Last night, my husband’s male cat was doing the ankle twining thing while my husband was walking around doing chores, and I said “Give him to me, I’ll hold him”. So my husband picked up Charlie and handed him to me. I snuggled him, and petted him (and hugged him and squeezed him but I didn’t call him George). Charlie gave the “let me down” wiggle, so I let him down…and he went right back to my husband. He didn’t want me, he wanted his Daddy.
Our younger cat is like that with me. If I’m on the couch, he wants to be right there, touching me. (Ideally either nominally on the couch back with his ass slowly oozing down from my shoulder to my boob, or in the same head on boob pose in your picture. What is it with the boobs, anyway?) If I get up for some reason, he will stalk off to perch somewhere else rather than going to my husband to be petted and snuggled. He’s weird, even for a cat.
Your Serafina and my Tikva should form a therapy group together.
My cat Mort - who looks remarkably like Perry (except he has no white on his face) - is similar. He is never further than two feet from me when I’m home. I loves to be picked up; he goes limp like a rag doll and will put up with me fucking with him like that for hours. He sleeps with me. He watches me take a shower. He’s laying at my feet right now.
Here’s the weird thing he does. I feed him at 7:00 every night, and then usually I go up to my little office dealio up stairs and fuck around. He eats a little and then sits at the bottom of the stairs and howls like I’ve abandoned him and moved to Bolivia. Over and over and over. Then I whistle, like I’m calling a dog, and he comes bounding up the stairs and lays at my feet.
Every friggin’ night.
My cat loves me and my husband. But she doesn’t want either of us to know about the other. She will sit in my lap, but if he walks in the room, she will immediately jump down, as if to say, “What, I wasn’t on her lap…I don’t know what your talking about…”
Same thing for him, if I walk into the room.
So instead of going on with my own cat story like every one else here (no offense to those that responded but I find it strange yet predictable that almost everyone does this instead of try to actually answer), I’ll try to answer your question. It could be anything from possibly that someone abused your cat as a kitten and now he doesn’t trust anyone but you, he might think of you as his mom, or maybe it’s just his personality, not exactly unheard of for a pet to like one person more than anyone else. But in reality, only your cat knows the truth.
This forum is specifically for the types of responses you see in this thread. There’s a different forum for questions seeking actual answers.
Personally I think people are too quick to attribute quirky pet behavior to abuse. Most people aren’t psychotic and won’t deliberately hurt an animal.
Pets picking a “favorite” human isn’t exactly rare. The OP obviously is the only one in the house who knows how to pet right.
One thing about cats, they aren’t pack-driven like dogs. So they don’t have quite the same motivation to try to get along socially with more than one individual in a social milieu. Not saying all dogs do - some are pretty partial as well or even solitary. But even if a dog prefers one person, with most breeds they will usually be sociable with everyone in the pack because group cohesion demands it. My neighbor’s dogs prefer their owners, but they do really like me and obviously consider me “part of the pack.” I’ve seen them most days since they were puppies, I play with them and have fed them at times, hence I’m accepted. Some dogs are super-discriminating, some adopt the world. But almost all are group-oriented.
Domestic cats aren’t that kind of social. But they ARE social. Pair-bonding is common in both pet and feral cats. A cat may chose to adore one individual and tolerate/hate/fear the rest, because relationships are more individual rather than part of a pack hiearchy. Plus what Jjimm said about faux-maternal bonds ;).
Well, we’ve already answered the question. The answer is “cats is weird”, and now we’re just reassuring ourselves that yes, cats IS weird, but lovably so.
We need to remember that we love them because otherwise we’d strangle them. For instance, about five hours ago my husband rushed my male cat to the emergency vet. Urinary tract blockage, and it looks like we’re gonna have to drop $2K on getting him well again. It’s a damn good thing for the cat that we love him so.
Lol cat is weird sounds like a good diagnosis to me. My dog is a weirdo too. And for a Red Golden he’s super weird. Hope your cat is ok. Wait a sec did you say $2000?!Holy cat bladder batman, that’s gonna take a few thousand weekends of mowing the lawn for your cat to…oh wait, nevermind.
My mom’s cat is a soul-binder, too, but she’s fickle. When I lived with my mom for several months, the cat glommed on to me and completely eschewed my mom’s company. After I moved out, she bonded with my mom again and doesn’t even seem to remember me. I blame midichlorians.
Yup, Beetle luuuuuurves my dad.
This is hilarious because dad’s reaction to our bringing her in shivering from the cold November evening was to groan “ANOTHER cat??” He then made us go door to door to see if she belonged to anyone.
Now whenever she stares up at him all adoringly, we’re always quick to remind her “y’know, B, he would’ve left you out in the cold.”
We have beeen owned by our cat, Rumpleteazer, for the duration of our 13 year marriage. At first, she preferred Hubs over me but the last few years as she’s gotten older and I became a SAHM, she’s gotten to where she likes to glom onto me. Right now, she’s sitting next to me on the couch, leaning up against me. Sometimes, she climbs on the couch or chair behind me so she can lick the back of my head, like I’m too stupid to groom myself or something. ROFL
She doesn’t mind hanging by her lonesome, esp if that means she can lay in the warm spot in the bedroom. But she prefers hanging all over me when she can.
No kidding - one of my cat’s favourite pastimes is throwing herself at the bedroom door and howling in the middle of the night.
Hope kitty’s feeling better soon!
The feeding might imprinted itself in ways you can’t change. I used to be the one that fed the cats their gushy food in the mornings, 'cause when we first got them, I wasn’t working. That only lasted 6 months; think I fed them sometimes in the morning after that, but usually Mr.Tao is up earlier than me, and he’ll get to it first.
Nonetheless, if I am up, even in another room, at the time they want feedings, they will follow me around waiting for it, even if Mr.Tao’s in the other room opening cans and calling them to chow-time. They just are STUCK on the thought that I am the one that gives them snacks. I have to pick them up and BRING them out to the food, and they still look at me, then the plate, then me, as if to say "WOW, MOM IS MAGIC!!’
Of course, I am also the total pushover, so maybe they’re trying to double-dutch on the snacks, lol.
Haha, sounds like our smallest. I pick her up, flip her on her back and cuddle her like a baby, just to carry her down the hall or walk around for a minute or what-not. Never for long, 'cause she HATES IT. Or so she would have MrTao think, as she will be totally fine with this cuddling until MrTao SEES her. Then she starts squirming like she’s on fire and I’m torturing her; she gets down, runs over to daddy, and ignores me completely…until he leaves the room. Then she comes back up to me and rubs on me until I pick her up again, lol.
catz is catz
Possibly because the sex is the best ever?
People have others they like or dislike, love or really love, so why shouldn’t cats? Plus modern life, where they are kept indoors and dependent, instead of being able to roam and hunt, messes with their psyches even more than cublicle work life or standing at assembly lines screws up ours.
He’s gorgeous, Sam, and looks like a great cuddler.
Well, I’m pretty sure my cat treats me the way he does because A) I’m the only person he’s ever known - I got him when he was a kitten. He does warm up to visitors, more to repeat visitors, so he’s not completely anti-social.
And 2) I’ve never given him a reason to dislike me. In fact, I made a point of it to man-handle him as much as possible when he was a kitten and now … like clockwork, not only is he used to it, he loves it.