So I’m lying in my bed here, just dozing off on my stomach, when I get a visit from the smallest and furriest housemate.
Not a problem, thinks I. A bit of human-sitting is probably an extremely rational thing for a heat-loving being on a chilly autumn evening, and provides a multitude of different seating options. There’s the butt for instance - pretty broad, squishy and comfortable, and a definite heat source. Or she could try the shoulders - also a nice wide flat space, and in range of hands for scritches under the chin.
But no. She’s chosen the feet.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think the feet are a great sitting option. They’re kinda bony, relatively speaking. Also - smell like feet. Maybe that’s not such a terrible thing when you’re a cat?
It seems like cats are rather fond of feet in general. For instance there’s the ‘leap out and savage the feet like a starving beast spotting your first meal in weeks’ game, favoured by Cats I Have Known. And the current Furry One does quite go for foot-delivered belly rubs in the corridor (more than I do - I’m generally afraid of accidentally stepping on her)
While cats don’t have nearly the same attraction for stinky things that dogs do, the smell like feet bit may be part of the appeal. When I haven’t showed my cat likes to sit on the table in front of me and squish her nose into my stinky armpit. Cats is weird.
My Siamese cats would not go near my feet, except to get underfoot on the way down to breakfast.
Of course, my feets don’t stink:D
That being said, my cat’s will give me the best back massage. Walking up and down my back if I lay on my tummy. Love that!
They don’t sleep in my bed, too many disgusting dogs. They have beds on the headboard. Looking down their noses on the riff-raff below them. So haughty!
My cat’s favorite place is curled up at my feet, as I’m at the computer. In fact she’s down there right now. Some cats are “feet” cats; others are not.
Yep. My male cat likes to get on the top of open doors. I’ve seen him sleeping up there. I’m not sure how he maintains his balance.
If I’m in my big chair they often sit on my thighs. One on each. I’m not allowed to move when this happens.
If I’m reading to them (I know I’m crazy) they are on the back of my chair. Front paws on my shoulders. Making their opinions known with purrs and extended claws.
They seem to love ankles/calves - but they also love anything else with a rounded edge at their height level they can rub against, presumably partly for the sensation/grooming and partly to mark their territory.
And they seem to like wiggly toes in socks, but a lot of their prey like toys look similar.
As for just sitting down, they seem to have a knack for sensing where some category of our attention or nervous exhaust is getting directed physically, and find it appealing or satisfying for some reason.
My cat certainly is. When I was dating the woman who is now my wife, she would lure Samantha the cat out from under the bed by taking off her shoes because Sam wanted to sniff her toes.
Ooh, you’ve reminded me about how we used to calm down the late Evil Black Monster Cat for a vet visit - stick one of my husband’s unwashed shirts in the carrier with her. Armpits FTW!
It occurs to me that from the cat’s point of view, your feet may be the part of you the cat is most familiar with and therefore feels the greatest connection with.
My Nikki has always loved feet, since kittenhood. She climbs on/into those big ol’ men’s shoes and huffs the inside contentedly. She also prefers to sleep by my ankles, always has.
When we got her, she plonked by my ankles that first night and decided that was “her” place. Years ago, I even did a little experiment, when I woke up and found her zonked out cold by the foot of the bed, snoring lightly. Very carefully, I gently did a full 180 in bed, and silently lay back down, but now with my head where my feet would be and vice versa. She slept right through it … and awoke out of a dead sleep a few moments later, stood up, marched to the other end of the bed, and determinedly dropped back down - immediately curled up - by my foot. I swear she huffed a bit.
She knows hands are for scritches and doesn’t seem to appreciate it if I pet her with my foot.
Bear in mind that what smells good to a cat isn’t necessarily what smells good to a human. Also, humans in this society have mostly been socialized to think that normal human scents stink; even the ones that were probably originally attractants.
While mine generally wind up in the hamper before the cats can get at them, I’ve noticed that at least some cats are also attracted to their humans’ dirty underwear. This isn’t sexual; it’s just that your underwear really smells like you. Probably, just as cats mark their humans with the individual cat’s scent to say ‘this is my human’, they expect their humans’ scent also to be on them.
As far as chosen sleeping locations: IME this does indeed vary from one cat to another, though most cats I’ve known have had a consistent preference – that is, a consistent preference for where on or next to their human to sleep; most I’ve known also sometimes want to sleep with the human and sometimes not, and pick favorite sleeping places otherwise but change those places from time to time. I’ve had cats that wanted to sleep next to my face, next to the back of my head, across the top of my head, at my feet, in the crook of my knees, in the crook of my thighs, or between my legs if my sleeping position allows it (as well as the under or over the covers variation, which may change with the weather, but also varies with individual cats.)
If there are several cats trying to sleep on one human bed, it’s really useful if they have different preferences; especially if they’re not happy to curl up next to each other. Which is a whole other list of variable preferences.
My first cat loved armpit smell - she’d nuzzle any time she got the chance. A friend was visiting once, left his jacket on the chair, and the cat was practically head-down in the sleeve in utter ecstasy.
When I’d shower, she’d be all over me afterward - in a purring / rubbing way, not a stinky-armpit-gasm way. I don’t know if she was marking me as HERS because I’d thoughtlessly washed away the marking from before, or she was trying to make me smell not so, so, clean and fresh and WRONG.
None of mine cared for feet. Feet are singularly inept at delivery scritches. They would sleep on my head when they could, however.
