BEHAVIOR

Your cat rolls over on her back right in front of you. Or she pre-sents you with her behind, the base of her tail specifically. Does she want you to stroke her in those spots? It’s complicated.

Cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they require meat to survive. Granted, some vegan diets have been formulated for pet cats. But such foods, made with lab-synthesized ingredients, tend to be very expensive. And it’s not always clear how well they are absorbed by a cat’s body. That is, just because a nutrient is delivered in a plant food doesn’t mean it reaches all the tissues in the feline body in appropriate amounts. A lot may be eliminated when a cat voids.

If your cat is defecating outside the litter box, the first thing to do is make sure there’s not something wrong medically. Medical reasons can include the following:

Burying excrement is a pretty natural cat behavior, but still, there are reasons a cat may leave her waste out in the open. For instance, it’s possible that a cat who leaves her poop uncovered is more territorial. In the wild, cats trying to hide their presence from other animals will cover their feces, but more territorial felines will leave it uncovered to indicate that they have claimed the area.

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.