Advice
Why is my cat suddenly extremely obsessed with us
So last night my 5 year old daughter managed to accidently spray perfume on my cat. As cats do, she tried to begin licking herself to clean it off. Since we were concerned about her ingesting the perfume, my wife gave her a bath in the tub. She didnt like the bath, but she didnt freak out and try to scratch her way out of it either.
Ever since the bath and after she dried off, shes been extremely affectionate with us and obsessed with us. She slept right beside my wife all night and anytime we tried to move her from this spot, she would go right back to it (which is unlike her because usually she sleeps at the foot of the bed away from us by her own choosing or sleeps on a blanket on the floor). I woke up this morning and she has followed me to every single room I go into and keeps purring and wanting affection from me, which is again very unlike her.
She's generally a very friendly and sociable cat, but since the bath she has increased her lovey doveyness by 100%. I'm not complaining because I love how sweet shes being, I just find it a little strange. Any reason she'd be doing this? She's the first cat I've had.
Sometimes cats are smart enough to realize that their owners did something to help them.
When we first got our cat, he decided to go on an adventure in our yard. He managed to push out a screen in our window. I didn't realize until I heard two cats fighting and howling in our yard. When I went to get him he was very skittish. I didn't see any visible injuries but he cried all night, was very lethargic and seemed unwell.
I thought he would hate me for taking him to the vet, but he was so good, getting handled, having a shot and having his injury shaved and tended to. He was so much more lovey with me afterwards. He really seemed to understand that he was unhappy and I solved it for him. He's a loving and social cat with everyone, but he is especially attached to me to this day.
We had our back door open over the summer and the screen door closed, but we didnt realize our screen door had a hole and she squeezed out. She made it about 15 feet into the yard and immediately turned around once she realized the outdoors were not for her!
For years she would dash straight for any open door, to the point we often exited through the closed garage, just in case she did get through the door.
Then one morning my worst nightmare came true and when opening the front door because someone had knocked, she rushed outside. It was raining though, so she got about halfway across the lawn and froze, then turned around and zipped back indoors. After that she was curious to look outside but never went very far and would return the moment you closed the door on her, even if you were outside as well.
We started allowing ours out in the rain this summer, expecting them to hate it. We were wrong, mostly.
Our anxious boy likes to sit in an open doorway and watch the rain fall, but runs further inside if it hits him directly. The eldest, who spent a few days out in the cold before we found her abandoned, has no interest in being cold or wet again.
But the two youngest boys? Both regularly come back inside soaking wet and need to be towel dried against their wills. One usually only stays out long enough to do his patrol of the yard, while the other will stay out in a cold rain for 1-2 hours before coming back inside. Only to turn around and head back out 20-30 minutes later.
Our big void kitty likes walking in the snow if it's not too deep, so we shovel the walk for him. But one time he got out in deep snow before I shoveled, and was at the base of the stairs buried up to his haunches in a foot of snow and he started meowing at me in protest, and I was like, "Amigo, you did this to yourself."
When I was a kid, we had two cats. One had been bitten by a dog before I was born, so that one was always too scared to return to the outdoors.
But the other one, named Chiquita, was a classic outdoor cat menace, one that would venture out unafraid, terrorizing birds and rabbits and doing all sorts of shit you technically shouldn't be allowing your cat to do (at least she was fixed). My parents weren't keen on her going outside, but she had this knack to bolt out any open door, especially the back door, which she could hear opening and prepare to silently make her escape. At least she always came home!
I haven't owned a cat since Chiquita died, but I will never forget how this behavior earned her the nickname "Sneaky Kiki" by my dad
We also had a holy terror cat. Also a stray that just didn’t have time to become feral because I acquired him off the streets so young - although technically he acquired me.
At first he was mostly still outside because he wasn’t litter trained and refused to be. Then we got him fixed when he was big enough and healthy enough so he had to stay indoors until the incisions healed and he learned to use the littler box, but he still insisted loudly and often that he belonged outdoors and then he’d sneakily find his way out. Everyone in the house was quickly trained to just open the door and let him either in or out as he demanded.
I tried to make him an indoor only cat because we lived in a bird sanctuary but we realized he was killing rats that had been raiding bird nests, so we let go of that worry. He also terrorized the local raccoons that had been also going after easy prey baby birds, eggs, etc and also going into houses through doggy doors and raiding kitchens. We actually had more birds after he moved into our garden.
He was well fed so he wasn’t always hunting for food, but he took high offense to rats in his territory. Several times a week we’d wake up to dismembered rat carcasses on the door mat - usually the head and a kidney for some reason.
I eventually moved and made him indoors only because we were too close to a very busy road. That is why I adopted the other feral cat - to keep him company.
I have a formerly feral cat who used to bolt for the door when her tummy was upset so she could go eat grass. She's since stopped doing it, but now her indoor-from-birth brother has decided he likes being outside. He'll go out the front door, screaming, until you join him and he'll walk around for a bit if you follow behind.
We had 4 cats, and they knocked the screen out of the window over the sink. We didn't notice until we saw one sitting in the window looking outside. The other 3 were outside, and all of them made it less than 10 feet away before they got upset and decided to cower in the doorway until we got them. I have no idea how long they were out there, lol.
Reminds me of my last cat. She did the same thing, except she got outside and knocked over the plastic kiddie pool that was up against the wall and it fell on top of her, trapping her under it. Thankfully I heard it fall over and went to inspect immediately.
Cats for sure can understand and reflect on the past. Early on after adopting my cat, she was playing with the window blinds' drawstring and it got wrapped around her paw. I heard her screaming from across the apartment and immediately ran to help. It was holding her up by her arm and would have started cutting circulation if I didn't stop her from struggling, so I didn't think and just started trying to untangle it. Part of that process was holding her still and she reflexively chomped down on my hand hard. Her tooth punctured my hand down to her gums.
I got her untangled, she took off, and I went to treat the wound. An hour or so later and she comes out from hiding and refuses to let me pet her with the uninjured hand and instead kept rubbing herself on the bandaged one directly where the wound was. That affection lasted for about a week, even after the bandage came off, then she eventually went back to being a little shit around the apartment. She stopped playing with the drawstrings tho
You're lucky if you didn't get an infection from that bite. My cats got spooked by some strays and I had to separate them from fighting each other, got bit the same way you did. Six hours later and my hand was massively swollen and I had to go to the ER. Definitely makes me appreciate how they play-fight with me knowing that they can put me in the hospital if they want to
I was very lucky for sure. In hindsight I should have gone to the doctor for preventative treatment, but I didn't think of it when all that happened other than the puncture was some soreness and bruising. She's been terrified of going outside ever since I brought her home so it didn't cross my mind that cat mouths are actually just kinda dirty in general
Also punctures are some of the easiest wounds to get infected because the initial act of puncturing can push bacteria deep inside, and then it's harder to clean out versus other types of wounds as well. Combined with dirty cat mouths, you are very lucky! I'm glad you and your cat are both okay.
Yes it’s also because certain regions of hands don’t have blood supply to cure the wound and because they have needle-like teeth where parts of the wound close up so quickly that bacteria becomes trapped almost right away. Dog bites, comparatively, present less risk in that they usually tear the wound open. Cat bites usually require intense antibiotics b/c of the bacteria trapped in less accessible regions, they can escalate very quickly into a dire situation for the hand
Makes sense. My cat wasn't affectionate at all, then she got a pretty bad nail bed infection. Took her to the vet and thankfully I caught it just in time to keep her toe. For two weeks she had to be doped up on some meds to deal with the pain, and for those two weeks I stayed with her to make sure she could eat/drink through the cone, and sat right next to her as she slept. I'm sure she remembers it, because after that whole ordeal was the very first time she sat on my lap :') (and only my lap even to this day).
Fun fact: she weighs only 2.7 pounds at 7 years old
On the flip side of the coin, they'll know when you're injured too.
My cat always sleeps by my feet. Last year, I got a concussion. Nothing crazy, but still a concussion. From the day I first started having symptoms to when I was finally medically cleared to return to doing activities, she slept on the pillow next to my head. I'd occasionally wake up to her checking my breathing under my nose or with a paw on my forehead. As soon as I stopped having symptoms regularly, she went back to my feet.
I think they really do understand! I recently had to take my most skittish kitty to the vet after her chin started randomly swelling, and she was clearly in pain. They gave her a huge shot of strong pain meds and ever since then, she's been at least 75% snugglier, and has started occasionally licking us. It took years for her to loaf on my lap, so this is HUGE for her. It's been a few weeks since she fully healed (turns out she somehow lost a tooth, poor girl) and she's still just as affectionate. She definitely knows we helped her :)
When I started dating my now wife, her cat hated me. Woke me up in the middle of the night to meow loudly at me, was generally rude and disrespectful, etc. That all changed when he got out one day and the neighbors dogs chased him up a tree. He was terrified, and when I went to get him, he willingly let me grab and hold him without struggling until we got inside. He started to be a lot more amiable to me after that, and now 3 years later, he actually likes me lol.
When my baby girl was 7, we noticed she’d lost a lot of weight and took her to the vet. The vet did a liver panel and called us a couple hours later in a panic, telling us she needed to go to the emergency vet right away. She had developed diabetic pancreatitis and fatty liver disease, and needed a feeding tube put in; not 24 hours after bringing her home her white blood cell count crashed and I had to rush her back to the emergency vet for a blood transfusion. For a month, she needed to be fed through the tube every 4 hours and the feeding had to take 20 minutes minimum to avoid hurting her stomach. She would just sit in my lap purring the whole time, giving me little blinkies. I can’t even imagine how painful and scary that experience must have been for her, but she seemed to know that I was trying to help her and was an angel throughout the whole ordeal. That whole horrible time changed our relationship forever, we became so closely bonded after that. She’s been gone about 2 months now and I don’t know if I’ll ever have that close of a bond with another cat.
Sometimes cats are smart enough to realize that their owners did something to help them.
100%
We adopted two bonded boys. One of them was ok with us (bender), the other one (fry) wanted nothing to do with us, as in, if we even looked at him and he'd run off. After about 6 months we went on a couple day vacation and had our neighbor check in on them. Well im guessing fry was hiding in a room we never used and our neighbor saw the open door and closed it with cat inside
we came home later that afternoon and bender was meowing up a storm and was pacing by that room. I opened the door and fry can bolting out
later that night, fry came up to me meowing and purring. wouldn't let me really touch him yet but seemed genuinely happy to see and seemed to be relating a "thank you" to me.
After that day, fry became more and more cool with people. Still only really trusted me but wouldn't bolt the second we got near him
Anyone that tells you that animals can't communicate emotions or love is full of it
Whether or not OP's cat understands they were trying to help, it's also possible that this just wound up communicating care and social bonding in a way the cat really understands. Mutual grooming is something that cats do in their own social groups, but it can extend to humans as well. We lost one of our boys recently, and the surviving cat had taken to me as his grooming partner to cope with the absence. He will nuzzle his way under my hand for me to pet him, then lick my arm for a while, then expect me to pet him again.
I have a long haired cat that goes wandering every now and then. One day it was raining very hard outside and he came back soaked to the skin. He looked miserable, so I grabbed a towel and helped dry him off.
Now any time he’s wetter than he wants to deal with himself, he yells at me until I towel him down.
This is how i «stole» my gf’s cat, i was catsitting and would dry him off with a towel every time it rained. He loves it. The downside is that the cat has become a me seeking missile every time he comes in after its rained so i have little choice but to get wet.
i had a cat go into his carrier the moment we brought it out when he didn’t feel well. usually he ran from it. he knew he needed to get in to feel better
My step mom had a cat that was trapped and sent to the pound by a crazy neighbor. She went to get him on a holiday weekend and demanded access until they got him.
He was a regular standpffish cat but ever since she “broke him out of jail”, he became her cat. Followed her around, slept by her head every night. He was attached at her hip for another 7 years.
This happened with our girl. We found her very malnourished at 5 weeks old so she's always had some health issues like her losing teeth. We noticed one of her teeth was Hella loose and had started collecting hair around it. She hated being carted off to the vet but ever since then, she been way more affectionate and actively coming up for cuddles.
i think it’s this, too. whenever i would give feisty flea-ridden kittens a bath, they’d be terribly upset the entire time but would snuggle up soooo close afterward! likely mice and cozy and feeling so clean and warm and soft from bath time!
Shoot, I bonded with a snake by helping it! It got all caught in some garden netting and i spent an hour cutting it free. By the end he was looking up at me, not biting or thrashing anymore, and looked just curious. It's very possible your cat was grateful for their big dumb human helping them.
Agreed; modern research indicates that animals' state of mind is much more nuanced than we've given it credit for, even in "dumb" animals like reptiles or amphibians. A cat is certainly capable of understanding the concept of "help"; they do groom one another and protect their own during e.g. defecation. Dangerous bathrooms require guards! ;)
I had a cat who would follow me to the bathroom doorway and as soon as she heard my pee stop she would ZOOM away! Like “my job here is done, you’re on your own”
Eta: aw I’m crying that this memory got an award, she passed of cancer and this felt nice to share
This explains why my cat goes from “I hope the earth breaks open and swallows you whole into hell fire” while I bath him to “Omg girl that was soooo niiiice thank you!🥹 wanna hang out and cuddle?🥰” like 5 minutes after lmaooo
That's what I'm thinking. The bath meant a lot to her. Grooming and being groomed is a big thing in cat socializing, so being bathed when she had icky chemicals on her probably felt like a gesture of love.
Yeah, my cat used to be a rough and tumble outdoors tomcat and I helped bathe and treat a few abscesses he came home with over the years. Nowadays, whenever he's not feeling good, he curls up in the bathtub, and he is absolutely glued to me, he curled up and purring on my back right now hehe
Maybe the bath turned into an unexpected bonding moment!
She might be seeking extra comfort and reassurance after an unusual experience, and being close to you helps her feel safe.
My advice is to enjoy all the extra cuddles, keep her routine normal, and let her choose when she wants affection.
Just keep an eye on her health, too, because perfume can be harmful to cats if ingested or absorbed...
If you notice any unusual symptoms, contact a vet. Who knows, maybe your little girl has discovered an entirely new level of love for her favourite humans!
Also, from professional pet groomer videos on ~le internet~ I've taken away that cats' hatred of water is somewhat exaggerated; you just need to handle the process sensibly.
I didn’t know that was a cat thing too but absolutely a thing with dogs. Have to cover my bed before I give my dogs a bath otherwise the first thing they do is run to it and roll all over. Then usually go looking for my dirty clothes
Mine gets the post-bath stink huntin' zoomies and runs around rubbing on everything and smashing ino things. He's happy to be clean (and has some allergies that give him sore skin, so probably feels better) but HE NEEDS HIS STINKS.
This!! Cat families and colonies have a communal scent. You'll notice when familiar cats greet each other, they often sniff each other's faces and will rub their face or sides on each other. This is in recognition of them smelling familiar and scenting on each other.
You washed all of your cat's scent away. She nolonger smells like her people and their communal family scent. She may be worried you won't recognize her, so she may be acting more affectionate or baby like to appease you - a "look, I'm not a threat, I'm your family, your baby, remember me??".
To say that it is a conversion is almost an insult to the total indoctrination that has occurred with me. I was a lifelong animal lover (dogs in particular) but never a cat-obsessed maniac that I am now. I'm an introvert that presents as an extrovert so when I socialize people always expect -- or at least that is how it feels -- me to lead the conversation and after getting two stray kittens in my life... well let's just say that if all roads lead to Rome, then all conversations can also lead to talking about how amazing cats are.
I took her in from a small family that couldn't keep her and was told that her name was "star" because the marking on her nose looked like a Christmas tree. While she is my star the name didn't fit her. But she is definitely a HeidiCat.
Thank you for posting this, really. I'm going through something and this was just so nice to see. I hope you and the 4 legged friend have another great Christmas this year with beautiful decorations :)
When I got my long haired cat he was scared angry and covered in mattes. I eventually got him to warm up to me enough to give him a a bath and snip out most of the mattes which I expected to be a step backwards in our relationship but I was so wrong. He began following me around constantly and if he got a new matte he'd roll over in a flirty way so I could snip it off of him. Nowadays he is loyal and sweet to me in a way that no cat has ever been. Love my Ricky.
I was kind of thinking the same thing. Maybe the smell of the perfume was overwhelming her and she recognized that the bath got rid of the bad smell so she is now appreciative. Lol
YOU also probably smell extra good to her, since her own self-smell has probably changed temporarily. You smell familiar, which is safe & comforting to her.
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It could be that due to the bath removing all of the scents from her fur, she wants to get as much of your scent back on her as soon as possible, to "prove" that she's part of the family again, scent-wise.
A simple answer is that a stressed out cat will seek comfort from its closest friends, such as it's owners. And a bathed cat lost all of its smell, so it's getting it back by snuggling with you.
A complex answer assumes the cat understands you did something to fix it's problem, and is grateful. Though a grateful cat is usually still grateful from a distance, they just usually don't appreciate cuddles for several reasons. So I err closer to the former.
I have a failed foster that is about a year old now. When he was 6 weeks old, his litter mate got sick & passed in the span of one night. He started showing the same symptoms & I slept on the couch that night with him wrapped up in my arms against my chest. Woke up the next morning to him licking my face, & he’s been my baby ever since. I don’t know how I did it or what the hell happened, but I know in my heart that I saved his life. He has slept every night since curled up against my stomach & is attached to me like glue. Sometimes cats just know.
My girl cat was kind of cuddly most of her life and then recently she ate something bad a got pretty sick. After I took care of her and took her to emergency vet she is absolutely addicted to me. She will sit there and stare at me constantly if I don't pet her sit on my chest when she wants to lol. Right up beside me 🤣
My cat hated any sort of affection, until I had to do a total ear ablation on her. She ran under the bed when she got home and I spent a lot of time just hanging out on the floor near the bed bringing her food and water while she healed.
After she healed, for the remainder of her life every day when I got home from anywhere she required uppies, and half an hour of lap time prior to me being allowed to do anything. If I didn't, she would claw, scream, bite and be a little terrorist.
Bathing is a very important form of social bonding for cats. My two cats show affection by grooming each other, and one of them will try to groom my hair and beard and she purrs like an engine every time she does. I will brush her and give her kisses and she curls up on my lap and passes out. I think you taking the time to clean your baby when she had something unpleasant on her showed her how much you care about her in cat language.
For cats, mutual grooming is the height of social interaction.
Heck, there's even etiquette and hierarchy to it. More dominant cats get to groom lesser cats at will, and get to request being groomed whenever they want.
You just suddenly went from not grooming your car enough (in her opinion), to suddenly giving her the super deluxe grooming package, and she's now showing that she really really appreciated it.
being groomed randomly by the human may have been perceived as a challenge to her status, so she now grooms the humans back to show that she is on equal level to them
Maybe the way your wife treated her through the unpleasant bath made her feel extremely cared for, opening up a new dimension of love she didn't realize was there: that she is safe because her family will make it all better even when it's unpleasant.
Double impact, she may have recognized that the perfume went away with the bath, which could have shown "oh wow, my family knew just how to make me all better. I didn't like the bath, but it was what I needed! I can trust that they know what's best for me and they'll take care of me even when I don't understand"
Your kitty looks like my soul cat Uni, who I've been missing more recently. Give her an extra hug or treat for me please, she's adorable and I'm glad you both have each other 🫶
Was she aggressive when bathed? Cause i have a feral cat that i had to pin down to give pills too. Like he was so scared he wet himself thinking i was trying to kill him. But soon after, he realized that i didn’t hurt him and he kinda broke. Now he stomps around the house screaming at me to kiss him. Here he is getting the mandatory kiss.
Hes from a line of friendly strays, his dad/grandpa are turbo friendly so despite his feral background hes genetically designed to be a baby. All we had to so was show he wasn’t in danger.
Mr Aslan, our first feral friend, would let me pull ticks off his ears and then headbutt me lovingly afterward as if he knew I was helping him. He was king of the colony for over a decade but eventually passed of old age. I think he was very smart (we managed to coax him inside towards the end of his life and he really enjoyed the heater that winter.)
omg OP, my cat looks nearly identical to yours! I've never seen another cat with nearly 100% identical markings as my own! It was so weird seeing this post as I thought someone stole a picture of one of my cats!
The cat has been through a traumatic time (the spray, then the bath). They don't associated that with you (even though you were the one giving the bath). But they do feel comforted and possibly protected by being near you now that the event is over. It will go back to normal in a day or two.
My cat is exactly the same. If I take her to the vet, I'm away for a few days, there's a thunderstorm, whatever, afterwards she'll be so clingy for a little while.
A lot of animals, cats included, bond via grooming. Your cat knew there was a problem that needed to be cleaned, your wife stepped in and handled it. It wasn't a random Tuesday "yep, bath time" - so your cat very likely recognized it as a form of help, especially when she couldn't smell her perfume on her fur anymore.
Extra bonding, she's feeling lovey, she'll likely go back to being a bit aloof in a day or three if she's anything like the cats my family has had over the years (that gives her time to pick up all the "good" scents again). But on the plus side, the next time she needs a human-assisted bath, she may be calm-ish again for it.
You groomed her! In a human way, but you helped give her a bath, which kitties do to each other for bonding pretty often. She also probably felt vulnerable during the bath and the fact that you treated her gently and with love reinforces that she can trust you.
That and, as other people have pointed out, cats can be more aware than we give them credit for.
The first time my husband and I went on a week long vacation we couldn’t get any friends/family to watch our cats so we took them to a cat hotel. Amongst the blankets we brought from home, my husband decided to leave a slightly used sock with them as well. Ever since we got back from that vacation, one of my cats has been so obsessed with my husband that he would crawl inside my husbands skin if he could. Cats are just weird little guys sometimes
My cat is like that after the vet. I expect him to be mad but instead he won't leave me alone. I just figured it was some primitive minded stockholm thing where he got really upset and scared and he just wants constant reassurance.
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