How To Communicate With Your Cat

Hi, my name is Karen, I am one of the vets at Cats Protection, the United Kingdom's leading cat welfare charity, and I am going to talk to you today about some aspects of cat care. I am going to talk to you today about how to communicate with your cat. First thing to know is how do cats normally communicate with each other.

What is interesting about cats is that they evolve from the African wildcat and this cat lives in a solitary lifestyle. They only come together for mating and things like that in contrast to humans and dogs who are very social creatures and have developed some really complex verbal and facial expressions and signals to communicate things with each other. Cats haven't needed to develop any of this in their solitary lifestyle.

What they have found very useful to them though is using scent or smells to communicate with each other, and this works brilliantly for animals that don't like to see others of the same species because a smell could last over time. So you could leave a communicative smell in one place and another cat can come at another time and get that communication without you having to come into face-to-face contact or conflict with each other. So what kind of smells do cats use? Well, they use a variety.

There are some that are a bit more obvious to us, then smells like urine and feces. Sometimes they can use scent glands that are in various parts of their body. They can use scent glands on their paws or on their cheeks to convey different signals.

Cats will use these scent glands in different areas to tell themselves different things smells like cat urine. When a cat sprays in places that can tell them to be weary or watch out around that area. It's kind of a signal to be careful.

Cats use the sweat glands in their paws sometimes to mark territory. It makes a cat scratch at things especially the edges of their territory and that's telling other cats that that area is theirs. Cats that use the sweat glands on their cheeks to tell them what is safe and what is comfortable to them, you may notice when you come home from a day of work that you get smooches around your feet or around your shopping bags, things that have been out in the environment and that have come back smelling different.

Your cat wants to re-sink them and make them smell safe and okay. So how are you going to communicate with your cat? Well, the first thing to remember is that they use scent for everything so they want you to smell safe and like them. Sometimes, you can use plug-in pheromone sprays and things like, that mimic the cheek scent gland and that can help cats to feel nice in that home.

The important thing is to remember cats also don't like change. They like routine and they like things to stay the same especially when it comes to these smells, and remember these are things that we can't smell so it's just things that the cat is going to be able to perceive. The most important to a cat is to keep this routine and keep it timed nice and steady, try to limit the changes doing things like stroking, grooming your cat, playing with your cat these things can give them endorphins or the chemicals in your body that make you feel good about things.

So they can be a really good way of bonding and communicating with your cat. If your cat is smooching you or rubbing his face, then let it do this. It needs to do this to make it feel comfortable and make it feel nice and secure with you.

Although cats don't generally use verbal signals to communicate with each other, except when they are a mother maybe with their kittens. Some cats have become quite savvy and they have what is called learned behaviors with their human owners. Little things like if you go to the cupboard and your cat meows and you feed it.

That's going to make it know when it meows that way, it's going to get a reward. So some cats can become quite savvy in this way and have learned behaviors as well. If you want any more informat