inward and outward breaths (with their mouths firmly shut), their large cousins--the lions and tigers, can only sputter out a friendly "one-way purr" when greeting friends. However, the big cats have a feature that compensates for their inability to purr--they can roar! (Something our miniature house-bound tigers would undoubtedly love to do.)

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Do Cats Dream?

Cats can spend up to 23 hours a day snoozing, catnapping, catching forty winks or otherwise dead to the world. They have 2 main mottos - "If in doubt, wash" and "If bored, sleep". They are masters of the art of sleeping draped over branches or chairbacks, curled into impossibly tight balls or sprawled out, snoring, on freshly fluffed duvets. As they slumber, paws flex and relax, claws extend and retract, legs and whiskers twitch and mouths make quiet chattering or mumbling noises. Do our purry furry friends dream and, if so, of what?

Human dreams are based on things we've experienced, seen or read, sprinkled with a liberal dose of imagination. Cats also recall previous experiences; vanishing when the flea-spray appears. They also remember things they've seen - like how to open catflaps after watching other cats doing it. Scenes from wildlife programmes or 'video catnip' tapes, where the prey is tantalisingly out of reach, may well feature in feline dreams.

Though it may seem odd to credit cats with powers of imagination, they sometimes think problems through rather than solving them by trial and error. One pair of imaginative felines quickly worked out how to reach doorhandles by standing one on the other's back rather than just jumping up at the handle. Others seem adept at unbolting catflaps.

What do all those fast-asleep paw movements and chattering noises mean during RPM (Rapid Paw Movement) sleep? Maybe the slumberer is remembering a hunting trip. Though not all cats have hunted real prey, they have inherited all the right instincts. Many of those fast-asleep paw movements resemble small pouncing or swatting motions. Cats often chatter in frustration when prey eludes them. By the amount of chattering Jack does when asleep, dream hunts, like real life hunts, are often unsuccessful.

If you watch closely, you might be able to work out what scenario is being enacted or re-enacted in your cat's dream. Those little movements are all clues to what is going on inside that cute furry head. That twitching tail could mean 'stalking prey', 'poised to pounce' or 'seen something interesting'. When followed by a paw-twitch, a whisker twitch and a raised lip (maybe even exposing the canine) the dream prey has been dispatched. Sometimes Jack even licks his lips afterwards, other times he seems to be playing with his catch. Teeth chattering and tail lashing probably means the dream prey got away.

Other pleasurable experiences such as dinner-time, kittenhood, being gently groomed, rambling-in-the-garden, rolling belly-up in sunbeams or tormenting the family dog probably feature in feline dreams. How often do you accidentally wake your cat and get rewarded by that expression which says 'I was having such a lovely dream'? Like people, some cats must dream more vividly or imaginatively than others.

During sleep, our brain releases inhibiting substances to prevent us from acting out our dreams fully, although we may toss, turn and even talk in our sleep. The feline brain works similarly. In laboratory experiments where unfortunate feline subjects have had their brains tampered with so that those substances aren't released, the cats act out their dreams in full. Even laboratory-bred cats which have never hunted, or even seen prey, have been observed to 'catch birds', 'chase mice' and 'bat prey' in the course of their dreams.

Take a peek at your slumbering cat. Are those paws patting your knitting or pouncing on prey? Is that a murmur of contentment or a curse of frustration? That belly-up, blissful snoring pose - a dream of nursing kittens, of sunbathing or of being lovingly stroked? Next time you find your cat in the land of nod, watch closely and see if you can work out what it is dreaming.

1993, Sarah Hartwell

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Miscellaneous Cat Facts

Ailurophilia is the "love of cats."

The average lifespan for a cat is 14-16 years.

Cats are now Britain’s favourite pet: there are 7.7 million cats as opposed to 6.6 million dogs.

From a crouched position, cats can jump 4 to 5 times their own height.

Besides smelling with their nose, cats can smell with an additional organ called the Jacobson's organ, located in the upper surface of the mouth .

The nose pad of a cat is ridged in a pattern that is unique, just like the fingerprint of a human.

A sexually-active feral tom-cat "owns" an area of about three square miles and "sprays" to mark his territory with strong smelling urine.

One un-neutered female cat can, in five years, be responsible for over 20,000 descendants. Female cats can have their first litter as young as six months and can have up to three litters each year—with five or six kittens in each litter.

Ninety-two per cent of cats are "Moggies", or, non-pedigrees. How did the name "Moggie" come about? One theory holds that it comes from old English dialect, where "Moggie" was used to designate a loose woman or prostitute. It is thought that this name was given to cats because they mate repeatedly with different males when they are in season.

Ever wondered why kittens can all be different colours and look so different from their mums? The fact is that one in four pregnant cats carries kittens fathered by more than one mate. A fertile female may mate with several tom-cats, which fertilise different eggs each time.

Cats’ eyes shine in the dark because of the tapetum, a reflective layer in the eye, which acts like a mirror. They also need 1/6th less light to see than humans which is why they can play and hunt in the dark.

British cat owners spend roughly 550 million pounds a year on cat food. Americans spend almost 3 billion dollars a year on food for their cats, yet, for comparison, America spends only 700 million dollars on drug prevention and treatment programs.

Cats lack a true collarbone. Because of this, cats can generally squeeze their bodies through any space they can get their heads through. You may have seen a cat testing the size of an opening by careful measurement with the head

A man named Sir Henry Wyat was sentenced to the Tower of London, at a time when prisoners generally starved to death. Sir Henry's cat seemed to understand the situation because she snuck into the Tower bringing him a freshly-killed pigeon every day. When the king heard of this, he must have felt sad for the cat, because he immediately set Sir Henry free.

On February 28, 1 980 a female cat climbed 70 feet up the sheer pebble-dash outside wall of a block of flats in Bradford, Yorkshire and took refuge in the roof space. She had been frightened by a dog.

On September 6,1950, a four-month-old kitten belonging to Josephine Aufdenblatten of Geneva, Switzerland followed a group of climbers to the top of the 14,691 -ft. Matterhorn in the Alps.

Cats will not walk on aluminum foil. This is good to know when you are trying to protect something that your cat would tend to walk on such as a part-done jigsaw puzzle.

Cats' whiskers have a function similar to those curb feelers which were so common on cars in the 1950's. When a cat looks into a small tunnel or opening in the bushes, the whiskers are used to gauge the dimensions. If the opening doesn't rub the whiskers, the cat's body will fit through.

Why are cats so meticulous about keeping clean? They lick off all blood and odor-causing matter to prevent attracting flies and bigger predators that would be interested in the odor of blood. Also the less scent that they give off the better they will be at hunting as their prey will not be able to smell them.

A cat's heart beats twice as fast as a human heart, at 110 to 140 beats per minute and it's normal body temperature is 101.5 degrees Fahrenheit. This is slightly warmer than a humans.

If your cat scratches up valuable furniture, tape balloons to it. The cat will never scratch there again.

It is often reported that cats cannot taste sweet flavors. Actually, they can sense sweetness, but do not have much interest in sugary things. What is particularly interesting about their sense of taste, is that they have a special taste for the flavor of water, which we humans cannot taste.

If you need to give liquid medicine to a cat, don't try to feed it to the cat. This would only result in a battle. Instead, spill the medicine on the kitty's fur. The cat will lick it off in the process of cleaning.

When a cat turns around and around before laying down, this is an instinct left over from the days when they slept in tall grass. The turning action pushed the grass down into a nest.

The Cat Flap was invented by Sir Isaac Newton. It has been reported that he found that his cat was breaking his "think time" when it wanted to be let out. To stop this and to let Sir Isaac conectrate he devised a system which the cat could use to come in and out. There was a hole in the door big enough for the cat to fit through with a flap to stop the rain and bad weather coming into his house.

The domestic cat is the only cat species able to hold its tail vertically while walking. All wild cats hold their tails horizontally or tucked between their legs while walking.

Cats get their sense of security from your voice. Talk to your cats! And be mindful of your tone of voice. Cats know when you're yelling at them (though they may not care). The more cats are spoken to, the more they will speak to you.

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Safe and Toxic plants

Some plants are safe for your cat but some are toxic. Below is a list.

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Toxic Household Items

There are many items in your household with are poisonous to cats! Be careful with the following items:

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