Mutual Grooming

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KellyH - 21 Feb 2005 19:40 GMT

Do cats groom each other out of affection? Is it a dominant/submissive
thing? I just saw my foster kitten (almost a cat!) Ana grooming Bartleby,
who is sort of the top cat in the house. I've never seen another cat groom
him, he usually does the grooming.

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-Kelly
kelly at farringtons dot net
"Wake up, and smell the cat food" -TMBG

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Alison - 21 Feb 2005 21:36 GMT

> Do cats groom each other out of affection? Is it a dominant/submissive
> thing? I just saw my foster kitten (almost a cat!) Ana grooming Bartleby,
> who is sort of the top cat in the house. I've never seen another cat groom
> him, he usually does the grooming.

Hi Kelly,
There's an abstract from a study about allogrooming here
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1
3677394&dopt=Abstract
or http://makeashorterlink.com/?V1EC2678A

It's considered an affection thing. I think she is showing confidence
and trust in him.:)
Alison

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Lesley Madigan - 22 Feb 2005 11:46 GMT

Redunzel often gives Sarrasine a quick lick behind the ears then again
she is the sensible older sister! Sarrasine usually returns the
compliment. Also they have massive fights over who gets to lick whom
so possibly the "dominant cat" of the moment i.e. the winner gets to
wash the "loser" sometimes the "loser" struggles and squeals at this
(and more often than not gets up off the floor and proceeds to win the
next round!)

Fugazi and Isis used to groom each other for hours for no more reason
than they seemed to like doing it.

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs

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