An odd, unexplained cat behavior caught on video. Why do cats make this gesture?
I managed to film a brief clip of Buddy enthusiastically “praying.”
This gesture is also called cat pleading or begging in various corners of the interwebs, but as far as I can tell it really doesn’t have anything to do with asking or pleading. I’ve seen my cat do the same motion while he doesn’t think anyone else is around, while he’s at the window looking at birds, and at other random times.
The gesture is so random that this is the first time I’ve managed to get a decent clip of it. Usually by the time I’ve got my phone pointed at His Grace and begun recording, he’s finished his “prayers.”
I have no clue what it means or why some cats do it. All I know is that it’s a fairly rare thing. Perhaps a cat behaviorist somewhere could offer some insight.
“Dear Lord, provide me with turkey.”
Also:Happy Adoptaversary to Holly B, Retro Dee’s cute furball. Holly is named after Buddy Holly, so she’s a little buddy too, and she’s been with Dee for two years now. We wish Holly good health and many more years with her loving human, Dee.
Holly getting some Z’s in a uniquely feline way. Credit: RetroDee
“I’m angry! … It’s on now, bring it! … I am going to fight!”
Thankfully I believe my readers know me well enough at this point to be certain of the truth, which is that I dote on my cat, give him loads of attention when he wants it, leave him alone when he doesn’t, and generally do my best to consider his feelings.
Out of context, though, that screen looks like we were brawling. MeowTalk deserves credit: The app knew Bud was upset. But our “argument” was one we’ve been having nightly the last week or two: An ongoing disagreement over Buddy climbing up to the one of the few places he’s not allowed, for fear of toppling over a 55″ flatscreen.
He’s a swiper (as in one of those cats who swipes everything off of flat surfaces) and he has a long and demonstrable history of destroying items large and small by swiping, knocking or pulling them onto the floor. In fact, you can often tell where he’s been just by looking at all the stuff he’s knocked over.
“Bud, you were on the table again, weren’t you?”
“Nope. I swear!”
“So how did a salt shaker, yesterday’s mail and a pair of keys end up on the floor.”
“Uh, poltergeists?”
Maybe I should call him Newton after his obsession with gravity experiments:
“Professor Budsaac Newton here.
Gravity experiment #4,256: In my 4,255 previous experiments, an item swiped from this table fell immediately to the floor.
Conclusion: More data needed. Test objects: An iPhone SE and a Google Pixel 4a. Method: Standard swiping motion.
And we’re going to begin in 3…2…
** Sound of two smartphones smacking the hardwood floor. **
As expected, both devices immediately fell to the floor. We’re going to take a break now until a human places them back on the table. I’d like to repeat my experiment and see the gravitational forces in action from a different angle.”
Otherwise he can go where he wants, lounge where he wants, play wand games with me, watch Outside TV from his perch, play with his toys, nudge me for a snack, smack some bottle caps around. He’s got options.
But since he can’t claim the spot right next to the new 55″ TV, now he has to have it.
If your cat is terrified by Floppy Fish, use it as a Ssscat to protect your stuff from getting swiped to the floor!
I promised an update on Buddy and his new Floppy Fish toy, confident he would get over his trepidation and start playing with it eventually. More than half a dozen attempts later I’ve succeeded only in making him more skittish.
Our readers will recall Buddy got his first look at his new toy last week, and he was terrified of it.
He stepped back warily as I flipped the on switch and placed the flopping fish on the floor. When it stopped thrashing — which it does after a few seconds to save battery life, relying on a motion sensor to tell it to move again — Buddy slowly, cautiously edged his way over.
With a wary eye on the toy fish, Buddy gave it a nudge with his paw, then jumped back as it sprang to life again, making a mechanical SWISH-SWISH sound as it thrashed.
I tried to get him interested in the fish the next day and again the following night. It was late. Buddy hopped up to the coffee table and padded over to me, nuzzling me with his cheeks in hello.
He’s relaxed, I thought. Good opportunity to try the fish again!
I should have kept the power off. He wasn’t playing with the fish, but he wasn’t hissing at it or running away.
Stupidly I allowed impatience to get the better of me. I switched it on, and he freaked out and ran away. After that he wouldn’t even go near the thing even as it sat dormant. He probably thinks it’s like Ssscat, the motion-triggered compressed air spray that startles cats to keep them off kitchen counter tops, tables and other surfaces.
Come to think of it, maybe I can find a use for the fish yet. If I want to protect a fragile item on a flat surface, all I need to do is place the fish in front of it and Bud will never go near the thing. 🙂
Back in July I wrote a humor post about Buddy “generously grooming” me while I slept:
“It was early and I hadn’t started meowing into my human’s ear at 106 decibels yet,” Buddy recalled. “Big Buddy looked so peaceful as he snoozed, so I decided I’d let him sleep and catch up on grooming myself.”
It was then that the spirit of altruism struck the normally selfish gray tabby cat.
“As I was licking my butt I thought, ‘Buddy, why are you being so selfish? Doesn’t your caring human deserve a little grooming too?’ So I stopped licking my butt and started grooming Big Buddy’s face with my tongue. Got it nice and clean while he slept, so he wouldn’t have to wash when he woke up.”
Satisfied with a job well done, Buddy hopped off the bed, walked to the corner of the bedroom and stepped through the flap of his litter box for his 8 am bowel movement.
After burying his business like a gentleman, the considerate cat quietly climbed back into bed.
“I looked over and realized I’d missed a spot right on Big Buddy’s lip,” Little Buddy recalled. “I’m nothing if not thorough and a perfectionist, so I promptly corrected my mistake, licking my human’s lip clean.”
It is, of course, completely disgusting and precisely the sort of dry, absurdist humor typical of this blog. Readers can draw comfort from the fact that their own cats, whatever their faults or annoying habits, don’t groom their humans’ lips. Because that would be gross.
As for me and Bud, well, he mostly contented himself to grooming my beard. The problem? I shaved it off just the other day.
So last night I was a dreaming a dream whose details have faded from memory, but one thing remains distinct: In my dream, fat wet raindrops began to fall on my face and lips.
I woke with a start to find Buddy grooming my chin, lips and right cheek, blurted out an “Ugh, Bud!” and vigorously wiped my mouth dry with a tissue.
I can unfortunately confirm it’s not nearly as funny when it really happens to you.
“Cat shaming” can include photos of cats with handwritten signs listing their crimes, or it can be as simple as photos of cats in action, doing what they do best. Like this little guy, who is presented with evidence of his malfeasance and responds with a look that says: “Yep. I did that shit!”
“Yep, that was me. I thought you’d admire the precise cut and clawmanship on display in this piece.”
Or this cat, who waited until the coast was clear to hop up on the kitchen counter and turn a bowl of rice into an improvised litter box:
“Not a litter box, you say? It is now!”
Then there’s the classic cat-shaming, the handwritten signs confessing things like “I gave all the furniture the distressed look,” or “I folded the carpet over my poop to make a poop sandwich, then sat on it”:
There’s even a variety of cat-shaming calendars:
I don’t have a good cat-shaming photo to hand. I know I’ve got at least one of Bud caught red-handed as he’s scratching the couch, laying there frozen with his paw against the fabric and a “This isn’t what it looks like!” look on his face. It’s likely in the bowels of an old hard drive in a folder of unsorted photos, so I’ll have to do some hunting.
Aside from infrequently scratching the couch (even though he’s got a massive tower scratcher and he uses it all the time), Buddy’s biggest “crime” is his unwavering commitment to swiping every moveable object off of all existing flat surfaces at home.
We’ve reached an uneasy sort of truce in which I don’t hassle him about swiping less important, usually unbreakable stuff — like bottles of water or hand sanitizer — as long as he doesn’t swipe anything fragile. And by fragile, he seems to understand objects made of hard material with a bit of heft to them are not to be swiped. For the most part he gets it.
So, my friends: What about your cats? How do they misbehave?
Pain In The Bud 