BEHAVIOR

There’s a reason cats have loose skin on the back of the neck. Called the scruff, that skin is what a new mother uses to pick up her kittens and move them to a different spot, if necessary. It more or less shuts a kitten down, making her unable to resist handling. By the time a kitten is a couple of months old, the mother cat stops corralling her that way. It’s just for the very beginning of a cat’s life.

Q: Why do cats like to hang out in sinks? I have had more than one that does that.
Ricardo Faldi
Huntington, New York

If your cat has developed a voracious appetite in which she scarfs up her food and frequently begs for more, it’s not normal, and she should see a doctor. Possible reasons for an insatiable appetite can be behavioral or physical.

You love your cat, want to do right by her, and make her feel good about you and about living in your home. Here are seven ways to do just that. They will greatly improve your relationship with your feline family member.

Q: I know that cats are nocturnal, but mine keeps the same sleeping and waking hours I do, more or less. Is there something off about her feline biorhythm?

Q: I have been feeding a cat outside my home, and he has actually let me start petting him and shown interest when I leave the door open. I am thinking about adopting him. I know there’s a lot to consider, including whether he’d been be happy as a house cat. But my upfront concern is the cat I already have. Any suggestions?

Why do some cats start purring when they see a human family member crying, or perhaps even just feeling sad? Are they sadistic? Do they enjoy when someone in the house is feeling low because it means the person will be relatively still?

Boxes, paper grocery bags, a shelf in a linen closet… if it’s a tight fit, your cat will like squeezing herself into it. The sense of security derived by felines in a close space is so strong that cats who are given a box when they arrive at a shelter calm down by day 2, according to a study conducted by researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. It takes a full week to calm down for newly arrived cats who are not given boxes.

Cats often lick their lips to groom themselves after a meal. It may come from their instinct to remove the scent of prey they have just eaten, both to hide their presence from other nearby prey and also not to become prey for a larger animal. But lip licking can also signify a number of other things:

A 10-pound cat may need only about 250 calories a day—very little from a human standpoint. Thus, it may seem as though she’s not eating enough, even though she is. That can lead someone to keep trying different kinds of food until the cat consumes what’s put in front of her, creating the notion that felines are finicky eaters.

It stands to reason that if a cat is in pain, he may grow grouchier. But there’s another reason an older cat may become more temperamental: dementia.

The American Association of Feline Practitioners has come out with new Intercat Tension Guidelines: Recognition, Prevention, and Management. The aim is to help two or more cats who live together under one roof do better with each other—and to help their human family members broker peace and stability between them.