It welcomes you when you come home, purrs under your caresses, and rubs against your legs... But does your cat really love you, or is it pretending to fill its bowl? Stress hormone, purring inherited from the mother, caresses that mimic grooming: science provides rather reassuring elements, without sugarcoating everything. Explanations.
Why does your cat love you, and is it scientifically proven? A very concrete measure, that of cortisol (the stress hormone) present in urine, shows that affectionate cats are more relaxed when humans take care of them: this is probably the strongest indication that contact with people is beneficial for them.
The debate is not new. Skeptics claim that cats act affectionately to secure a roof over their heads and food, and that owners merely project their own feelings onto them. However, a recognized expert in feline behavior believes that the relationship between a cat and its owner is indeed affectionate, and that only the bond between a dog and its master surpasses it in richness and complexity.
The most telling experiment arose almost by chance during research on wild felines in captivity. Researchers followed eight domestic cats placed in enclosures similar to those in zoos: four were very affectionate towards humans, while four were rather unfriendly. In the less sociable cats, daily veterinary examinations increased cortisol levels. In affectionate cats, it was the opposite: a little stressed when left alone in their cage, they calmed down when the veterinary staff came to examine them more frequently.
Nota bene: cortisol is a hormone released in stressful situations, and its level in urine allows for the assessment of an animal's anxiety without relying solely on its behavior. In other words, even a contact that many pet cats would find unpleasant (a check-up!) was enough to soothe these sociable cats.
Are cats really distant, or affectionate in their own way? Their reputation as cold animals does not hold up well to observation: cats show great flexibility in communicating with us, from meowing to purring, along with the rubbing and petting they request.
If a cat seems reserved, it is primarily a matter of heritage. Its ancestors lived solitary lives, and for a solitary animal, every fellow creature is a potential rival: showing joy over a good catch or revealing pain is taking a risk. Evolution has therefore favored the less transparent cats, while dogs, which live in stable groups, express their emotions freely.
This is the paradox of the cat, both affectionate and independent. It can stay alone for an entire day without longing for its owner like many dogs do, then greet them warmly upon their return (well, some cats do).
To enjoy a cat's affection, it's best to adjust your expectations, as owners who hope for long and intense interactions are often disappointed. A few tips help:
let the cat choose its moment: the most satisfying exchanges are often those it initiates itselfavoid staring at it for too long, as a persistent gaze is often, among cats, a sign of imminent aggressiondon’t insist if the cat isn’t receptive, as unsolicited advances often make it wary
The bond that a cat weaves with its human is born from the friendships that cats form with each other. To communicate with its owner, the cat adopts behaviors that it uses to create and maintain close relationships with its feline family: grooming, rubbing, and holding its tail up.
A large part of this social repertoire comes from the relationship between the mother and her kittens. The raised tail, a friendly signal between two cats, thus originates from the interactions of the kitten with its mother. The domestic cat also directs this behavior towards humans, generally waiting to be noticed before lifting its tail.
But how does the cat perceive its owner? The most likely explanation is that it sees them partly as a substitute mother, and partly as a superior cat, larger than itself and controlling the food. The cat also takes into account our height and standing posture: many will jump onto a piece of furniture to "chat" with the person taking care of them. These situations have only existed since cats began living with humans, about 10,000 years ago, and the relationship is still evolving.
It is worth noting: when a cat brings back a mouse, it is probably not to feed its "human kittens." Female cats never try to treat their owners like their young, and the simplest explanation lies elsewhere: the cat brings its prey to a safe place to eat later... then abandons it, because a mouse tastes worse than commercial food.
Yes, cats do feel affection for humans, and this attachment is not merely a calculation to obtain food and shelter. Since a cat can feel affection for another cat, there is no reason it cannot feel the same emotion towards the person who shares its life.
A concrete case helps to convince us of this. Take the real example of a long-haired male cat, neutered, who remained distant while his mother and sisters constantly sought cuddles: he never sat on laps and would leave the room, looking exasperated, as soon as a visitor arrived. Yet, every time his owner left for work by car, this cat would spend the day in the yard, even in the rain, waiting for his return. As soon as the door was barely open, he would jump in, purring loudly, settle into the passenger seat, place his front paws on his human's leg, and rub his head against his face.
The important detail: it was not this man who fed the cat, but his wife, and the animal never behaved this way with her. Under these conditions, it is difficult to speak of a self-interested attachment. The same cat would also rush to the door whenever he heard the voice of a young woman who regularly came to play with him, likely because he remembered the pleasure of her previous visits.
Of course, a story like this alone does not constitute proof. By all appearances, it was indeed affection, and this aligns with measurements of stress hormones: for sociable cats, human presence is calming.
Cats that have thrived alongside humans are those that have managed to combine their natural hunting talent with a new ability: to offer their companionship. It is this double asset that has allowed the cat to transition from being a rodent hunter to a cherished companion.
The story begins about ten thousand years ago, when wild cats approached the first granaries, attracted by the concentration of rodents. The grains did not interest them, and people quickly understood the benefit of keeping them around by occasionally offering them surplus milk or offal. From the very beginnings of domestication, cats actually needed humans to protect and feed them when prey became scarce.
The role of companion closely followed. The earliest serious evidence of pet cats comes from Egypt, 4,000 years ago, although women and children may have adopted kittens long before that. Today, the cat is, of all domesticated animals, the most widespread in the world (three times more numerous than dogs), even as we have less and less need for them against pests.
Did you know? Many owners today are disgusted by their cat's hunting skills, and few are pleased to find a dead mouse on the kitchen floor. Yet they continue to love them, a sign that our attachment to cats is not solely based on their services.
Domestication has changed the behavior of cats by expanding their circle of friendship: cats have learned to integrate into their family, in addition to their fellow felines, the human family members who take care of them. This is a significant change, as wild cats generally consider humans to be enemies.
Domestication has also made cats more tolerant of each other. Their ancestors were solitary and territorial, but to benefit from the food provided by humans, cats had to endure a much higher population density. Their meowing has also softened: recorded, the call of the wild cat from southern Africa appears lower, longer, and much less pleasant to the ears of cat owners (even though the direct ancestor of the domestic cat may have meowed differently than this cousin).
However, cats have not gone as far as dogs on this path. Dogs have worked with humans to herd livestock, hunt, or guard, and they have developed a particular sensitivity to our gestures and expressions. Cats, on the other hand, hunted alone and on their own initiative, paying more attention to their environment than to their owner.
As a result, cats still largely think like wild predators. An abandoned domestic cat that does not find a new owner can feed on garbage, and in one or two generations, its descendants become indistinguishable from feral cats living in the corners of cities.
Cats meow at humans because it is the most effective way to attract our often distracted attention. Among themselves, cats meow very little (feral cats are even remarkably silent), and the way each one uses it with us is a combination of instinct and learning, shaped by the rewards they receive. The cry itself is instinctive and almost identical everywhere: the Chinese cat says "mio," the Egyptian cat "mau."
We must admit that we are not very observant. The cat constantly monitors its surroundings, while we have our eyes glued to a screen, a book, or a newspaper... but we always look up when we hear an unusual noise. The kitten, which only starts meowing after weaning, tries out a whole range of sounds on its owners and remembers those that elicit the best response.
Each cat thus ends up building its own repertoire through trial and error. Some meow near the door to go outside, others in the middle of the kitchen to ask for food, and still others play with tone and duration, or mix meowing with a growl. This code remains unique to each duo: when researchers recorded the meows of 12 cats, their owners rarely guessed the situation, except for meows of anger and affection, which are recognizable by all.
In practical terms, you shape your cat's meows by responding to some (a food bowl, a pet, an open door) and not to others. And if your cat greets you with a short, soft sound, a kind of trill that mothers direct at their kittens when returning to the nest, respond in the same way: the exchange can become a true ritual between you.
If your cat purrs when you pet it, it may simply be that it is happy, but it is also often a way to prolong that pleasant moment. Purring is a signal inherited from early childhood that essentially means, "stay close to me."
It all starts at nursing. Kittens begin to purr as soon as they nurse, the mother joins in, and they knead her belly to increase the flow of milk. By purring, the kitten is asking its mother to stay lying down and still long enough to feed, which is not guaranteed in nature, where a hungry cat sometimes has to choose between nursing and going out to hunt. The adult cat reproduces this signal with us, and it learns that it has the same calming effect on most humans as it does on its mother.
Therefore, purring does not always mean happiness. A cat also purrs when it is hungry, when it is unsure how its owner will react, and sometimes even when it is scared, injured, or in the moments leading up to its death. Some cats add a sort of meow to their purring, an "urgent purring" that they often use to demand food, and which has not yet been observed in kittens or in cats without owners.
Did you know? The sound is produced by muscles that make the vocal cords vibrate, which strike against each other somewhat like the notches of a rattle. Purring is almost continuous, but it subtly changes between inhalation (shorter and louder) and exhalation (longer), with a brief pause in between.
When you pet your cat, you unknowingly replicate the grooming that cats who appreciate each other perform. For the cat, accepting a petting is not just a pleasure: it is very likely a social ritual that strengthens its bond with its owner.
Mutual grooming is indeed a sign of affection, as no two cats that do not like each other groom one another. To closely imitate this ritual, here are the best places to pet your cat:
the head: this is the area most cats prefer, and the one they focus on during groomingthe cheeks and around the ears, areas rich in skin glands whose scent attracts other catsto avoid: the belly and tail (fewer than 1 in 10 cats enjoy being petted there), as well as the base of the tail
Many cats do not just tolerate petting; they demand it by jumping onto our laps or lying on their backs with their bellies exposed. Even when you initiate it, observe your cat: most indicate precisely where they want to be touched by presenting a part of their body or moving it under your hand.
And what about when the cat licks you? Its tongue, covered with tiny backward-facing spines, is designed to untangle fur, which is why it feels rough against the skin (a cat that has been pushed away after each attempt may have given up). There’s no need to interpret this as a taste for the salt of your skin, as cats do not seem to have a marked preference for salty flavors. It’s better to look for a social reason, which varies from cat to cat: a lick may serve to "apologize" for something the cat believes it has done wrong, while a cat licking your hand while placing a paw on your wrist may be trying to assert a form of dominance.
The cat rubs against its owner's legs primarily to show affection through physical contact. The rubbing also leaves a subtle scent mark on our legs as well as on our furniture, but this smell seems to matter much less to the cat than the gesture itself. We do not perceive this scent, which is almost undetectable to us, and the cat likely comes to understand, due to our lack of reaction, that we do not notice it.
Between two cats, the scenario is the same: tail raised upon approach, followed by rubbing. The way this is done varies among individuals: some only rub the side of their head, others follow with their flank, and still others add their tail, while a few pass by without any contact. Some even leap at the beginning of the rubbing so that their head touches the knee and their flank brushes against the calf.
Is the cat simply looking for food? It often rubs harder just before mealtime, leading to the accusation of "self-interested love." However, few cats only rub when a reward is in sight, and two cats rubbing against each other exchange nothing: each then resumes what they were doing. There have even been instances of a cat performing the complete ritual, tail raised and rubbing, with the household Labrador, who obviously has never fed it and was rather eyeing the leftovers in its bowl.
Note:
A nervous cat, or one that does not know a person well, often rubs against a nearby object (chair leg, door corner) instead of their legs, leaving its scent thanks to the glands located on either side of its head.The smaller cat generally rubs against the larger one without expecting anything in return: your cat does not hope for you to reciprocate.A kitten adopted around eight weeks old, especially a female, may wait several weeks or even months before rubbing against its new owner, but once the habit is formed, it seems to persist.
Between the cat and the dog, it is the dog that is more attached to its owner. The social structure of cats is much less developed than that of dogs, so one cannot expect a cat to show the devotion that a dog typically displays towards its owner.
The difference also lies in the object of attachment. For most dogs, the owner comes first, other dogs come next, and the environment is last. The cat, on the other hand, forms strong bonds with the people who live with it, but also with the place where it lives, this territory that encompasses its source of food.
Hence a very practical piece of advice for vacations: it is much easier to take a dog than a cat. Most cats feel uncomfortable away from their usual surroundings and prefer to stay at home when their owner leaves. Caution is also advised with boarding for a few weeks: during the cat's absence, its feline neighbors may appropriate its territory, which it will have to reclaim upon its return.
However, be careful not to confuse discretion with indifference. A saying claims that dogs have owners and cats have servants, but a cat that does not greet you like a Labrador is not incapable of love. Its ways of expressing it are simply more limited: for a long time, the cat has worked alone, more attentive to its territory than to its owner, and it has never needed to form bonds as much as the dog does.
Feral cats, those domestic cats returned to the wild, can show lasting loyalty to members of their own family. It is precisely this familial loyalty that has served as raw material for evolution and has given the domestic cat its ability to bond with humans as well.
In feral cats, the basic rule is caution towards any cat that has not been part of the family for as long as they can remember. Bonds are formed early: feral kittens remain very attached to their playmates until about six months of age. The third month of life is actually when play among kittens reaches its peak.
Feral cats are rather quiet, far from their chatty domestic cousins. However, they do sometimes meow when one follows another, perhaps to encourage the cat in front to stop and exchange some friendly rubs. These cats also occupy large territories: even when neutered, they sometimes venture more than a kilometer away from their base.
Nota bene: a feral cat is genetically almost identical to a pet cat. What makes the difference are the kitten's early experiences with humans, highlighting the importance of socialization in the first months of life.
Between the cat and the ferret, why do we prefer cats more, even though the ferret hunts pests just as effectively? Because our affection for the cat does not stem from its utility, but from a face that touches us and, above all, from its ability to form a relationship with us.
The cat's face has everything to please us. Its eyes look forward, like ours, while those of most animals, including ferrets, point more or less to the sides. Its round head and wide forehead resemble the face of an infant, a powerful trigger for protective behaviors in humans, especially in women of childbearing age. Looking at images of "cute" kittens or puppies even temporarily improves fine motor skills, as if preparing to care for a fragile baby!
A small digression: the teddy bear followed the same path during the 20th century. Initially a realistic copy of the brown bear, it saw its body shrink, its head and forehead grow larger, and its pointed snout become a small baby nose, under the influence of the adults who bought it (children four years old or younger are perfectly satisfied with a realistic bear). The cat, on the other hand, did not need to evolve: it already had the right combination of traits, which Hello Kitty pushes to the extreme with a head larger than the body.
Charm alone is not enough. The panda, cute for the same reasons and emblem of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), would make a poor pet: it hardly likes humans, nor its own kind, for that matter. What distinguishes the cat is its openness to a relationship with humans.
Some cats are not cuddly due to their temperament: about 15% of cats seem to have a character that resists socialization. This low but consistent percentage was noted during experiments conducted in the 1980s to define the socialization period of cats. It should be noted that cats still carry a wide variety of temperaments in their genes.
A less demonstrative cat is not necessarily an unhappy or fearful cat. Some cats prefer to stay alone in a corner of the room, never climb onto laps, and slip away when company arrives, simply because they do not like to be disturbed. However, these same cats can reserve genuine affection for a few chosen individuals.
Education also plays a significant role, and it starts very early. The second and third months of life are the key period during which the kitten learns to interact with humans and other animals:
a kitten that has not encountered any humans before eight weeks will fear all humansa kitten that is not exposed to different people during this period risks becoming shy and retreating to a corner at every visita cat that is chased and caught instead of being allowed to walk away may learn that scratching, hissing, and biting help avoid unpleasant encounters
Remember: always give your cat the opportunity to retreat, and never force contact. The ability to take risks (daring to approach the unknown or preferring to flee) partly depends on genetics, but learning also plays its role. And a cat that is allowed to come to you on its own often offers the most pleasant interactions.
Everything suggests that cats experience love, in the sense of a basic emotion, but part of what we attribute to them is indeed anthropomorphism. We have every reason to believe that cats feel fear, anger, joy, and love. They are even very likely capable of jealousy, although in a less demonstrative way than dogs. Grief, on the other hand, seems more like a temporary anxiety in them, and there is no indication that they experience guilt, which requires self-awareness.
For a long time, scientists avoided discussing "thought" or "feeling" in animals. Brain imaging has changed the game: all mammals, including cats, possess the same brain mechanisms as we do to produce simple, visceral emotions, even if they experience them more instantaneously. Guilt or pride, however, require a self-awareness that has not been found in cats, nor even in dogs. Owners, on the other hand, are convinced: in a survey conducted in 2008 among British pet owners, almost all believed their cats capable of affection, joy, and fear.
The trap of projection is, however, real. An experiment showed that the "guilty look" of dogs was merely a reaction to their owner's body language: all dogs adopted this look as soon as their owners were informed of a mischief, whether real or invented. On the cat side, many interpret every purr as a declaration of love, while this signal often serves to obtain something, without conscious cunning: the cat has simply learned that purring makes its life easier.
In summary, a cat's emotional life is richer than its detractors claim, but a bit less than its most fervent admirers imagine. To live best with your cat, let it initiate interactions, pet it on the head and cheeks, respond to its little welcoming signals, and respect its attachment to its territory. This is how a genuine bond of affection is built, day by day.
Author Audrey on 29 January 2024
Health and Beauty : Sexology
Author Audrey on 20 September 2022
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