26/06/2020
In case you didnt know.
LORI’s LampPost
What’s Up with Marking Behavior?
by Lori B. Girshick
If you have a cat, you can’t miss their marking behavior activity. While cats do vocalize to a certain extent, the most common way they let you and others know what’s what is through marking. This includes scenting, urine marking, scratching, rubbing, head bunting, f***l marking (called middening), and kneading (aka making biscuits). Your cat is quite busy establishing her territory, leaving clues for friends and foes, claiming territory, people or objects, and defending territory.
Cats have amazing sense of smell, 14 times stronger than that of humans. Scent is everything to a cat—survival, food sourcing, identifying friends and enemies, and identifying territory. When we see our cat opening her mouth while smelling she is using an organ (Jacobson’s organ) at the roof of her mouth to analyze pheromones. So, we can see why scenting is everything when it comes to marking behavior.
Urine marking is very common form of marking territory. It differs from urinating because when scenting (or spraying), the cat is upright and she marks a vertical surface with a small amount of urine. With urinating, she is squatting on a horizontal surface and leaving a larger amount of urine (most of the time, that is). Ingrid King reminds us that spraying is a common natural behavior even though we humans don’t like it! It is not done out of spite, and is usually done by unaltered male cats.
Cats’ paws have scent glands and scratching leaves markers on territory. So while your cat is stretching her muscles, removing dead sheaths from front claws, and exercising paws, she also is marking.
I love it when my cats head bunt or rub their faces against me. It feels like a love fest. But, the cats actually have another motive. They are marking me, or whatever object they are bunting against. They have scent glands on the side of their faces. It’s ok, because I am “all theirs” anyway!!!
Now, middening, or f***l marking, is not my favorite type of marking. We see this mostly in outdoor cats who p**p and don’t cover up, marking the territory as theirs. We see this a lot at our feral colony feeding stations, and it isn’t too common with inside cats.
Kittens start kneading behavior when nursing and basically claim the ni**le as theirs. After weaning, we know cats continue to knead and we see it as a happy behavior. Really, they are just telling us, this is MINE!
Thanks to Ingrid King, former veterinary manager and writer, for her article on this topic. Check out her column called The Conscious Cat. You can subscribe to it at www.consciouscat.com.
Ingrid also reminds us that some marking behavior can be symptoms of a medical problem with your cat needing a vet visit and/or requires changes in your household.
