| Title: | Meower Power is Valuing Differences |
| Notice: | FELINE_V1 is moving 1/11/94 5pm PST to MISERY |
| Moderator: | MISERY::VANZUYLEN_RO |
| Created: | Sun Feb 09 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Tue Jan 11 1994 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 5089 |
| Total number of notes: | 60366 |
Over the years, I've noticed several combinations and permutations of
the way that my cats groom each other. Basically, Panther and Eirene will
let Argus groom them, but when Argus tries to groom Pip, the tables get
turned and Pip grooms Argus. I've seen Argus groom Spiro, and Spiro,
Nikolas and Alex groom each other. Often (6 AM every morning)one of the
twins will start to groom the other, and it turns in to a fight as both
want to do the grooming. Today, I noticed little Eirene grooming Nikolas.
Now, I've heard that grooming is a show of dominance, but who is the
dominate cat, the groomer or the groomee? Ordinarily, I'd think that it
was the groomer, except Eirene is certainly not dominate over Niky.
Is this stuff about who grooms whom being the dominate cat true or just
an old husbands tale?
Deb
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2910.1 | my turn to be on top! | PENPAL::TRACHMAN | ExoticSH=Persian in Underwear | Wed Oct 04 1989 13:23 | 27 |
Interesting question, Deb. I have often wondered as I watch mass
grooming sessions at different times of the day or night. From
what I gather from watching my crew, there are pairs that groom
each other equally - first one cleans the other then it reverses.
This indicated no dominance - just bath time!
THEN, there's another pair, Terror (rex) and Pashenka (red classic
boy) - Pashenka will groom Terror forever - Terror loves it! Once
in a while he will groom Pasha back, but mostly it's the red boy
doing all the work - he isn't working too hard cause Terror doesn't
have much more than fuzz. Pashenka does pin Terror down during
the wash cycle so I gather that that's dominance, huh??
My seal point pair groom - Sasha cleans KoKo mostly - KoKo just
sits there with a smile on her face.
With my bigger boys, Ivan, Yurii, Timothy, Nikolas, ChowLee (Charlie)
Alexander - they swap continuously - they all want to be dominant.
They are always knocking each other around to prove that that is
true - they haven't figured out that I DO believe them and wish
they would stop trying to show me how tough they are !!!
I have some that won't let ANYONE groom them, and a few little girls
that slide up to a big boy, duck their heads and lay down and let
the big boy wash their heads - typical female behavior!! It's a
hoot to watch.
E.T._who_thinks_cat_behavior_is_better_than_TV !!
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| 2910.2 | CIRCUS::KOLLING | Karen/Sweetie/Holly/Little Bit Ca. | Wed Oct 04 1989 14:33 | 6 | |
Typically it's Sweetie who does the grooming at our house. The
dominance order is Holly > Little Bit > Sweetie, except
Sweetie lets things go only so far and then the worm turns. I
think he grooms and is at the bottom of the dominance order because
he is a nice person.
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| 2910.3 | soaking wet! | VAXWRK::SKALTSIS | Deb | Fri Oct 06 1989 14:55 | 7 |
Interesting. Do either of you have cats that are soaking wet after one
of these sessions? When ever Argus grooms twins in the morning, they
end up soaking wet (and look like drowned rats). He doesn't seem to
drench anyone else, though, and it is only the morning sessions that
he seems to really get into .
Deb
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| 2910.4 | CRUISE::NDC | Nancy Diettrich-Cunniff-I wanted it all | Mon Oct 09 1989 08:50 | 2 | |
Sounds like he's so happy that he drools!
Nancy
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