Realizing that my cat spent months teaching me he likes head massages.
Realizing that my cat spent months teaching me he likes head massages.
We've had my cat Roto-Borola (pictured here) for over two years, we got him when he was maybe five months. A couple months back I discovered he really enjoys having his head massaged. He likes me to put a good bit more pressure on his head than I would expect him to be comfortable with.
He's still a very playful cat at times, and I try to engage with that as best I can but I don't always love being play-bitten. At some point a while back, if I'm petting his head and move my hand somewhere else near him, including petting his back or somewhere else on him, it sets off a timer of 15-20 seconds typically (usually around 10-15 seconds with no reaction, when he opens his mouth just a hint it means he is about five seconds away) for him to play bite me. If he's laying on top of me the timer it sets off is just for exiting the ride. I've been playing with him pretty rough by squeezing his head or giving him a little noogie, but it just hit me that this has really been him training me in how he wants to be pet.
So I'll give him a pretty rough noogie and he acts like "oh no, I'm really trying to bite you but I can't when your hand is right there", but he's definitely able to outspeed me. And I'm realizing now in retrospect, I started going for the back of his head because he left me one spot to find where he would pretend that he can't get to me. And he gradually trained me I needed to be more and more violent if I wanted to not get bitten.
So yeah, I put my entire hand around his skull and squeeze a bit tight and somehow he loves this. Realized a few months ago that this is his thing, realized today that this is something he taught me.
My previous cat loved chin scratches, the harder the better. She'd throw her whole body weight down on your fingers, to the point I worried about hurting her. When she jumped up on something, before doing anything else she'd make sure to visit the corner and rub her chin against even the sharpest edges with distressing force. I swear she was a masochist or something.
Cats are weird. I miss her.
Edit: blurry cat tax.
Seems you're a slow learner, but thankfully you've got a patient teacher that will get you well trained.
They’re such interesting animals. So much smarter than people think.
There's a lot of variability. We got Roto-Borola after our old cat Buddy passed. Buddy was the best pet I've ever had and I miss him with all my heart, but he was dumb as rocks, which produced some good stories.
Roto-Borola immediately showed he was a quick learner and it was immediately infuriating. He realized very quickly that if he chews on my electrical wires I'll tell him not to do that, so in a situation where he comes up to me for attention and I try to calmly explain that I'm working on something urgent for work right now and he should wait half an hour, straight to chewing on the wires so that he will have my attention. He almost never does this when he's not actively interested in redirecting my behavior. One time, he was probably a little less than a year old, I tried giving him twenty minutes of cage time to discourage the chewing and as soon as I let him out he sprinted back to chew on them again, like now it's not about making me play with him it's about punishing me for the injustice I have committed.
Currently have a makeshift setup where all the wires behind my desk are blocked off by large cardboard pieces with a tiny hole cut underneath so they can run along the floor. I've done an extremely poor engineering job on this - it works perfectly for its intended purpose of not having my wires eaten, but anytime I need to change a cable a one minute task now takes like fifteen unless I'm willing to cede ground in our battle over eating wires.
Mine really likes massage around the base of the tail. A lot of cats do, I think. He'll use his rear legs to push into your hand if you don't use enough force.
It amuses new people when he "lifts his butt" when they pet him, and I have to tell them its because he wants them to press WAY harder around the tail.
I've learned the meaning of tons of cues over the years, and I can fairly reliably turn my boy into a relaxed puddle of feline liquid by heeding the hints for what he's in the mood for.
One of ours is kind of similar. We don’t put our hand all the way around her head but we definitely squish her ears down and pet her head really heavily and she loves it. If she’s really into it, you can start at her nose and pet her whole face, head, and neck, eyes and all. She’s very aggressively into it, lol.
Daddy cat has a nice submissive ;)
Any cat lover who hasn't seen George Carlin talk about cats should do themselves a favor and look it up. YouTube link
