Your cat can communicate in many different ways -- through vocalizations, touch, and body language.
Her whiskers can be used in a form of gentle greeting with another cat. Cats also release scent through touch that claims people and things and their territory. If your cat butts you with her head and rubs her cheek and neck against you, she is leaving behind a special scent to mark you.
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Vocalizations vary from cat to cat. Some breeds, like the Siamese, are known for being chatty, and will often "talk" to their family. Other breeds are mostly quiet. As you get to know your cat over time, you will learn what the different sounds mean. Your cat may meow when she is hungry, content, or playful. Purring generally indicates contentment. Hissing, spitting, and snarling are expressions of fear, anger, or dissatisfaction. Yowling is a cat-to-cat communication, and is often a cry of the female in heat.
Your cat's body language can tell you a lot about her mood. A happy, content cat at rest will be relaxed, but alert. Her ears will be erect and her whiskers will be relaxed. A very content cat may knead the surface she is resting on, a favorite cushion or an owner's lap!
A cat that is ready to fight will try to make herself seem as large as possible. The fur along her spine will stand on end, and she may arch her back. Her eyes will be narrowed to slits and her ears will lay flat back. Her whiskers will stretch forward.
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Flattened ears can also be a sign of fear, especially when combined with flattened whiskers. The eyes of a fearful cat will be wide.
Keep in mind that your cat's body language and vocalizations may differ. Every cat has his or her own personality that will show through over time. Whether you've got a chatty cat or a silent one, you will learn your cat's moods and develop your own special way of communicating.
The kneading a cat does is a lot to do with being taken away from their mum's too young, they knead their mum's to express the milk when they are feeding and then later they do this on cozy things that remind them of their mum. Kittens are regularly removed from their mum's at 6 weeks old, this is too young. Experts studying this say 13 weeks is much better as they then learn a lot of socialization from their mum. I have been rescuing and detraumatizing them and rehoming them for 26 years. I have a mum and 2 boys, mum born on the street and had the boys when she was only a baby herself. By the time I knew about them and got them trapped the boys were 13 weeks old, hard to socialize them then. I watched this little family very closely, they lived in one room together until the boys were about 16 weeks old, then the boys decamped to another bedroom and mum decided she had enough of them and started smacking them if she saw them. Mum had no human socialization to teach them, bless her heart.
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I have had to take this little family with me when I have recently moved to a place with 5.5 acres and she now rarely stays in at night and sometimes brings me presents of mice but comes in for her meals. The shyer of the boys stays around the house much more than his crazy wild eyed brother, who looks like a black panther stalking through the grass, neither have any hunting skills like their mum so rely on me for food. Mind you my own cats seem to have gone crazy for outdoors since we moved, even though they went out in our previous small garden. Today it was tipping it down with rain, normally my guys would be inside, not now, OUT in the throwing rain, nutters. They enjoy it so much and they are safe from the abuse that the effluent types that hang round the local shops, all of which are carrying out crime as well. These people have been vile to many of the rag tag rescue cats that have come to me.
Your cat can communicate in many different ways -- through vocalizations, touch, and body language.
