Humans for centuries have wondered why cats insist on walking between human feet while they walk. I think I know the answer.
After watching my cats, Dagny the Mom-Boss cat, Gouda the shy cat, and Sleestak the wannabe Boss cat, I think I figured it out.
Dagny is the Boss and goes where she wants (including sitting on whatever I am trying to read) and is the boss of the other cats.
After watching my cats for years it seemed to me that Sleestak and Gouda would ‘herd’ Dagny by bumping Dagny and pushing her to where they wanted to go. A passive agressive way to make the Boss(Dagny) go to the food or where ever they wanted to go.
At the same time, when it comes to feeding time Dagny is under my feet trying to lead me to the food bowl. Dagny knows that I am the boss.
Yeah, gonna have to go with the kill or maim theory myself. There is no other reason I can think of for my cat, Marlin, to come racing out of the bedroom and down the hall the moment his feline radar detects my presence there.
It’s gotten to the point where I hear him jump off the bed and I stop walking, and he zooms past, thwarted. I’ve also discovered that my little hallway is just wide enough for me to throw out my arms and hit both walls, thereby preventing me from falling to my death when Marlin manages to catch me.
We have a ‘unit cat’ where I work, and when I’m on my outside rounds he sometimes comes along. He has this tendency to walk alongside, then cut in front and stop. I’ve grown used to this, so I just step to the side and keep going. He’ll then come up on the other side, and do it again. After about three times, I get sick of it and just pick him up and let him ride on my shoulder (which seems to be what he wants).
Anyway when dagny was pregnant she hung out with me all the time and slept at the foot of my bed. One morning about 6 AM I woke up because Dagny crawled under the covers and woke me up. I pushed her out of the bed. The third time she did this I finally turned on the light and pulled back the covers to find that she was giving birth in my bed. I took her over to the box I had made for her and she went right back. I gave up on the third try. Anyway I covered the bed with towels and pet her while she was giving birth. When she was done I went to work (I tried to talk my boss into giving me the day off but he wouldn’t. Obviously he was a dog guy)
When I got home I tried to move the kittens and Dagny to her box but that didn’t work so I figured I’d sleep on the couch for a while. That night about 2 AM I woke to find that Dagny had carried all the kittens to the couch where I was sleeping. Long story short, I ended up sleeping on the floor next to my bed for about 2 weeks.
A few weeks later I came home from work, checked on the kittens who were nursing and petted Dagny for a bit then got a beer and turned on the T.V. By this time they had a box in the corner of the den. Anyway one of the kittens meowed constantly. I mean the kitten just never shut up. A little while after they got done nursing the kitten was doing her non-stop whining bit once again. Dagny walked over to the box, picked up the whiney kitten, walked over to the couch, jumped up and put the kitten in my lap. Dagny then gave me a look that said “I don’t know how the hell to shut her up, so you do it”. Then Dagny left the room. That is why I have Gouda today, 'cause once you name a cat it is yours for life.
Anyway, Dagny knows I am the boss. One of the funniest things is that when Dagny does something bad I usually grab her by the nape of the neck and let her know. Dagny goes completely slack. (Note this is not painful to her, I grab her gently)Just about evertime I do this Dagny then feels the need to chase the other cats down and subdue them to keep her place in the scheme of things.
So Dagny DOES know I am the boss. Either that or I am badly deluded.
*Note, Dagny was raised as a kitten in a house with two other cats, 4 dogs, a wolf-dog mix and a potbellied pig.
Every time I go down the stairs, Fat Cat comes running hard to get ahead of me (he sounds like an elephant running, too), always to my left side. Then he does an abrupt right-turn in front of my feet, requiring me to either step on him, step over him, or trip and fall. And if I try to step over him, half of the time he will dart down to the next step, and repeat the whole procedure.
He, like Mangetout suggested, does indeed want to feast on my brain.
Kendra has decided that the best place to sleep when allowed inside is on the stairs. Never knowing if she has managed to wangle her way inside or not I never know if she will be on the stairs or not. Makes for fun when you get up in the middle of the night and go downstairs.
[response to hijack]
Our cat Dawn was leechboys girl, she adored him and would rather sit on him than me. Then she gave birth on leechboys birthday and he stayed up all night to assist with the birth (her first). Now she preferes me, its like for some reason she blames him for the horrid experience! Great birthday pressie for him though, 3 cute little kittens
[/response to hijack]
Gee, not a single reply that was serious and directly related to the OP. I for one think the OP is right on target and provides some much needed insight into routine cat behaviour. Thanks Slee, now I know that I’m being herded to the food bowl when I’m tripping over my cat in the morning on the way to the coffee pot!
Guess I’m lucky that my cat is primarily suicidal, not homicidal. Se, Phoebe likes to sit in laps, but has problems with the concept of “tables.” At least once a month, I’ll be sitting at the table and she’ll start rubbing against my leg and purring. After a minute or so of this, there’ll be a pause, and then a thud that makes everything on the table jump, and then a stunned and bewildered Phoebe staggers out from under the table, trying futiley to maintain her dignity. At first I thought she’d learn, but she’s taken an awful lot of blows to the head by now…
Thanks for the post. It’s nice to find someone took my little theory seriously.
Miller,
Your post reminds me of my cat Moose. Moose had a problem understanding the concept of glass doors. On more than one occasion I saw Moose sprint for the backyard and hit the sliding glass door in full stride. What is really strange is that Moose was by far the smartest cat I have ever met.
My cat might be in the minority here, he doesn’t walk in front of me or under me…always right beside me or bolting ahead. The only time he does the “kitty leg weave” is when I’m standing still.
A serious response. I like your theory. It explains a lot. My one objection is that I’ve never seen the multi-cat “herding” behavior you describe that makes it all possible, and neither has my wife. We’ve both known several multi-cat households, and the inter-cat social dynamics never seem to play out that way. In our own three-cat community we haven’t seen it, and don’t expect to (Two of our cats each think they’re Top Cat, and neither one is going to knuckle under to the other. The third one, smaller and younger, just keeps out of their way.)
That is a decent objection. I wonder if the fact that all my cats are a family matters. I’ve had multiple cats that were from different families and they didn’t herd each other either. At the same time they didn’t do alot of things my cats do like groom each other, eat together or sleep together. (I often find a ball of cats lying on my bed where you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins). When I had cats from different litters the cats usually came in at different ages and didn’t grow up together. I wonder if that could make a difference.
