Cat love can be delivered, oddly enough, in a very rough container: several scratchy circles on a wrist, ankle or even a freshly wet forearm. The impulse is disguised as hygiene, in many cases it is more of social glue.
Care giving has turned to grooming among cats. In an explanation by animal behaviorist Kristyn Vitale of Maueyes Cat Science and Education, the licking of kittens by their mother aims to ensure that they are clean and also to promote social bonds, one of the first forms of interaction between a kitten and its mother. That childhood teaching does not always remain cat-to-cat.
When a cat directs that behavior to an individual, it could be easy-or complex. Those are the most prevalent, evidence-based causes that licking appears in a human-cat relationship, and the cues that allow differentiating between what is sweet and what is something is wrong.
1. Love that had been transferred to kittenhood
Licking frequently lines up with the bonding patterns of cats to favorite partners. Kittens normally start grooming themselves at an average of four weeks old and some of them groom their siblings, other cats or their preferred individuals. That same social grooming is a relationship reinforcer and not a cleaning service in adult cats, which is also referred to as allogrooming.
In more common parlance, licking may serve as a felinid form of you are safe with me. When the cat also wants to be close (to settle in a spot, to be in a lap, and lick faces), the licking would be considered to fit a bigger picture of comfort and trust.
2. Rewarded attention (even by mistake)
Cats repeat what works. When licking consistently leads to talking, petting, laughter or even the slightest annoyance of stop that, it can be taught to become a learned attention-getter. It does not need a lot of drama, a steady stream of micro-reward might be sufficient to turn licking into a habit.
Consistency is important rather than intensity to the households that are attempting to minimize licking. The behavior can be made sticky by mixed messages, involving, on the one hand, encouragement and, on the other, discouragement.
3. Smell mixing which designates us, not mine
Cats are very scent marking and they use it to determine who is a mutual mate. Grooming may also serve the purpose of developing a recognizable group scent, which aids social integration in multi-cat households and may be applied to humans. This is an affiliative but not a territorial ownership according to some of the behaviorists.
That background makes it understandable that the licking can escalate in some more intimate situations: the couch hang, the bedtime put down, the drawn out stareoff that results in both becoming sleepy.
4. Nursing-reminiscent comfort-seeking behaviors
Licking is occasionally accompanied by kneading, purring or rhythmic movement, which is suggestive of early-life comfort pattern. It is possible that cats who were weaned prematurely have a greater likelihood of desiring that comforting and repetitive feeling as adults.
Kitten development advice observes that in most cases, kittens are weaned between six and seven weeks with those separated at an early age exhibiting greater inappropriate suckling behavior in later developmental stages in developmental stages of kitten behavior. When suckling appears to be a calming effect, then the general body language will be soft instead of social.
5. Interested in taste, in particular, sweat or products
The skin of a human being is interesting chemically. Sweats also have salts and minute traces of sugars that are probed by some cats using their mouth. Hair products, lotions, topical drugs may also attract attention since they have strong smells.
The category in which boundaries are the most important is in the category of some of the topical products that may be harmful should cats ingest it. When licking is predictable when creams, perfumes, medicated ointments or strong hair products are applied, it is less risky to restrict access till the product is completely absorbed.
6. Stop sign with overstimulation Lick, then bite
A lick and a sudden nip is often an indication of a boundary being passed. Cats can be made to take contact and then they suddenly go to a stage where they experience too much sensation. Common warning signs are twitching of the tail, flattening of ears, rippling of the skin or the cat turning his head and looking fiercely at the hand.
At this point, the bite does not serve as aggression, but rather as a period. Stopping the interaction before the nip explains to the cat that there are subtle signals that work- no teeth are needed.
7. Grooming is diverted by stress, anxiety or a medical condition
Displacement behavior may also include licking: a relaxation-type activity that manifests itself when a cat is ambivalent or uncomfortable. Grooming may be driven outwards (by visitors, noises, changes in routine) and not necessarily inwards (towards the body of the cat).
Licking may also be accompanied by discomfort when it becomes frequent, hard to interrupt or intense. Excessive grooming is generally used as a red flag by veterinary advice as a potential indicator of itch, pain, nausea or other health modification. Regarding human beings, it is also worth bearing in mind that cat saliva has the ability of transmitting infection when the human being has broken skin; such is the case in cat scratch disease, which is spread by Bartonella henselae by scratches,bites, or licking into an open wound.
All bonded cats are not lickers. Closeness, slow eye movements, banging the head, and trailing a person behind a room can be as good signs of attachment as any. Licking is just a dialect to a bigger language. The surrounding circumstances give the best explanation: the relaxed posture of the body and the slow pace would suggest an association, whereas intensity, repetition, or change of mood would suggest an attempt to cope or a warning sign.
