What really makes a cat purr?

AS MANY more of us live in cities, cats are much more appropriate pets than dogs, managing to be simultaneously affectionate and self-reliant.

cats, fighting, cute animals, funny animals, purring, cats eating, pets, cuteWhen two rival cats meet, they will try to resolve the conflict without resorting to physical fights[ALAMY]

They are low maintenance, groom themselves and can be left alone all day. Perhaps that's why they outnumber dogs as pets by about three to one. But unlike dogs they are still at heart wild hunters who can revert to that way of life within just a couple of generations.

The first role for cats in human society was that of pest control: 10,000 years ago wild cats moved in to exploit the concentration of rodents provided by our first granaries and adapted themselves to hunting there in preference to the surrounding countryside.

Realising how beneficial this was people must have begun to encourage cats to stay by making available their occasional surpluses of animal product, such as milk and offal. The second role is that of companion.

The first good evidence we have of pet cats comes from Egypt 4,000 years ago although it may have occurred much earlier. In 2001 archaeologists discovered a grave dating from 7,500 BC in which a cat had been buried near a person.

The most obvious reason so many of us think that cats are little people is the human-like quality of their facial features.

Their eyes face forward like ours - unlike most animals, which point more or less sideways.

Their heads are round and their foreheads are large, reminding us of a human baby's face. The effect of cats on humans can be remarkable: scientists have found that simply viewing "cute" puppies and kittens temporarily enhances people's fine motor dexterity, as if preparing them to care for a fragile infant.

However the success of cats as pets is not just because of their looks but because they are open to building relationships with mankind.

But what do they feel for us? Even at the earliest stages of domestication, cats needed humans to protect and feed them at a time that vermin were in short supply.

The cats that thrived were those that were able to combine their natural hunting ability with a newfound capacity to reward people with their company.

But cats' attachment to people can't be merely utilitarian: it must have an emotional basis. Every time I am tempted to think that the sceptics might be right and cats only pretend to love us I think back to one of my own cats, Splodge. He liked to sit on his own in a corner of the room, never on anyone's lap.

If we had visitors he would get up with an air of extreme reluctance, stretch himself and slowly leave the room.

Yet Splodge did love a couple of select people. One was a research student of mine who came to the house to play games with him as part of her doctoral studies.

cats, fighting, cute animals, funny animals, purring, cats eating, pets, cuteCats will start to purr when they suckle and their mother joins in [GETTY]

Purring therefore seems to convey a general request: "Please settle down next to me."

After the first few times he came running as soon as he heard her voice at the door, presumably recalling the fun he'd had on her previous visits. The other target of Splodge's affections thankfully was me. Whenever he noticed I had taken the car to work he would sit in the front garden all day and wait for me to come home.

On seeing my car return he would come running across the driveway and sit by the car. As soon as I opened the car door he would push his way in, purring loudly. He would then stand with his hind legs on the passenger seat and his front paws on my leg and rub his face on mine.

It is hard to argue that such a display was not driven by a deeply felt emotion and by all appearances that emotion must have been affection. This was unlikely to have been motivated by a desire for food or reward - my wife usually fed Splodge yet he never behaved this way towards her.

When kittens are tiny, their mother has no choice but to feed them - it is the only way they can survive.

As they get older, it is in her best interests to persuade them to take solid food but they often try to continue to take milk - and one way they do this is by purring.

Here we have the first indicator that purring, a classic sign of a contented cat, might also mean something else. Purring is a quiet vocalisation, audible only over short distances, which almost certainly evolved as a signal produced by kittens, not between adult cats.

In the cat's wild relatives the only close-quarter interactions that occur, apart from mating, are between mother and kitten, which begin purring when they start to suckle and the mother sometimes joins in.

Cats don't purr only when they are in physical contact: some will also purr when they are walking around, trying to get their owner to feed them.

This purr takes on a more urgent quality, particularly effective at getting their owner's attention. Some cats continue to purr even when their body language, for example a fluffed up tail, says they are getting angry.

Adult cats purr also when there are no people about, when greeting another cat they are friendly with, when they are grooming or being groomed by another cat or simply resting in contact with another cat.

Cats have been heard purring when they are in deep distress.

Purring therefore seems to convey a general request: "Please settle down next to me." In the gentlest way, the cat is asking someone else, whether cat or human, to do something for it. When they purr, kittens are asking their mother to lie still for long enough to allow them to feed.

cats, fighting, cute animals, funny animals, purring, cats eating, pets, cuteDavid Cameron's cat Larry can be caught purring around the corridors of Number 10 [GETTY]


  • Cats get stuck up trees because their claws face forward, so they cannot be used as a brake going down.
  • Cats can swivel their whiskers forward when hunting to provide short--range radar.
  • No one knows why most cats respond to catnip but not all do. The behaviour released in some is a bizarre mixture of play, feeding and female sexual behaviour, whether the cat itself is male or female. Cats may first play with a catnip toy as if it is a form of prey but quickly switch into bouts of a seemingly ecstatic combination of face rubbing or body rolling, reminiscent of a female cat in season.
  • Like humans, cats have binocular vision. They can gauge precisely how far away their prey is and judge their pounce accordingly.
  • When two rival cats meet, each will try to persuade the other to back down without either resorting to physical contact. Cats are too well armed to risk fighting unless this is unavoidable. Each cat will draw itself up to its full height, turn partially sideways and make its hair stand on end, all designed to make its profile look as big as possible. Since both do this neither gains any advantage but that also means that neither can risk not performing this display to its maximum extent.

To order a copy of Cat Sense by John Bradshaw (Penguin, £8.99), call the Express Bookshop on 01872 562310, or send a cheque/PO to The Express Bookshop to: Cat Sense Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth TR11 4WJ or online at www.expressbookshop.com. UK delivery is free.