If you are the one with numerous cats at your place, you have probably noticed how one cat will immaculately groom the other one. While it surely looks like sharing a lot of love and affection (and it is to an extent), cats grooming each other has other reasons as well. This is why it is important that your cats take care of each other.
Benefit if your cats groom each other
Let us check out why you should absolutely allow and see that you cats are grooming each other.
- It develops and instinctive parental behavior. If you have noticed closely you will see that cats show an affectionate behavior towards the fellow cat while grooming. It builds up their parental behavior, which is mostly quite instinctive, but still needs nurturing. It is a character development process within the cat and grooming each other allow them, to develop a better and more sociable character.
- It helps the cat to become more expressive and socialize. Whether you have a cat that you have rescued or you are simply having many cats at your place, it is important for them to be able to express their love and affection as well as get along with those they interact on a daily basis. This can be termed as socializing. Unlike humans, cats will socialize and show their affection to each other through mutual grooming. This is important if you want them to stay at your place without getting into a fight every few moments and to ensure that they get along with each other well.
- It is a great way to establish hierarchy among themselves. Cats are quite intelligent beings and they form their own social structure. Mutual grooming also helps them in developing hierarchy within themselves when they are all staying at a place. If you have many cats at your home, you should absolutely leave it upon them to establish the hierarchy. Mutual grooming will help them in the process.
- It allows them to clean up completely. It is quite difficult and also not recommended to give your cat a shower every single day. Cats are quite meticulous groomers and will clean themselves up every day. However, there are always those impossible or difficult to reach areas that need extra care. Even with their flexible body, which seems to be able to get into almost any shape at will, there remain places that the cat simply cannot clean. Mutual grooming helps them get these areas cleaned by a fellow feline friend.
- It helps them relax and become stress free. Now who would have thought that your cat can become stressful as well? Believe it or not, they are stressed too and one of the best ways to get all those stresses away while relaxing is by getting groomed by a fellow cat. It is particularly enjoyable and your cat becomes quite relaxed and stays in a better and healthier mood.
We all love a bit of grooming and special care and treatment. Given the nature of cat, it is quite obvious that your cat also loves to be groomed. If you have multiple cats at home then this problem is taken care of pretty easily as the cats will groom each other.
However, in the absence of a fellow cat, they will need your help to get groomed every day. Given the situation, it is best and advisable to have two cats at home and let them take care of their needs while you go about your job. We can always give them our share of love, care and affection whenever we get off work!