If you have a cat, you’ve undoubtedly seen it “knead”: it puts its paws on something soft, like a pillow or your stomach, spreads its toes, and makes rhythmical, alternating movements of its front paws, as if it’s kneading dough. The common explanation for this is that it’s a carryover from kittenhood: kittens are said to knead their mothers’ stomachs when nursing, which may stimulate mom to give milk. (Verifying this is a job for cat evolutionary psychologists.) And damn if Wikipedia doesn’t have an entry on cat kneading,
This “kneading” behavior of cats can be put to good use. Though I haven’t yet seen them make bread, they can do a wicked massage:
Here’s a cat massaging a dog. That’s just wrong!
Ah! I always though my cats did that to let me know it was time for me to snip their nails again!
A RATHER effective method, I should add!
One of our female cats would climb onto our Great Pyrenees as he slept and knead away. She wouldn’t miss a beat as he rolled over onto the other side.
A dog! There’s a dog in that video! And the cat is duly servile, to boot.
Cat is servile? You’re naively mistaking action for serving! It’s the DOG that serves the needs of the cat: the need to knead.
Here’s a cat massaging a dog. That’s just wrong!
I prefer to believe the cat is tenderizing him. Like Kobe beef.
There ya go! That’s it! Whether it’s applied to dough, dogs or chests: it all comes down to simply food processing. Is all.
Does anyone have any of those cats’ numbers? I could use a massage and my cats aren’t up for it.
I love this cat massages:
Mroow!
As someone who has bred cats, I can confirm that kittens ‘knead’ when suckling, and that I have ‘kneaded’ nipples myself when trying to get new mothers to produce milk for newly-born kits to suckle, when they have been groggy after a caesarian.
What! no drool? Why do my cats have to drip when they knead.
Haven’t you always secretly wanted someone to drool over your body?
In our house, that behaviour is called ‘poddling’. I poddle, you poddle, he poddles, etc.
We once had a Burmese who was hilarious, but he never poddled with his front paws – only with his back feet, from his heels down to his toes, as if wiping them on a doormat.
Our cat loves to intently knead my wife’s stomach with all four paws simultaneously.
And all this time I figured it was just because it probably makes their feet feel good.