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Cat Behavior

Cat Behavior: Why Do Cats Love People Who Hate Cats?

To us humans, cat behavior can seem very strange and impossible to understand. Of course they want food and water and a clean litter tray and will try to get our attention when they have a need, but why do they do so many other weird things? For example, why does your cat always want to jump up on the lap of your friend who hates cats, even when there are lots of cat lovers in the room who would just adore for him to go be fussed by them?

The reason is linked to another typical aspect of cat behavior. You have probably noticed your cat rubbing up against furniture and pushing its head inside things like cartons and spaces. When cats go into a new place for the first time, or into a room that you have just redecorated, they will brush along the walls and go all around behind and under everything as if they are curious to see what is in all the hidden spaces in your room.

In fact this is not curiosity at all. What the cat is doing is putting his saliva on the objects in the room, so that his scent is on them. This makes it clear to him and any other cats that the room is your cat's territory and those objects are part of it. In cat terms, your whole house and everything in it belongs to him. So why don't you see the cat licking everything? Because he doesn't need to. A cat spends so much time licking his fur, that rubbing his body against something is enough to transfer saliva and scent.

For the same reason it will rub against any strangers who come into your house, and do the same to you if you have been out any place where there were other cats. It seems like he is welcoming you home, and he is, in a way. He is making you his property again. You may sometimes feel that your cat owns you instead of the other way around. Your cat would agree!

This is why cats seem to target people who have pet allergies or don't like cats. Your cat wants to make all of your visitors belong in his house by giving them his scent. Most people will happily let him rub around their legs as soon as they walk in the door, or stroke him or let him lick their fingers, and his job is done. Those people have been accepted and he can ignore them for the rest of their visit, unless they wash or change their clothes. But people who are allergic will avoid the cat, and so the laws of cat behavior require that he keeps on trying to get close to them!