Why do cats knead?
Article gives two reasons: " 1. in the presence of someone with whom they feel safe ... because they associate the behavior of treading their paws with the comfort they felt when they were nursing
2. It's possible kneading can be used to deposit scent... to mark territory."
Some dogs like to suckle on your arm (or small squishy) well into their adulthood, so I suppose #1 makes sense.
The knead because those biscuits aren't going to make themselves!
I thought it was fully understood that cats begin doing it as kittens in order to stimulate lactation from the mother, and for some cats the habit remains and manifests for their keeper when they feel safe and at ease because some cats form social/emotional relationships with their keepers (surrogates) similar to that of a kitten and its mother.
My wife fosters kittens. Often, she'll have a litter of kittens and the mom cat. The kittens often knead, but the mom often will too.
Thanks to evolution, mom cats are hormonally rewarded for taking care of their kittens. When the kittens are nursing on mom, she often looks totally blissed out like a raver in an ecstasy puddle, eyes half-lidded, staring off into space, paws kneading away at nothing.
I assume that kittens evolved to knead because it stimulates milking and then cats just make that association with the act and feeling good, so they retain it later in life.
Our cat does this on soft blankets, but unlike the other cats mentioned in the comments, she doesn't look like she's enjoying it. Her ears are back and her brow is furrowed and she looks like she is unsure why she's doing it. Alternatively, she looks like she's hatching an evil plot to take over the world.
I always assumed it was something akin to humans cracking our knuckles. Just a pleasurable stretching sensation for their claws or something. I have zero evidence to back this up, but it seems to me like if I had retractable claws I'd want to "stretch" them regularly.
> So why do cats knead? Although the reason is uncertain, the most likely explanation is that it is a leftover behavior from kittenhood, Susan Hazel, an associate professor of animal behavior, welfare and ethics at the University of Adelaide in Australia, told Live Science. During nursing, a kitten rhythmically treads its paws on the mother's body to stimulate the flow of milk.
I never thought this was uncertain. It's pretty clear it's simple regression to infant behaviour.
Which is not so strange if you consider that more behaviour cats exhibit around humans (like meowing!) is also regression.
When our cat lays down on her side and is in the mood for belly rub, she does this kneading motion in the air while purring loudly and rubbing her head into all nearby objects, so for simplicity we just assume she's happy :)
But on the other hand, sometimes a cat is going somewhere and unintentionally steps onto a blanket or something soft, then just starts kneading like it walked into a quicksand and it's face is like "goddamn here we go again"
I've never heard it called kneading, locally we call it milk-treading. I've always assumed it had something to do, therefore, with kitten behavior while nursing from their mother.
I have a large soft sleeping pillow (about 4-feet long x 2 feet wide x 6 inches thick) that is white with grey spots. One of the neighboring feral cats occasionally comes to the door and waits until I invite him in. If he finds the pillow he lies atop it, kneading it and purring like crazy.
#1 makes a lot of sense, but I guess we’ll never know :) It looks cute and I could watch it for hours!
Our dog (several years old at this point) sometimes puts her mouth around the edge of her bed and kneads it with her paw. Clearly a nursing behavior. We got her as a rescue so with her unknown history, it may be leftover behavior from an early separation from her mother.
I always imagined it was a reflex to check for things like snakes or other pests before lying down which also doubled as a social cue (as outlined in the article). You see cats kneading blankets seemingly checking for something until they feel secure enough to sleep.
Are we maybe overthinking this? I always thought it was most likely just an instinct to make themselves a comfortable bed. The same way a human would clear rocks, sticks, or otherwise steer clear of uncomfortable things on the ground.
I always thought it was because they were checking out the safety of the thing they wanted to curl up and sleep on. They wanted to first make sure it wouldn't give out underneath them.
I'd always assumed my cat drools when she gets a good knead on simply because she's purring so hard, but it makes sense that it's related to nursing behavior.
Good sound track for reading the article and comments -> https://purrli.com/
I'll hold my cat like a baby, and she'll knead in the air. Or when getting pet lying on her side. I think it's a happy state thing for her.
The infant comfort explanation always made sense to me. I know some people continue to suck their thumb into adulthood, presumably for the same reasons.
They knead before they sit down. If you lived in grass land with the gras being higher than you, you'd probably knew why.
This would seem less speculative if they also discussed why dogs do the same thing. And whether any other animals also do it.
"During nursing, a kitten rhythmically treads its paws on the mother's body to stimulate the flow of milk."
But adult cats use their claws, which kittens presumably don't do, otherwise they would hurt the mother. So this explanation seems questionable.
My cats do this and we love it.
I have cats, and the kneading really seems to me that they’re only making sure the place they’re about to lie on is comfortable.
I'm wondering if it's a form of exercise (like humans squeezing a stress ball) and/or to clean their claws.
Same reason why cats try to dig a carpet.
So basically, we don’t know?
Why do cats knead?
Well, I guess for the same reason I knead love, sex, food and rock and roll.
my puppy does it too
> Why do cats knead?
> So why do cats knead? Although the reason is uncertain, the most likely explanation is that it is a leftover behavior from kittenhood, Susan Hazel, an associate professor of animal behavior, welfare and ethics at the University of Adelaide in Australia, told Live Science. During nursing, a kitten rhythmically treads its paws on the mother's body to stimulate the flow of milk.
The answer is speculation. Yeah, that would be my guess too, but do we really need "science" for that? (and by science I mean some authority figure that apparently has a title)
This looks much more like what TV sells us as "the science".