The Body Language and Emotion of Cats

INTRODUCTION

Comedian George Carlin performs a funny routine called Dogs and Cats that brings to mind William Kunstler’s observation, A dog is like a liberal. He wants to please everybody. A cat really doesn’t need to know that everybody loves him. When Carlin plays the dog, he perfectly portrays the floppy, sloppy, tongue-lolling pooch who wiggles and wags when the owner comes home, whether after a minute’s or a day’s absence: You’re home! You’re home! I thought you were going to be gone forever and I don’t know how to work the can opener, so I rolled this can of food all over the kitchen floor. I love you! I love you! Then Carlin slips into the role of the cat, blinking haughtily as if trying on a new pair of eyes, and murmuring, Oh, it’s you. Big deal. I killed a mouse for supper. But, hey, if it turns you on, I’ll be glad to rub my lean, beautiful body against your legs.

Dog and cat people alike laugh uproariously at the routine, but often for completely different reasons. Dog people relish Carlin’s ability to describe the intensity of canine devotion, especially when compared to what they see as the cat’s supercilious detachment. Simultaneously, cat lovers delight in Carlin’s ability to contrast the typical elegant, independent, and controlled feline behavior with what they perceive as that of a slavish, slobbering dog.

Similarly paradoxical human attitudes toward cats and dogs capture the imagination of two of the most well-known American cartoonists, Charles Schultz, the creator of the Peanuts comic strip, and Jim Davis of Garfield fame. Schultz presents Snoopy the beagle as the epitome of infinite canine qualities, yet few probably even remember the cat, Feron, who was invariably draped like a rag doll over his mistress’s arm. On the other hand, Davis portrays Garfield as the infinitely creative feline and his companion, Hobie, as a mindless canine twit. Even though both artists reflect entirely different views, cat owners have little difficulty accepting both.

As if this weren’t confusing enough, we have tongue-in-cheek books describing all sorts of irreverent uses for postmortem felines that convulse some cat lovers with laughter and others with rage. Or consider a revelation made by best-selling author and radio personality Garrison Keillor when he appeared before the National Press Club. It was a foregone conclusion that the subject of Bertha’s Kitty Boutique was bound to come up. Bertha’s, one of the most popular of the imaginary sponsors of Keillor’s radio show, The Prairie Home Companion, offers cat lovers a wide variety of products and services from cat sneakers and sun screen to charm school, guaranteed to convert your everyday cat to a star or your money back.

As I listened to all the Bertha’s commercials, like many I envied Keillor’s ability to cut through the mystique and get to the heart of what was really going on in the most intimate corners of the feline mind. I marveled at his flawless analysis of many human/feline interactions. At times, his observations were so incredible, it seemed he must surely be part cat himself, a cat lover of extraordinary sensitivity.

Imagine how shocked I was when Keillor revealed rather sheepishly that Bertha’s began as a spoof on the antics of cats and cat owners, both of which he finds totally incomprehensible! What he considered the most outlandish parodies, what should have struck us cat lovers as blatant attacks, had exactly the opposite effect. Countless cat lovers recognized bits and snatches of ourselves and our cats in Bertha’s ads and laughed uproariously—and heaved sighs of relief, glad to know our relationships with our cats weren’t the only bizarre ones.

However, having studied feline behavior and human/feline interactions, it shouldn’t have surprised me that such incredible insight comes from a person who defines himself as noncat. All aspects of the human/feline relationship are riddled with such paradoxes, some of them even more unusual and most seemingly unresolvable.

In this book we’re going to explore how basic feline behavior and body-language expressions make it impossible to evaluate cats in human terms. Regardless of how hard we try, there will always be enigmas and paradoxes that are both unresolvable and uniquely feline. Although we might long to clarify our relationships with our feline friends by amassing support for interpretation A or B as the right way for us and our cats to respond, time and time again the cat demands that we accept A and B—and even any C, D, and E. Moreover, we will discover that even though we can accept A or B as true for ourselves and our cats in one particular situation, that doesn’t mean that C, D, and E can’t be the best orientation for others and their pets in that same situation or that our own orientations can’t change under different circumstances. Over and over again we’ll see how those who seek to ignore the paradoxes and champion one view as the only right one, or compromise the extremes into some behaviorally and emotionally neutral middle state, are the ones who get themselves into the most problems with their cats.

But isn’t compromise the most effective, unemotional, objective resolution to the situation? It would be if we were dealing with an unemotional, objective problem. For example, if we’re hungry and want to go out to eat with a friend, we may argue about whether Chinese or Italian food fits the bill, but eventually settle on the new French restaurant down the street. You want to buy an Alfa-Romeo, but your spouse wants a Continental sedan, so you compromise on a sporty Mustang convertible. As long as the primary goal is unemotional and simply involves satiating the appetite or providing transportation rather than enjoying a particular type of cuisine or driving a particular car, compromise works well.

However, human feelings about cats tend to be so potent, so well defined and contradictory, that compromise offers no advantages. Consequently, we shouldn’t be surprised to find that every population harbors both ardent cat lovers and passionate cat haters, what we call ailurophiles and ailurophobes. What does come as a surprise, however, and often a most painful shock to many cat owners is the cat’s ability to elicit both emotional extremes within the same individual. While we marvel at the grace and agility a cat demonstrates as it leaps to bat falling leaves to the ground, we fight waves of anger and revulsion when the cat displays that same body language as it snags an unwary fledgling midflight. Instantly the graceful, alluring family pet becomes a demon, a psychopathic killer sadistically toying with a defenseless creature.

At such times our logical minds tell us to balance the two events, to see our cats as a compromise of the two behaviors; but our hearts seldom let us do that. The sight of my cat Maggie joyfully springing to swat every forsythia blossom served to her by gravity gives me a memory I’ll always treasure; but the image of her eyes aglow with a satanic gleam as she deliberately and defiantly brings down a finch within minutes of consuming a bowlful of the best cat food money can buy appalls me so much that even the warmest memories can’t possibly dilute my negative feelings in that instant.

Why does the cat, alone among domesticated species, elicit such powerful and paradoxical human emotions? Or perhaps more correctly, why do so many people allow cats to exert such power over their emotions? For better or worse—and the result is usually a mixture of both—Felis domestica provides humankind with an animate symbol of some of the most intimate and perplexing paradoxes inherent in nature. How we respond to the paradoxical cat, whether we adore and enjoy or fear and despise it, often tells us more about ourselves than about the feline species itself. Whereas most of us can accept our pack-oriented social dogs as symbols of fidelity and companionship—two positive and easily identifiable qualities we can count on our dogs to display—we frequently see cats as symbols of the inexplicable and unpredictable. Having so defined them, much of what they do surprises and even confuses us; and this, rather than our understanding, determines our relationships with our cats.

For example, imagine playing fetch with your faithful hound. Most people consider this a typical human/canine interaction. However, when a cat retrieves, we often consider the act extraordinary. Depending on one’s orientation, the retrieving cat is either expressing its extreme intelligence by allowing itself to be trained or showing its incredible stupidity by permitting itself to be manipulated by humans into performing an uncharacteristic body-language display. Regardless of which view we embrace, we’ll imbue it with a greater emotional charge than we would if faithful Fido performed a similar display.

Remember the old saw, there are three sides to every story—yours, mine, and the truth? That really holds true for feline body-language displays. For every cat behavior that creates often wildly divergent and opposing owner responses, we can find an ethologisťs or animal behaviorist’s view that claims to present the absolute, unemotional, objective explanation for that same display. In the case of the smart versus the stupid retrieving feline, the behaviorist might view the display as a reasonable and logical remnant of a genetically determined and refined predatory mechanism: Predators tend to survive if they consume their prey in a safe environment. Not only does this keep them from losing their food to scavengers, it keeps them from falling prey to other, larger predators. Consequently this retrieving behavior became incorporated into the wild feline’s genetic pool; so it shouldn’t surprise us when a domestic cat instinctively (or with minimal encouragement) returns real or pseudo kill (mice, birds, or toys) to places or people it considers safe.

This sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? The behaviorist’s truth isn’t particularly problematic, and owners can use this view to enhance their individual human/feline relationships. Those who believe that their cats are extraordinarily intelligent can garnish that belief with an awareness that the display carries with it a genetic message passed from cat to cat for thousands of years. Any who previously viewed the body language as a sign of feline stupidity can now choose to see the display as a reflection of normal animal behavior.

However, sometimes the behaviorist’s truth doesn’t serve to enhance the relationship or reconcile opposing views of feline body language. Sometimes the behaviorists’ logical and unemotional explanations serve only to make a bad situation worse or reduce a positive one to an objective void. Again, predation provides a fine example. I’ve read countless books and articles on predatory behavior and can easily accept the validity of most of the data and conclusions presented. However, all that knowledge does nothing to lessen the complex emotional response that always accompanies my discovery of a lifeless mouse or shrew on the braided rug outside my kitchen door. In fact, I can accept the revulsion only because it offers a tangible reminder that death is an unavoidable fact of life, a fact each of us must eventually confront on one level or another. But still, I hate to literally stumble over that ubiquitous unresolved paradox of life and death, hunter and hunted, villain and victim, at 6:00 A.M. as I wander out the door in my flannel nightgown carrying my watering can to the flowerbed. Because I’d rather avoid such heady lessons in my groggy early-morning state, the confrontation comes as a shock. I feel trapped and betrayed by Maggie for this assault on my senses.

No, I don’t scream at her for being so wicked, nor weep over this senseless sacrifice of life—at least I try not to. On the other hand, I can’t ignore what has occurred. Like so many owners I struggle to achieve a balance, a truth that works for Maggie and for me. But those damnable uncompromising paradoxes make me want to give up at times. The rich golden brown of the still-warm adolescent field mouse in my hand seems a poor trade-off for the joy I experience when Maggie pounces on petals and sunbeams. Wouldn’t it be easier just to restrict her to the house?

Some people might shout, Yes! Others might yell just as loudly about the cat’s instinctive need to hunt and its preference for freedom and independence. Logically, I could defend either position, even though they seem mutually exclusive. Emotionally, I’m a wreck.

In the pages ahead we’re going to explore the varied human emotional responses to some common and typically feline body-language displays. Periodically some of the behaviorists’ unemotional facts may come too close for comfort, suddenly revealing intimate personal beliefs we prefer to attribute to the feline mystique. Sure, we all know what we think cats look like they’re enjoying when they roll in catnip, but few of us actually come right out and say it. And when the scientists do say it, we feel trapped. Should we admit, I knew that all along and reveal a heretofore unacknowledged lascivious streak in ourselves and our cats? Or should we first feign ignorance, then horror? "Is that what she’s pretending to do? Oh my God!" O cursed cat, stirring up such emotional dust kitties in the darkest corners of the human psyche!

As we unravel feline anatomy, physiology, and behavior and its relationship to human emotions and ultimately the bond between human and cat, we’ll discover that we can offset every cat owner’s lament with an equally powerful salute. For every feline behavior we view as brutally primitive or blatantly sexual, there’s a complementary view of this same display as sublimely sophisticated or exquisitely sensual. The true or proper response for any given owner may be both, neither, or even immaterial. The only truth that holds any real meaning for us cat people is how our response affects our relationship with cats in general and our one special cat in particular. And while we may at times despise cats for taking us on this wild schizophrenic roller coaster ride between love and hate, good and evil, servitude and mastery, finicky discretion and indiscriminate independence, we can’t deny the one gift the experience bestows on all humankind. By displaying the extremes, the cat presents us with the opportunity and choice to experience the entire range that lies between those extremes. Our human/feline relationships may border on the incomprehensible, but they invariably offer us that rare luxury of making responsible choices among paradoxical elements. When we lack an understanding of basic feline anatomy, physiology, and behavior and how our interpretations of these shape our relationships with our cats, it’s easy to see the cat as an unfathomable mystery, the star of a magic show beyond our comprehension. But once we discover how these factors work together, the cat’s magic becomes part of our own.

1

FAME AND INFAMY: THE CAT AND HISTORY

DON’T touch Fluffykins while she’s sleeping, chides Helen Dorchester as she tiptoes past the silver Persian napping on a satin pillow. Isn’t she the most regal animal you ever saw? Helen glances at the clock: Oh my, it’s time to prepare Fluffy’s seafood bisque."

Next door, Dick Lawrence heaves a rock at the stray black cat streaking from his yard with a bird in its mouth. Get outta here, you damn devil! he screams.

And a few blocks away Bob Klafen hands his wife a fuzzy kitten. Well, we can’t have any kids until we pay our school loans and save enough money for a down payment on a house, but we can still have our own little ‘family.’ If this one works out, we’ll get another, maybe two.

Gods, devils, surrogate children: The domestic cat has played all these roles throughout history. Except for dogs, no other species of animal has enjoyed such intimate contact with the human race, and a study of the relationships between people and cats through the ages sheds light on the fascinating evolution of human responses to feline body-language displays. The story unfolds with all the beauty and startling twists of human evolution itself. If you took a basic high school biology course, you probably heard that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. This somewhat intimidating phrase simply means that, to some extent, the development of an individual (its ontogeny) mimics the evolution of the species to which it belongs (its phylogeny). For example, if we accept that mammals, both humans and felines, descended from some sort of aquatic ancestors, we can see evidence of that evolution by examining the developing fetuses of either species. The early stages of both forms look distinctly fish- and amphibian-like before eventually assuming their familiar mammalian, then obviously human or feline, features. By studying the development from conception to death of an individual member of a given species we can glean a good deal of information about the history of the species itself. Conversely, knowledge of the species’s evolution provides clues to the probable development of any one individual within that species. Taken together, these two different forms of history and evolution—the individual organism on the one hand and the collective species on the other—can give us a fairly complete understanding of the animal in question.

In this book we’ll lay the foundation for such understanding and then use it as a doorway into the wonderful and little explored territory of interspecies body language and emotion. As we explore the mysterious and inscrutable cat and the sometimes seemingly unfathomable relationships that form between it and people, we’ll obtain a clearer picture of both species, a picture that will help us get the most out of the cat-owning experience. Although most of this book will cover the ontogeny of human/feline interactions, the development of your special relationship with your special cat(s), we need to begin our exploration by going back to the earliest point in history, to when the two animals set up housekeeping together.

ALTERNATING CURRENTS OF THOUGHT

As we begin to review the history of human/feline interactions, one fact stands out: They clearly lack the consistency that has characterized peoples’ relationships with dogs. Although cats have always entertained their devout champions and supporters, even when the majority of humankind associated them with the dark forces of Satan, they have never won consistent praise for particular traits the way faithful Fido has.

A brief survey of a wide range of cat-related literature demonstrates this lack of uniformity. Writers as diverse as Colette and Hemingway see cats as powerful symbols of the intimate and often contradictory needs of men and women, husbands and wives. Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant curdle our blood with tales that take common feline characteristics and expand them to horrifying proportions, preying on our lack of understanding of normal cat behavior. Writings from such divergent authors as early Egyptian priests, fourteenth-century Christian monks, and the often bawdy social commentators such as Geoffrey Chaucer often speak of cats in sexual and sensual terms that set translators and interpreters at each others’ throats. Conversely, authors such as the preserver of the legend of Dick Whittington’s cat and Tennessee Williams write about cats that display almost doglike devotion.

Even though human beliefs regarding cats may be uniformly inconsistent, we can’t escape the fact that they are also often uniformly passionate. Whatever people may believe about cats, chances are they’ll believe it strongly. Although certain aspects of human/feline relationships do tend to recur, the historical cat, unlike the dog, cow, or horse, has triggered volatile and extreme emotions, ranging from deification to vilification.

What historical factors contributed to such wildly divergent views of the same basic animal? Have people changed so dramatically during the last five thousand years? Have cats changed all that much? Or is there something about cats that just naturally ignites human emotions?

To be sure, people have changed since 3500 B.C., but basic human biology and behavior have remained essentially the same. This is equally true for cats. The Felis domestica stalking a mouse in a suburban American basement looks and acts like the one that preyed on mice in ancient Egypt. Furthermore, the domestic cats described in ancient Egypt share the same characteristics with their prehistoric ancestor Dinictis. The agility, adaptability, and intelligence that enabled Dinictis to survive the centuries relatively unchanged still captivate cat owners today. Therefore, we must conclude that human beliefs and emotions regarding cats account for the tremendous inconsistency with which cats have been experienced in human society over the years.

The study of the relationships between people and animals reveals that awareness of and response to a particular species depends to a large extent on our ability to link it to our own experience. If the animal reflects a quality we recognize and like, we eagerly develop a relationship with it. For example, animals such as dogs, horses, cows, chickens, and ducks tend to be social, preferring to be among their own kind, a quality they share with humans. In addition these species also possess other qualities that we perceive as enhancing human existence: The horse serves as a predictable beast of burden, the dog as hunter, herder, and companion; the cow and fowl as reliable sources of food. Because we see all of these qualities in a positive light, selection and domestication progress with relative ease.

If we dislike certain qualities, we either try to ignore them or we attempt to eradicate the quality or the species, depending on how much the negative quality threatens us. When we feel threatened by certain rodents, snakes, roaches, and stinging or biting insects, we either try to stay out of their paths or spend a great deal of time and effort trying to wipe them off the face of the earth. If we feel that our meat should be leaner, our milk have more butterfat, our horses run faster, or our Persians be longer-haired, we initiate controlled programs designed to eliminate the undesirable genes and/or individuals.

However, even though we may tamper extensively with individual species within the animal kingdom, the fact remains that the human view toward most species has been fairly consistent throughout history—except for the cat. In spite of a tremendous amount of superficial genetic manipulation to alter its visible features (coat length, texture, and color; eye color; conformation or body shape), the caťs basic qualities have remained relatively unchanged for centuries; however, human attitudes toward those qualities have fluctuated wildly. To understand why this phenomenon occurs, we’re going to track human responses to four common feline displays:

•  Nocturnal behavior.

•  Territorial and asocial behavior.

•  Mating and maternal behavior.

•  Predatory behavior.

By contrasting human beliefs about these behaviors within the highly ailurophilic ancient Egyptian and the equally ailurophobic medieval European cultures, we can learn some fascinating lessons about the fundamental relationship between Homo sapiens and Felis domestica.

GODS AND DEMONS OF THE NIGHT

Remember the nursery rhyme about the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead? When she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid. From ancient times philosophers have noted that anyone or anything that wins recognition from some quarters for being very, very good can quite easily elicit hatred and intolerance from others. Like yin and yang, godlike and devillike seem to form inseparable sides of the same coin. Strong human personalities (Socrates, Jesus, Hitler, and even Clint Eastwood) can evoke extreme love/hate emotions; many fashions (hairlength, hemlines) entice or anger depending on the era.

Because humans are a diurnal or light-active species, we’ve always been afraid of the dark, especially before electricity lighted our homes and streets. Therefore it’s not surprising that the cat’s ability to move freely in the dark and its apparent preference for a nocturnal life-style made a deep and lasting impression on our ancestors. Because the Egyptians recognized multiple gods, they could easily ascribe positive meanings to the cat’s distinctly nonhuman behavior. Recall the flash of brilliant light emitted from the eyes of a night-stalking cat caught in the beam of your car’s headlights. We can appreciate the Egyptian’s assumptions that a creature with such ability represents something otherworldly. Because they didn’t know about the highly reflective structure at the back of the cat’s eyes (the tapetum), they easily assumed the cat was the source of that light. And because the dark-fearing Egyptians worshiped all light, this four-legged fur-covered lamp was worshiped too. In such a way the Egyptians took great comfort from the idea that the cat was a minireservoir of the sun god’s great power, keeping watch over them during fear-filled nights; and out of gratitude, they made the cat a god.

Anyone who’s looked closely at the feline eye can’t help but notice how the pupil opens (dilates) or closes (constricts) in response to light. This fact didn’t escape the notice of the early Egyptians, who related it to the waxing (dilation) and waning (constriction) of the moon, an association that further linked the cat with night. Once they made this association, they eventually transferred to the cat the moon’s power to control the tides, the weather, crop plantings, and harvests.

In such ways the Egyptians took their only domesticated, available nocturnal species, imbued it with the qualities of both sun and moon, and made it a symbol of light in the darkness. Whether their cats lay quietly beside them or prowled the night, the Egyptians believed the cats were protecting them from the dangers of the dark.

During the Middle Ages people harbored just as many fears of the night as did the early Egyptians and perhaps even more. However, unlike the Egyptians, who had firmly established a multitheistic religion providing all sorts of protective gods and tangible symbols in the form of animals or idols, early Europeans got caught in the transition between pagan and monotheistic Christian beliefs. Because Christianity didn’t permit its followers to recognize any good god save the One beyond human comprehension, night-fearing medieval Europeans found themselves in a bind. Their fears convinced them that if those other-worldly things going bump in the night couldn’t be good, then they must be bad—a view supported by churchmen, who saw nothing inconsistent about recognizing an intangible God but a tangible Devil(s). Into this world sauntered the only domestic nocturnal species; but instead of enjoying respect and deification, cats quickly became symbols of Satan himself. In this reversed view, cats became the target of human fear, an emotion that often leads to violence. Almost overnight, the destruction of a cat became synonymous with triumph over the Devil, the Prince of Darkness.

LIVING THE ASOCIAL LIFE

Another feline characteristic offering insight into the human/feline relationship is the cat’s singularly asocial nature. All other domestic species, including humans, prefer the society of fellow creatures; we, our dogs, and our sheep function most happily when among our own kind; we birds of like feather flock together. If we can’t, we’ll flock with birds of just about any feather, gravitating toward a member of a different species simply to fight off loneliness.

Cats don’t necessarily share this behavior. All felines are, by nature, asocial or solitary animals who prefer to be alone except when mating or raising their young. Because of this preference for the solitary life, the relationships between people and cats take on qualities unlike those that characterize the bond between us and any other domestic species. Unlike our bond with faithful Fido, to whom we are drawn by the similarites between us, the one we form with Sylvester depends on the differences between the two species. As with other feline displays, this behavior can lead to extreme human interpretations.

Once we form relationships with birds of a feather, we often feel more comfortable exploring relationships with more alien creatures. This may explain why the ancient Egyptians, having gained confidence from their fixed and stable society, felt drawn toward novelty. And what could be more novel than the solitary, nongregarious cats? The cat’s aloofness stimulated the ancient Egyptians to raise its exalted status still further. After all, a god would naturally avoid intimacy with common folk and would never consider coming, sitting, or staying just because some mere mortal instructed it to do so. The Egyptians believed that feline independence provided concrete proof that the cat-god chose to live with them, to serve them and their families; it didn’t need them, it didn’t depend on them for anything. Conversely the feline’s asocial proclivities also provided a constant reminder that the cat could choose to abandon its host or withdraw its favors at any time. This awareness spurred them to anticipate their cat’s every need lest they displease and alienate it.