I found an article yesterday on Care2.com entitled “10 Signs Your Kitty Actually Loves You.” As you probably guessed, I do have some issues with this story. Number One, it claims that we kitties are harder to read than dogs are when it comes to displays of affection. Um, no, it’s just that humans are dumber about understanding cat language. I think the list of signs in the story is pretty obvious. How could anyone mistake headbutts or gift-giving as anything but signs of affection? I think this article proves that our affectionate displays are much more varied and interesting than the way a dog shows love — by jumping on humans and licking them. It’s pretty much a one-note love song. We kitties have a symphony of affection for those who deserve it.
But does your human deserve these displays of affection? That is really the point of today’s post. I want to know what your human does to earn your affection. If my human brushes me, I will be more than happy to purr really loudly for her. My human earns Boodie’s tummy displays… as long as she does not try to touch her! Pet Binga and she will lick your hand, and if you are lucky you will get a little love bite. If you are not so lucky, you will get a not-so-little love bite.
So tell me in the comments below… what does your human do that gets a display of affection from you?
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Hannah rolls on the floor and shows her tummy when she wants food or when she wants tummy rubbies but Lucy just sits and looks sad gazing at the space where her dish should be.
Luv Hannah and Lucy xx xx
Gee, Binga sounds like our Tiger.Must be a Tortie thing 🙂
Mom gives us pawsome belly rubs and scritches.
Purrs Tillie and Georgia,
Treasure,Tiger,JJ and Julie
I like when my mom lays still on the couch or in the bed and lets me lay on her legs for hours!–Manny Boy
I like when my mom plays with me and lets me join her under the covers in bed on cold nights.–Spunky Doodle
Of course, we both look forward to her bringing us food!
Not enough. Sometimes if she feeds us the after the first twenty times of us asking. After all she made it thunder and lightening outside both doors yesterday.
We love it when mommy sits on the floor to give us tons of scritches after we’ve been outside a while & haven’t seen her. We give her extra head bonks, purrs, nips, etc.
Our head peep plays with interactive toys with us, and we love that a lot. Oh, and brushing — except Newton, who will have no part of brushing. And of course food. And treats. Do treats count as food? We don’t think so.
Having a fully trained human, it is pretty easy to get what I want. I recommend working on these five first and then you can tweak it from there to suit your lifestyle.
1) Sit with my front paws on my scratch pad = Treats
2) Sit by the corner of the sofa = Time to play
3) Bang the cat flap when she is watching television in the evening = Time for her to go to bed!
4) Stand by the cooker = Dinner time
5) Paw at the blanket when human is asleep under it/stand on coffee table when she is reading/working on computer = Just checking she knows just how cute I am and to make sure she is ready to play/tickle at a moments notice!
Once you have these five main commands down your human is pretty much trained, DO NOT FORGET to reward the correct responses with belly rubs and ear scratching, your human will enjoy these as much as you do.
Good Luck
Mischief.
Meowma is a pretty good meowma as far as meowmas go. She gives us good food, keeps our litter boxes clean (though we would appreciate a little privacy there), combs our fur any time we want. Jasmine does not like to have her fur combed, she gets mats, so Meowma takes her at the beginning of summer for a very chic lioness cut. Jazzy likes that. But…..Meowma starts to tread on thin ice when she wants to smother us wet kisses and hugs. Ewwww! But Joey loves the slobbery kisses and hugs and gets all goofy about it. It’s embarrassing. Oh and she needs to get a bigger bed, when she gets in at night there is hardly any room for us to stretch out. We’ll have to work on that.
Purrs,
Jasmine, Joey, Eddie and Rosie
We all do little different things to show our Mom affection. We rub on her, give her very gentle head butts, some of us give her little kisses, and we snuggle with her in the bed and some of us sit in her lap and most of us talk to her. So we are pretty good in that department.
If my human doesn’t demand my affection then I’m happy to give it to her (at the time that suits me best of course). Giving me treats and catering to my wishes to constantly eat my meals in different places throughout the house also helps. I will then purr and get in her lap and let her pet me. Meow and Namaste! ~ Pippy the Feline Yogini
MomKatt LOVES having me in her lap when she’s on the sofa (which she is – a LOT MOL!) so I take FULL advantage of it and while she rubs me, I purr and purr ’cause I know she loves the sound of my motor!
Purrz!
Selina
Jake does pretty much all 10 of those to me. He is a champion head-butter, as is Angel.
Kylie likes to pat us on the head. Tessie loves belly rubs and she’ll jump on you if she wants attention.
I don’t want to show off in front of Waffles, so I limit my displays of affection to dinnertime and bedtime.
Waffles though, in an affection and attention HOG. 24/7.
; ) Katie
Mom plays my favorite game with me – fetch. Yes, I’m a kitty but I do love playing fetch. That always gets lots of purrs from me. She also knows my favorite spot on my chin where I love to be skritched.
I give my human very little in terms of displays of affection because I am still mad that she brought home Ichiro. I will stay mad until he is gone. Even though I do not want him gone because I like him. Better than the Woman.
I brush one of my boys and he loves it. He purrs and purrs and shows tummy etc 🙂
We get lots of purrs, licks, loves. Pixel climbs into my bed, under the covers and quite literally hugs me, puts her head on my chest and arms on my shoulders. It’s the cutest thing ever. She comes when we call her and helps me with my work and household chores. We play with her a lot, and bribe her often with freeze dried salmon treats. 😉 She is such a lover! Sparkle and friends gave us tons of great advice before Pixel came home and we humans took all of it to heart.
We love our Mommy for feeding us, brushing us and just loving on us (on OUR terms, of course)=Calle/Sukki love to roll around and show off their tummies, Sukki has the loudest purr in our house and we all give Mommy hard head butts and sometimes even, whole body butts!!MOL…Happy week ahead, sweet friends…xoxo…Calle, Halle, Sukki, Mommy Cat, Daddy Cat
My human ‘my mum’ does almost everything for me. I have her well-trained (ha-ha!).
But I love her. I loved her as soon I saw her. I just knew we were meant to be together. I’m always showing her affection and she does the same back.
Two words: treat jar!
Oh I don’t know – we exist just to serve them? Everything in the house is to suit them. Everything in the house belongs to them? Oh I could go on and on…
My humans (the dad, especially) are very well-trained, so I give them lots of affection. They know to acknowledge me whenever they see me. I like scritches and snuggles, and drinking running water from the bathroom sink, and sitting in between the mom and dad. And they cater to me, absolutely. I haven’t quite figured out how to gte them to just feed me at will, but I am working on that…
Your pal,
Moosey
Pop picks me up! I know you don’t like to be picked up and only Pop can pick me up. He picks me up, scritches me and talks softly. I purr and double purr. When I want to go down, I bite him, I mean I give him a love bite. TW plays with me and I show my affection by biting and scratching her. I do sleep with her though.
Mummy does everything for me as does daddy but mummy is the best so she gets proper cuddles from me.xx Speedy
we hate to admit this, but with the exception of Junior, open a bag of treats and we are all over mom. even Junior will come over and get closer than normal…..
We have our mommy and daddy well trained so they deserve our displays of affection! We like sleeping on them, head butting them, showing our tummies for belly rubs, and Mommy loves when we put our head up and close our eyes expecting her to pet us! She melts every time!
The publicist is way up on my list right now. She brought me carrot greens. Lots and lots of carrot greens.
Mmmmm, carrot greens.
Our humans do pretty much what we want, when we want it!
When she takes me outside to walk around the yard…which doesn’t happen very often…I can’t help but love her. But don’t tell her I said that, okay??
Wally
The list, again, goes on and on: brushing is big with us, and some of us want to be groomed before breakfast, first thing. Last thing before bedtime, it’s all about TREATS. In between, scritches, snorgles, belleh-kissing, ear-tweaking, stroking, admiring, sweet-talking, bird-feeder-filling (so we have our Cat-O-Vision all day long!), playing, and feeding…these are a few of our favorite things 😀
When I want to sit next to her on the couch and she will push her laptop away so I can go to the other side of the couch by walking on her lap. She will get head butts for that =^.^=
Also she likes to put her head on me softly when I am napping to hear me purr. It makes me purr louder!
Me showz Mu alot of ‘ffectshun by runnin beside her n cuttin her off n almost trippin her!! 😆
me head buttz her HARD when me wantz attenshun!!
Me KATERWALLZ lub songz to Mu when she feedz me or givez me treetz or when she forgetz to give me catnip!!! 😉
Mum took such pawsum care of me diz time ’round me snugglez close to her n purrz bery loud so she nose me LUBZ her so so much!!!
Oh n me sleepz on her peellow right by her head at nite….
Nylablue xo
I headbut my mom´s hand when I think she shall go away from the computer and play with me 🙂
When my mom is combing me I wash her hand 🙂
When I think it´s time for mom and dad to go to bed I sit in the dooropening to the livingroom and say Waaaaaaaaah , Waaaaah , Waaaaaah = works efurrytime
My Grace sits on my clothes on the bed. She’s big on head-butts, but she doesn’t want me to touch her. She’s rarely a cuddly kitty and I get that.
Hobbes HAS to be in the mood. He’s only lovey when he says it’s loving time…and that’s usually at 5:30 in the morning…when he sits on my chest.
I’ll be affectionate when she uses the Furminator on me. I wish she’d do it more often though. -Shaggy