The cat “makes the pasta“,”Knead the biscuits“Or“makes milk dance“: They are all ways of saying used to describe in a nice way, a very common instinctive behavior in domestic cats, namely the movement of spread And portray the front legs Alternately, pressing the fingertips on a soft surface, often the arm or womb of its human. The gesture is very reminiscent of that ofknead And while he kneads, our cat often melts. This movement has been inherent in the cat since the puppy, when he massages his mother’s belly with the paws, so as to induce it to milk production.
The same behavior is often consolidated in adults and is repeated in certain situations: to express well -being e affection towards human friends, to fix a soft bed, to release on the pheromone surfaces on the plantar pads and, more rarely, in times of stress with calming function. Not all cats knead and there is a certain variability also in way “To make pasta”: some hold the extracted claws, other portraits, sometimes only the front legs move, sometimes even the rear. In some cases they damage the fabrics in the house a bit, but certainly the most interesting fact is that the behavior of the mixing can generate wellness also in thehuman being which receives this manifestation of affection. Precisely for this reason, a team of engineers is planning Purrya social robot Inspired by cat behavior, created to reduce the stress of university students. Among the various behaviors that this robot cat imitates there is precisely to “make pasta” and at the same time the spindles, for Reduce stress in young people through sensory stimulation. Someone will rightly think that the company of a real cat could have even better effects!
4 reasons why cats “make pasta”
- To express well -being and satisfaction: considering that the puppies “knead” on the belly of mom cat to induce milk production, domestic cats even in adulthood repeat this behavior on people they prefer, precisely as a sign of affection and to manifest wellness, remaining a little puppies in this attitude;
- To test a comfortable bed: wild cats knead on grass or on leaves of leaves to evaluate the comfort before curling up. Likewise, domestic cats kneaded blankets or soft surfaces before lying down;
- To mark the territory: Sometimes the mechanism of the mixing allows the release of odorous substances from the glands on the plantar bearings, in order to mark surfaces and objects like their own;
- In stressful situations: stressed, painful or sick cats can “knead” to calm down. Therefore, if this behavior becomes repetitive or too frequent it can be an alarm bell of a critical condition of the animal.
Body language in the cat
The repertoire of cat’s social attitudes is complex. The cat communicates through a large number of sounds and movements of the body: changes the position of the limbs as well as eyes, tail and ears, emits numerous sounds and raises the hair. Therefore, to understand the cat’s language language, it is necessary to evaluate each signal separately. There are many elements to take into account to get to know his intentions or his mood: the vocalizations he is emitting (meresses, hiss, shocks or melts), in which posture is found (crouched, standing, tense, on the belly up) and what the different parts of his body are doing (the position of the ears and the tail, the movements of the legs).
Recent studies on the behavior of a sample of cats conducted in Spain in collaboration with their respective owners, have detected significant variations in behavior, based on the race, sex, reproductive state, life environment and even based onage in which cats came into contact with their “family of humans” and the characteristics of the house in which they live. These factors they also influence the behavior of the mixture: For this reason, not all cats knead in the same way or with the same frequency.
