“the Barbie dance”, because Barbara Cat is the champion at it. He kneads with all four paws.
I use to call it “kneading”, but got tired of people who don’t know what knead means, thinking I was saying “needing.” My husband always said “making dough,” and I’ve picked it up. The first time I heard him talk about a cat making dough on him, I thought the cat had pooped on him. And when I heard a friend say something about her cat “making biscuits”, I confused it with “air biscuits.”
Wow, I guess I have a new one: My wife calls it ‘minky minky’. No idea why.
Turns out that she picked it up from her mother, who is from Lithuania.
So, minky minky in the Baltics.