OK, that one I can explain. He was touched from behind while sleeping, and had no idea who had touched him or why. The intelligent feral cat doesn’t survive by slow reactions: he woke instantly ready to defend himself – but as soon as he turned his head, he realized that it was you who had touched him, and he knows you as someone who he’s got in the category of at least a casual friend. So as soon as he realized it was you, he knew that he didn’t want to bite you.
He might have been a bit embarrassed at having been about to bite a friend. I think cats do have that emotion, or at least something like it; but am not sure whether they’d have it in that situation.
That’s the technique that’s gradually working on my current bitey cat. “OUCH” and the patting stops and the cat, if being held, gets put down. (On the floor/ground, not by the vet!)
Yes, indeed.
Cats and dogs are not humans. It’s a mistake to think they are, or to treat them exactly like humans. But they’re not entirely unrelated beings who we have nothing in common with, either. The behaviors and emotions that mammals have evolved to deal with each other have a great deal in common among us (and among a lot of other creatures, for that matter.)
You do need to learn to read the specific species’ signals. (Dogs do their best to read ours, and have gotten quite good at it. Cats expect you to learn Cat, and most humans are terrible at it – even the best are handicapped in speaking it, because we have no tails and can’t move our ears or fur right.) A head butt from a cat means ‘Hi there! Pat me!’ [ETA: It also means “You are a member of my group and I’m getting my scent on you.”] The same gesture from a goat means ‘Get the hell away from me!’ The polite greeting in Dog is a nose in the ass; they need to be taught that that’s rude in Human. – I’ve seen a cat and a dog both wanting to play with each other but both confused by the other’s signals; the cat didn’t recognize a play bow, the dog didn’t recognize the invitational roll. (And that last can be tricky for anyone not well used to cats, because there’s also a defensive roll, which is a very similar body position but again, watch the ears, tail, and fur. And remember that the invitational roll may be an invitation to a game involving a play level of use of claws and teeth – you have to know the individual cat.)
But the thing is – we’re all social mammals who are capable of doing damage to each other. We all have signals about how to play with each other without doing so. We all also have defensive and aggressive instincts, and signals that exhibit those. And the underlying emotions are most likely pretty much the same.
Pretty similar with cats; though cats may be more likely to use a light scratch or bite even when they wouldn’t use a full-force one. Cats also tend to use both of those in playing with each other more than most dogs do.
– My sister had a cat who never liked me. I sometimes gave in to the temptation to sneak in a quick pat on her, when given the chance (she was clearly not afraid of me.) One time I did that, and she sat up on her haunches, looked at me, reached over with one paw, and pulled my hand over to her.
I thought ‘Oh good! I’ve finally won her over, she wants more patting!’ – because I’ve had cats who would do that when they wanted to be patted.
– and then she took her other front paw and, very deliberately, while looking straight at me and holding my hand with one paw, whacked my hand with the other; minimal claws, but quite a hard whack.
I think that was the last time I tried to land an uninvited pat on that cat. She didn’t hurt me; but she had made her point very clear.