Cat Behavior

So how do you know if your cat is feeling stressed. Well as usual the clues are there you just have to understand “Cat Talk” and look for them. Remember there are no more blind than those who will not see..”
Look at your cat’s body language, look at position of the eyes, ears, tail paws, whiskers, body and head position.

Often stressed cat will adopt a defensive posture, so the body will be close to the ground, often leaning away from the stressor, head will be lowered, all 4 feet firmly planted on the ground. Also the ears and whiskers are folded back over often flattened to the head and the pupils will be fully dilated, so they can get as much information as possible about the real or perceived threat. Finally the tail is often wrapped very close to the body. Obviously the greater the threat the more obvious these changes ion body language will be. However it is important for you to see these changes when at their most subtle as it is here you are most effective at preventing behavioural problems later on.

Thus behavior and body language are very important indicators to wether your cat is stressed or not. The signs are always there in cats they are just often so hard to see if you do not know what you are looking at.

It is also very important to learn what is normal for you cat. As like humans they all differ and some are very bold and laid back while other a are typical nervous cats, that jump at their own shadow. ;-). This is often linked to how they were brought up at the critical kitten stage of under 7 weeks but also the father has a strong influence. If the Tom is a bold outgoing cat most of the kittens will also be like this and obviously vice versa will apply.