Do you speak cat? Decoding feline communication and teaching clients to do the same

Cats communicate in ways that are easy to misread or miss entirely. According to Tiffany Tupler, DVM, CBCC-KA, HABc, understanding feline body language, scent signaling, and social behavior is essential knowledge that veterinary teams should actively translate for clients in the clinic.

In this postconference interview following a session she led on feline behavior at the Fetch dvm360 Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, Tupler explains what friendly feline behaviors, such as head bunting or "allorubbing," actually signal, and why they shouldn't be mistaken for an open invitation to interact. She also discusses the critical role pheromones play in feline communication, how unrecognized stress signals can escalate into serious medical conditions such as feline lower urinary tract disease, and why proactive client education on feline behavior may be one of the most effective tools veterinary teams have for preventing stress-induced disease before it reaches the exam room.

Below is the video transcript, lightly edited for clarity.

Tupler: Cats, even though they don't look like it, communicate just like we do. They have body signals, visual cues, and a lot of tactile communication, like touching, even though we don't think about that in the clinic because we only see 1 version of the cat.

I think it's super, super important that veterinarians and their teams actually train pet parents on how cats communicate. Because cats were self-domesticated—they did not domesticate to be with humans, per se, to live in our homes and be our friends—we have to be better at communicating with them rather than expecting them to want to communicate with us.

Some of the things that I teach a lot about are: What does it look like when a cat is being friendly? We think about things like "head bunting" or what we call allorubbing, where they rub between your legs. That doesn't mean you should bend down, pick up the cat, and pet it. It doesn't mean it's your new best friend. It's more like me coming to you, saying, "Hey, my name is Dr Tiffany," and offering a handshake. It doesn't mean we're best friends, but it means that I'm accepting of you being with me. We're going to hang out for a little bit, and as our relationship develops, we'll start to have a longer-term relationship and maybe continue to build trust.

Cats have long-term memories, so anytime we interact with them, they're going to remember that. You never want to exceed their trust. The same thing goes for pheromones. For cats, pheromones are extremely important. That's their scent and their sense of smell; it's how they communicate. As humans, we don't smell that. When they are leaving signs like, "I need my space," or, "This is my area where I want to be alone," and you have kids, dogs, other cats, or even humans who disobey that, to the [cat], that's a stress-induced problem. It becomes a question of: "Why are these people coming in here?"

When owners see cats rubbing on the side of a wall, it's a great way to educate them and say, "That might be the space they want to stay in, so be mindful of what other animals or things are going in there." We want to create environments that are safe and quiet for these cats, which helps decrease stress. Stress can cause a lot of problems—we see issues with blocked cats and other conditions—so we want to make sure we're teaching people how cats communicate. That is how we can identify stress signs before they become very serious medical conditions.