You may touch your cat’s belly just to feel them tense up before their razor-sharp teeth and claws sink into your hand. While it’s true that your cat exposing their bellies is usually a sign of trust, it can be a trap as well. You feel an irresistible urge to go pet their belly. You walk into a room, and your cat is sprawled out on their back. They’ll most likely trill or give you some indication that they acknowledge you if you touch them in this instance. This usually means your cat is letting their guard down. A sign of trust is your cat laying facing away from you. If your cat wants your attention, they’ll point their head and body toward you. If your cat crouches down pointed away from you, they can jump up and run quickly. When they stand like this, they have an important advantage. If your cat stands sideways while looking at you, they could feel threatened and want to have a quick escape route. This is usually accompanied by spitting, hissing, and showing teeth.Ĭats also do this neat thing where they point their body in the direction they’re most likely to go. In turn, they can intimidate whatever is scaring them, and it’s a good indicator that you should leave the cat alone. This makes them look much bigger, especially if their hair stands up. You’ve seen cats that put their back all of the ways up and stand sideways. If your cat is ready to fight or go on the defensive, they’ll try to make themselves as large as they possibly can. And they’re voluntarily exposing more of their body.īut, there’s a big difference in your cat stretching out because they’re relaxed and trying to make themselves appear bigger. When they do this, it shows that they’re not feeling threatened. On the other end of the spectrum, your cat could stretch out. This posturing gets them lower to the ground and hides their more vulnerable belly. If your cat is crouched down into a small ball with their legs under them, they can be feeling anxious or worried. They’ll make themselves as small as possible in order to reduce the area that is exposed to whatever is scaring them. This fear manifests in their body posture. I’ll also outline a few key indicators that your cat feels relaxed, focused, happy, anxious, frustrated, fearful, relieved, or angry.ĭid you know that cats evolved as both prey and predators? When your cat runs into a threatening situation, they can feel like they’re the prey. This gets easier the more you do it once you know exactly what to look for in your cat’s posture, ears, tail, eyes, whiskers, and their vocalizations. What I like to do is look at all the small parts of my cat’s body language and piece it together to form the whole puzzle. The key is to look at the big picture first. You have to take all their senses into consideration to help get an accurate representation of how your cat may feel at any given moment. If your cat is familiar with everything around, then like the people, other pets, and sounds, the cat will naturally feel safer. But, if she’s lounging on the top of her cat tree, she has plenty of areas to run off too. I know that if my cat is in a dark, small space like the back of the closet where she likes to hide, approaching her induces stress because she can’t get away as easily. You have to consider whether a situation makes your cat feel safe or makes them feel anxiety and fear. They’re missing how the cat could have perceived their approach. Just because someone has good intentions when they approach their cats, they end up getting bitten or scratched and blame the cat for being mean. You want to try and see things from your cat’s perspective. So, when you try to gauge how your cat is feeling, you’ll want to take the situation into consideration with the physical cues. So, the vertical tail can represent an aggressive cat or a confident cat. However, if she were trying to defend the house from a stray cat, she’d hold her tail high in the air as a sign to attack. Usually, this means that she’s open to interacting and comfortable. It is very important because your cat’s body language can change depending on their context.įor example, my cat is a very confident feline, and she carries her tail very high in the air, vertically. Understanding Context and Body Languageīefore we get into the different indicators of your cat’s mood, you have to understand the context. I rounded up everything I learned and laid it out for you below in hopes that it’ll help you get a good read on your cat as well. And to my surprise, I found out that cats aren’t so mysterious after all. So, I started to dig in and did a lot of research. As an avid cat lover and someone who has had cats all my life, I wanted to know more about how cats communicate with each other and the people in their homes. Cats are mysterious creatures, but their body language gives you big clues to your cat’s mood.
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