Same. I joke I would lose a leg for him, because he is polydactyl and has claws that can't be drawn in and his favorite way to greet me is to put his little paws on my knee and bigggg stretch. It's adorable but my knee is covered in scars, scratches and the such. Not the best thing for a diabetic but there is no way I could turn away his love.
I’ve seen hundreds of cat photos and they’re all cute. Genuinely this might be one of the most adorable photos I’ve ever seen. His eyes are SO wide and just absolutely locked in
For anyone cognizant of the impact of stress on the body, cortisol has been a primary discussion point for decades.
It’s possible more young folks are seeing it for the first time via some influencer, but it has never been out of the general discussion around stress.
Fr. As a health conscious person this was a HUGE point of mine for my ex. Doom scrolling TikTok and 100% unregulated and stressed all day, getting away from that was the best shit ever happened to me.
I can't stand when people hear a word and then everybody piggybacks off each other and that's all you hear anymore. They have to work it in to everything 🤦
Yea, my second cat only did it in the first few days after he arrived. He lived in our bathroom and was very insecure but also excited at the same time. At first we were afraid he would start to mark things (it's the same motion) but he never did. But also the rattling stopped.
Or a sign of other things as well... It's spraying behavior which can sometimes be a sign of happiness, but is also often a sign of territorial insecurities (like those that might crop up with a stranger around and your people gone)
Well fuck, one of my boys sometimes does this when I take him outside and he gets all excited... def just happy tail shakes bc he's been doing it for years with no issues. How am I supposed to tell if it suddenly means imminent danger??? Cats are so tricky, every time I google a behaviour it's like "okay that's either perfectly normal or an urgent emergency, hope this helps!"
Thank you for this! 😂 I’m still laughing about cattlesnakes!!!
I work/live maintenance in a senior living apartment complex and recently adopted an old cat (13) from an old man heading to a nursing home. This was one of Baxter’s habits almost immediately after he moved in. I instantly clocked it as a cat spraying but he was just dry firing so I was ok with it. Little buddy just going through the motions. Rock on little man.
After having him for 6 months, I now see the pattern. He loves the refrigerator. He makes demands for me to open the fridge just so he can sit in front and gaze into forbidden snack box. It usually culminates with him cattlesnaking the snack box after the door shuts. I had never seen a fixed male cat do this but that’s why I love cats. They’re so quirky and have such unique personalities.
I am so happy to discover there are others out there and it has a name and a sub! 😆 You’ve absolutely made my day!
Yea I thought this was a territorial behavior. They’re trying to spray even if they can’t. I’ve seen girl cats do this, but I’ve also seen girl cats spray so now I’m just confused.
Cats can still spray even if they are fixed and mock spraying isn't because they are trying to spray but cannot. Spraying is a territorial marking behavior and some females will also spray if they feel insecure. Spraying not exclusive to unfixed male cats, but they are usually the ones spraying to mark territory.
I've seen cats do the tail shake mock spray because they're happy, but I wouldn't necessarily say it always means they're happy. It could be a nervous behavior as well, but you'd need other behavioral cues for context.
This 100% looks like spraying, especially with how the cat is backed up near the couch. The tail is curved downward instead of straight up. I have a cat that sprays and he looks exactly like this when he does it.
We call it "happy tail" in my house too! One of our cats in particular does this whenever we are in the bathroom with her, she gets so excited when we close the door 😂
We call it “shaky tail”. One of my boys usually gives us “stompy feet” while he’s doing it & it’s hilarious—he rhythmically stomps his back feet at the same time.
My cat Cosmo was fixed & he sprayed every where! Ruined all the furniture.. ugh! We are just now remodeling after he passed in 2021.
But, i still wish he was here! Even though that was so annoying! The cleaning, but u could still smell the amonia!! 👃
I've got a boy cat that sprays, he was fixed at 5 months and sprays on a near daily basis. It's fucking annoying and the amount of cleaner I go through is crazy. He does it because he's mad. He has crazy anxiety and doesn't like when the other cats look at him, when the kids get more attention than him, when I travel for work, when I'm out of his favorite wet food, if it's bad weather, etc. If he's mad he sprays.
Ever asked your vet for advice? They have Kitty Prozac and straight up Gabapentin (smaller dose) for mild sedation and to help them calm down.
If you’re not into pills you can have a cat behaviorist come to observe and suggest ways to at least reduce his spraying. Of course, any place that he’s already sprayed is going to be tough to get him to stop because it’ll still smell like it, even though we can’t smell anything. But I bet they’ll have advice for that too.
And get a black light like Jackson Galaxy uses so you can see all the places he sprays that you might not even know about!
I had a spray boy in the 80s-90s who didn’t get neutered till he was about six months and my vet said that once they start spraying, they don’t usually stop. He’d just sprayed once afaik when we had them neutered so there you go.
We did manage to keep it to a minimum. Most of the time. He also peed when he was angry. After a while, I could tell the difference between boy, pee and girl pee, and also if it was angry pee or scared pee. Like when they went to the vet and they peed in their carrier before they got there that was scared pee. When they had to hang out with a new cat or a person that they were jealous of, that was angry pee. It literally smelled different. I bet you know that, though.
So now I guess I’m something of a cat pee connoisseur. But he was a lovely boy and he was my baby Angel, the first cat I ever had that was mine.
I haven't asked the vet, yet. I'm nervous about any kind of calming meds because of a previous cat I had on prozac and it made her a raging maniac. The current boy cat is already an anxious mess (it's his breed) so anything that disturbs his peace just sends him over the edge lol.
I've got the black light, we've got a really good enzyme cleaner, an enzyme laundry detergent, and thankfully when he sprays it's not like he's peeing to empty his bladder but instead is a couple drops on the wall and baseboards. He has his favorite spots and so long as he sticks to those we'll keep on keeping on.
Not sure how old the others in here were, but mine were fixed around 9-10 weeks old. Through out my marriage, we have had 7 kitties only 1 sprayed, we had 3 boys & 4 girls.
Same, my cat is neutered too but can still spray and does. It’s funny coz I used to have a female dog that was neutered and yet still lifted her leg to mark when other dogs were around
Not relevant to the discussion but we had a cat named Troubles when I was little, thanks for that lovely little memory! I hope your boy doesn't live up to his name too often 😂
It's not necessarily a failed spraying attempt. It's also a behavior equivalent to a dog wagging to their tails so hard that their hips wag too just cuz they are that excited or happy over something.
Oh. I had a cat that would do this. I'd call him "Mr. Twitchy Tail" because he was just so excited to see me. He was only outside for the first few weeks of his life, then was spayed when rescued and afterwards stayed indoors, so he couldn't have learned the behavior from a cat marking their territory (I don't think?).
He had a golden lab+retriever big brother to look up to. He learned to play fetch and do that silly little sneeze freeze-frame pose when they (dogs) are trying to play (or be playful).
I thought the twitching he did was his way of wagging his tail, but his tail did have a distinctive curl & flick, now that I've discovered that more cats do it (r/cattlesnakes).
RIP Leo (AKA: Mr. Twitchy Tail). The memory of each quirky trait of his still brings me joy, even though I miss him so.
I'm leaning on that this one is more or less trying to spray. I'm guessing your cat is fixed, or is a girl that cannot spray and is just happy, but some cats that do get fixed can still end up spraying from some either still being in the tank, or still having the parts to produce spray. It's about 10%.
I don’t understand why everyone is calling it a happy tail. With a happy tail only the top part of the tail is going crazy, right? Not the lower base, curling their body?
It looks more like trying to spray to me, which is a sign of territorial behaviour due to changes. When a cat gets stressed because their owner isn’t there, it will try to make it’s territory stronger by head bumping more into the area and spraying, whether fake or real spraying.
I think she’s uncertain about the change, actually. Maybe try plugging Feliway? :)
Yes my cat Mr Poo head does this when he’s excited. Usually when we’re eating food. He loves the smell of people food and watching us eat it. But he only really enjoys eating greens (any kind, heavy on spinach!!!) and bacon
I think it’s really weird everyone is saying she’s happy without providing another reasonable explanation like you did.
The main owner is gone, a new (maybe familiar, but still “new”) person is now constantly in her space, OP says she’s been distant compared to the past and she’s doing her tail dance directly near a flat surface (the couch). It totally makes sense she’s being territorial and the more OP knows this could be a possibility, the more OP can help.
I totally agree with that! This is news to me too that cats do this when “they’re happy”.. I agree with you with all the things that you pointed out too
Dry spraying. If nothing is coming out you don't need to worry. Acting distant is probably because you're hous sitting and they miss their normal servant, your sister. It's likely a stress reaction and it's something you don't need to be too concerned about. Should be back to normal as soon as your sister is back.
Our cat did this and turned out his urethra was small and got blocked easily. After taking him to the vet he had to have surgery otherwise would have died. I just wanted share my experience because while it could be what other redditors posted or it could be a serious health issue. My advice contact the owner and ask about this behavior and then go from there.
The same thing happened to my cat. Fortunately, we caught it early and took him to the vet in time, so he was treated before it got worse and was able to avoid surgery.
Looked like he was spraying to me. One of my cats unfortunately does it all the time, so when I see a cat shake like that I immediately start to panic.
My neutered male does this. He's "pretending" to spray because he knows that's a thing that he should do, but I guess he doesn't have the instinct telling him to actually pee.
While cats definitely shake their tale like this when they are happy, the way your sister's car angles herself to the couch and moves her legs up and down makes me think of spraying. Now, clearly nothing is coming out lol. But that's just what I immediately thought.
The pisswiggle!!! Idk why but some cats do this fake spray behavior when they're happy or very stimulated about something, often something exciting going on around them (people arriving at the house or suddenly emerging from a room they have been in most of the day is a big one for our boy). It's so weird. But as long as they are not actually pissing, it's fine. The 2 cats I have had personally have not ever turned it into actual spray behavior, even though I was worried they would.
•
u/trendingtattler Aug 20 '26
This post has hit /r/popular
Please remember the human and participate with subreddit rules in mind. Do not tell people how they should raise their cats.
r/cats rules can be found here
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.