Slightly OT, but one of the cats in our apartment complex has figured out where the hot water pipes run close to the surface–on cooler days, you can always see Minnow lounging in one of a couple of choice spots.
Much like pigeons, they do it because it feels good.
I tend to think of it in terms of how a nun (in the Good Old Days) would commonly sit with her arms folded under the front part of her habit.
As for “why,” I think it’s a tie between Jonathan Chance and Lynn Bodoni.
That’s one of my cat’s favourite sleeping positions - tail and back legs tucked in, front legs tucked in but head and neck stretched out in front. Cat wedge, indeed.
She also does this sometimes, because she’s a cat and they’re weird. (That’s not my cat - just a picture similar to what she does.) She also sleeps with her face right in the corner of her loveseat, for a similar reasons.
Sad to hear B Kliban passed away. I have most of his books.
I call the position the Sphinx position. Curiously, of my two cats - who are brothers from the same litter - one uses the position as part of of his set of standard poses, whilst the other rarely does. The temperament difference between the two is that the one that likes the Sphinx position is more timid than the other, and it seems he adopts it when he is less comfortable about his surroundings. When he is totally relaxed he will adopt all the ultra-cute (on his back, paws splayed) positions to sleep in, but if he is more alert and wishing to relax whilst being vigilant, it is the Sphinx.
A very long time ago there was an article in Scientific American that showed a series of cat poses, and related them to levels of alertness, and implicitly levels of threat perception.
Maybe a certain site (meme?) should have been “I can haz meetloaf?”
I don’t think either of my current cats assumes the position too often. One’s just a big huge fuzzball and just likes rolling over on his side and/or curling up, and the other prefers a more “lounging” position with his hind legs pointing out behind him.
I have on my desk right now, a Kliban coffee mug showing two Kliban cats. One is sleeping on top of a computer monitor, obviously tuckered out from a chat session. The remnants of said session are still on the screen, and look a lot like: “Meow meow meow meow meow…”
The other fat cat is playing with a mouse. The computer mouse, of course. Kliban was pretty hip.
“Meow meow meow meow meow…”
Why do cats sit in a loaf? Just loafing around, of course.
I’ve always called it “impersonating a meatloaf,” and have occasionally thought of squirting ketchup on its back. I don’t think I’ve ever had a cat that didn’t do it.
And right on cue, as if to make a liar out of me, cat#2 is now on the back of the couch next to me, assuming the meatloaf position, lol
When my cat sits with her feed out front I call it the sphinx position. When her feet are tucked in I call it the loaf of bread position. All my rabbits get into the loaf position too.
My cats do this as well…they also do the Gargoyle (aka the Vulture) where they sit on top of the cat shelf observing us below them in a rather unsettling fashion.
My deaf cat is the weirdest cat I’ve ever had. He’s the only cat I’ve ever had who will just throw himself down and sleep like a dog in the middle of the floor. He’ll also do the thing where he falls asleep sitting up in that classic cat-statue position, then slooooowly drop his head (snoozing away) until his forehead is flat on the table. Looks ridiculous, and just makes my day.
Ebenezer of Two Lumps demonstrates sulkiness as measured by height and length proportions.
One of our cats enjoys sleeping in the opposite of the loaf position. She lies down on Bill’s leg, on her back, sticks all four paws straight up in the air, clenches those paws into little kitty fists, and falls asleep. I have tried to snap a pic of her doing this, but if I go into the living room (the only room where she does this), she thinks that the laser pointer is going to come out to play, and she’d hate to miss that.
My current cat lump is curled into a tight ball on the corner of the bed by my desk.
She has a number of positions. She will sprawl in front of the woodstove soaking up the warm. She will occasionally do the meatloaf in front of the stove if there are people around she isn’t comfortable with, though we rarely have guests. She will do the sphynx on the windowsill while watching outside. She does the catlump on the bed while I am on computer, or while snuggled next to me on the bed while on the laptop or watching TV. While I am laying on my side watching TV, reading my droid or going to sleep she absolutely must lay snuggled up to me with her head on my arm. If she can’t take a noon nap with me she gets sulky, to the point that she will cry at our roomie until she lays down with her for a while when we are off visiting my mom for a weekend.
FWIW, the Sphinx, as noted above, the forearm on floor, paws flat just jutting out, has a name in heraldry: lion couchant, which gives a touch of nobility. On the other hand, heraldry lacks an image for meatloaf.
My dog (please forgive another species mention) often sits in that position, looking very regal and NY Public Library-ish. However, he is preternaturally long and has high, wide-ish hips, and from above he looks like a squid. We call it that.
That is the end of my story. I hope you enjoyed it.
My god, it IS a llamapillar!
I’ve always called it the meatloaf position, too. I was searching for the Kliban cartoon before I even opened the thread.
Oh my God, the site intro has a recording of “Love to eat them mousies…”
I think whether or not they use the position is from kittyhood. I know several kittens that love to sleep in kleenex boxes. Then as they grow they obviously get too big for the box, but they still try and sleep in it anyway.
I’ve seen grown cats, put one foot at a time in a kleenex box, and just collapse on top of it, trying to fit in. And they just sit there bulging out of the box.
Way too few demonstration pictures in this thread.
One of the curious things that my roommates’ cat (Bat Fastard) does is to find a box and oozes into it.
He typically uses the meatloaf position to do so, but because he is HUGE, he just spreads out to occupy every cubic inch of the box. During Christmas, he was in heaven. Every box that we didn’t pick up, he inhabited.
I wish I had taken pictures.
**Does it help them regenerate their venom more quickly? **
Wiping coffee off monitor…
How is it that no one has remarked on this part of OP’s question?