Many people have tried to analyze the relationship between cats and humans. Cats are often dismissed as substitutes for children. This places the responsibility for the relationship on the person rather than the chat.

Additionally, the cat is viewed by some people as a complete parasite, living alongside us and simply taking whatever it can get — food, warmth, and protection — without ever doing anything. Or give anything back.

Maybe some of us treat our cats like children. Indeed, with people delaying having children later in life and many deciding not to have children at all, and with the increasing number of people choosing to live alone and families living together less. For others as in the past, cats can fill a family void and a need for care and affection. In return, we want something to meet our nurturing instincts.

For some, the cat’s attraction lies in its physical grace and beauty, while others are drawn to the independent nature of the cat. Many people want to live alongside an animal on an equal basis with mutual respect; the cat fits this scenario well.

Perhaps the way they prepare with us is perhaps more revealing of the nature of the relationship between humans and cats. It’s worth thinking for a moment about how their behavior with humans is similar to their interaction with other cats and, perhaps more interestingly, the unique characteristics of the cat / person relationship.

Another familiar behavior of cats is to rub their head and body around us; in fact, cat / man friction is more frequent and more intense than cat / cat friction.

This way, they pick up some of our scents and deposit their scent on us — defining a group scent to determine who they belong to and who belongs to the group.Another kitten behavior that humans love is the kneading action cats to take on our knees or sit on a woolen blanket.

It may just be that cats engage in behaviors with us that they typically display with other cats that are not a threat to them.When cats live with us, they can really penetrate our skin, and they seek to love whether it’s their business to have a nose or a paw in whatever is going on. They appear out of nowhere to watch over the DIY; sit in the middle of a newspaper, when we read; they scramble the wool or twine we use, or we just sit on our knees trying to write a letter. Over the years, we feel comfortable around our cats — we learn their likes, dislikes, and habits, and they learn ours.

Typical greeting behavior between cats who know and love each other is to walk forward, tail up, and lean forward slightly at the end — ready to meet face to face, sniff and touch nose, rub your head and lick your ears, then sniff under the tail. Some cats tilt their heads slightly before rubbing their heads, and they can do that with us too, adding other specific purrs and poses just for “their people” and stretching upwards to be tickled and petted.

Cats are the best sleepers in the world, asleep for 60% of their life, which means they sleep twice as long as most other mammals. A typical day includes over fifteen hours of sleep and drowsiness, nearly six hours of bathing and playing, while hunting, eating and exploring make up the rest of the day.

Domestic cats, well-fed by their owners, also have free time to sleep. Perhaps this investment at rest partly explains their longevity compared to other larger mammals like dogs. Of course, if they are hungry or cold, or during courtship and mating, cats are more active. Newborn kittens sleep 90% of the time, but this is brought back to adult level when they are four weeks old. Older cats, like the elderly, sleep or sleep more often. Cats like us also sleep more if they’re warm, safe, and well-fed. They often fall according to their owners’ diurnal rhythm, recover from sleeping alone during the day, and active in the morning, and evening when we are there. On weekends, they return to normal short naps where they take forty winks and have periods of deeper sleep when they are safe.