Understanding Cat Behavior Quiz

Understanding Cat Behavior

• Cat behavior includes body language, elimination habits, aggression, play, communication, hunting, grooming, urine marking, and face rubbing. It varies among individuals, colonies, and breeds.

• Communication and sociability can vary greatly among individual cats. Cats rely strongly on body language to communicate.

• Cats use their tail, ears, head position, and back posture to communicate their emotions.

• Cats have anal sacs or scent glands. Scent is deposited on the feces as it is eliminated. Synthetic versions of the feline facial pheromone are available commercially.

• A cat's posture communicates its emotions, and postures can be friendly or aggressive, depending on the situation.

• Oral grooming for domestic and feral cats is a common behavior; recent studies on domestic cats show that they spend about 8% of resting time grooming themselves.

• Cats drink water by lapping the surface with their tongue. A fraction of a teaspoon of water is taken up with each lap.

• Cats sleep between 12 to 18 hours a day, sometimes even more. Most cats sleep more as they age.

• Cats tend to bury their feces after defecating and can be attracted to a litter box if it has attractant in it.

• Cats participate in social behaviors, even though it is thought that most cat species (besides lions) are solitary, anti-social animals.

• Dominance is also seen as an underlying factor for how conspecifics interact with each other.

• Social conflicts among cats depend solely on the behavior of the cats.

• Cats have learned how to develop their vocals in order to converse with humans.Understanding Cat Behavior

• Cats use "head bunting" to leave their scent and create a bond with humans.

• Cats can take cues from human pointing and direction of human gazes.

• Kittens aged three to nine weeks are sensitive to human socialization; after this period, socialization can be less effective.

• Feral kittens can be socialized within a month of capture if handled for many hours a week.

• Socializing an adult cat is challenging, and they tend to trust only those they trusted in their socialization period.

• Cats make good companion animals, provide many physiological and psychological benefits, and are perfect for smaller spaces.

• There are problematic behaviors that can affect the human-cat relationship, such as clawing, biting, house soiling, and scratching.

• Cats have 52 measured personality traits, with five reliable personality factors: neuroticism, extroversion, dominance, impulsiveness, and agreeableness.

• Cats are natural predators, and when allowed to roam outdoors, they engage in predation on wildlife.

• Cats like to organize their environment based on their needs and have an inherent desire to maintain an independent territory.

• Adding a kitten to a household with an older cat can cause feline asocial aggression and should be done slowly.

• Cats use scent and pheromones to help organize their territory by marking prominent objects.