Well, I’ve had at least two cats, one now dead named Fluffy, and one alive now named Jasmine that had/have a strange quirk about them. They like human laps, but not the face. This was esp. so in Fluffy. He’d purr loudly whenever he got the chance to sit on a human lap. And he’d sit there all day if he could. But if you put your face near him, he’d turn away in disgust! Then, if I held him in my arms, again near the face, he’d start complaining, a little at first, then more if I didn’t put him down right away. (I know that sounds a little cruel, but he was getting his room and board for free. So I think he had to put up with a little annoyance from us from time to time:).)
Does anybody know something about pet psychology that could explain this strange phenomenon? And has anyone with a cat noticed a similiar thing? I would be interested to know.
I keed, I keed! Actually, my two cats are the opposite. Pepper, the eldest, isn’t much of a lap cat, although sometimes, if she’s in mood, she’ll lay down in my lap and purr. Tony, the kitten, can’t seem to sit still long enough anywhere, let alone a lap. But both of 'em love kitty kisses and face rubs.
My cat will put up with hugs and kisses for maybe 30 seconds, then she gives me a low growl to let me know she’s had enough. One strange thing though: I don’t let her sleep in the bedroom with me, and almost every night she sits in front of my bedroom door and howls, as if she needs attention. ? (Usually at 4 AM!)
My experience with cats is they really fall into two groups as far as face-time. The do’s and the don’ts.
I have one do and two don’ts myself. One will head-butt my head and lick my nose. The other two are deeply offended if my face gets too close to theirs.
I’ve dealt with thousands of cats by now, and there really seems to be no ambiguity on this issue, they either do or they don’t.
This. I have many cats, some will turn away if I stick my face near theirs and some will touch noses with me, one actually has to sniff my face. It’s about half and half, with a slight edge for those who turn away.
The few cats, that I have had, have liked nose kisses. Occasionally, I used to amuse myself by building some static shock and touching their noses. They never caught on. FTR, my dog hasn’t figure the static shock phenomena either.
Static and balloons can be quite amusing during the winter.
No. Really. She likes to give either my nose or my lips a few little licks to greet me. It’s cute, but it’d be cuter if her tongue didn’t either try to go up my nose or, if I don’t pay attention, into my mouth. Ick.
Although she has a weird fascination with the metal chair legs even though they quite often give her static shocks. She loves sniffing them, to the extent that if she’s chasing her favourite toy, she will suddenly stop to sniff the legs. Weirdo.
Cats go with what they need. If your face is warm and flat and they can reach it, like a lap, I’m sure they would sleep on it.
My cat does not do the headbump to the face, but when we play, if I cover my face, or even only my eyes, she thinks I’ve left the room and will come see where I went. But she’s not a lap cat, either.
Phoebe likes faces. Fortunately, she doesn’t try to sleep on them, just near. She wants me to lean way back in my easy chair so she can stretch across my chest with her face near mine. She likes to lick noses and chins.
Wren doesn’t care much one way or another (pet me, feed me, pet me, feed me, pet me, feed me . . .).
We must take care not to anthropomorphize; what you interpret as “disgust” might be something entirely different. Perhaps Fluffy feels intimidated by your face. Cats have individual quirks. My late cat Caligula used to rub his nose on my moustache, and once licked my eyeball. (That’s what you want a second after you wake up.)
My family used to have a kitten who loved licking people’s tongues. Seriously. If you stuck your tongue out at him, he would immediately and enthusiastically begin licking it, stopping only when you put your tongue away.
Re the general question here, I wonder if it’s a side effect of typical cat “body language.” Ordinarily, direct eye contact, especially close eye contact, with a cat is interpreted as aggression. Cats communicate trust with other cats by not looking at each other. Watch closely when cats interact: If a cat looks at another cat, slowly closes its eyes, and then looks away, it’s basically saying, I don’t regard you as a threat, I accept you, I won’t contest your presence, etc.
(This, incidentally, is why the cat-averse are almost always the ones who, when visiting a house where cats are kept, will wind up with the animal favoring them, and jumping in their lap. They are studiously ignoring the cat, working not to engage it, hoping it will leave them alone, and the cat interprets this lack of attention as friendly acceptance. The behavior of the cat lover, by contrast, who stares at the cat and tries to engage it, is instead seen as aggression. So the cat, perversely, goes to the person who wants to have the least to do with it.)
Perhaps, then, with respect to the cats who squirm away from people’s faces, we’re seeing a manifestation of this behavior. Some cats may have been highly socialized to people when they were kittens, and learned to suppress, to some extent, their instinctive aversion to close facial contact, or even to subvert it in favor of a human-oriented style of relationship. Other cats may not have been as strongly socialized, meaning their instinctive behavior governs, or perhaps even with that socialization the instincts still win out. Either way, it seems plausible that, given typical cat body language, if you bring the cat directly to your face, which means you’re staring right at it, the cat interprets this as aggression, and wants to try to get away rather than risking engagement in a fight.
Or, perhaps, as others have said, especially in light of the kitten who used to lick my tongue, cats is just weird.
I am not a cat experts (but have 2 in the house) but I think Cervaise has it.
I’ve come the conclusion that putting your face into the cats is taken by the cat as you trying to dominate them/put them in their place. Since you are so much bigger and feed them they do not challenge you and so signal that by turning away.
