I have both, actually
BEWARE!
Cat A may pose like this picture of Cat B
Like the Slow Blink, it’s a message “I like you enough to lower my guard around you.”
It’s not an invitation to touch the belly, any more than an open bear-trap.
Only my wife gets to touch the tummies.
My cats don’t let me.
My cat is gone now, RIP to the sweetest girl, but in her time she was the top one to everyone else and the bottom one for me. At the vet in her file it was written in red ink with yellow highlight “CAUTION”, but she would let me roll her around all over the floor on her back and put my face right in her belly without any issues. Its good because in her later years she had stage 4 kidney disease and her being that comfortable with me made it very easy to give her Sub Q and maintain that treatment for over 2 years.
Inside your cat, lives two cats…
I have one of each 😺😾
Same.
The first hides 80% of the time only to emerge screaming for wet food or to pet you specifically on her time and only if you are placed in one of her 3 pre-approved human petting zones.
The second would treat being thrown down a set of stairs as a fun game and immediately run back to being in your face on the off chance he might get a crumb of attention.
My recently adopted cat is the second type but is extremely upset if you use two hands, in any position, no matter who you are or how much experience you have petting a cat. Loves a tummy rub, inexplicably.
The second one needs a couple kill spots
Our orange boy has zero kill spots. Any attention is good attention to him, unless you try to pick him up or hug him (no clue why), but even then he just walks away for a second.
He’s weirdly gentle to us, but kinda a dick to the other cats.
My cat is the same way, loves and is gentle with everything (including pet birds) except for other cats.
Experimental results indicate that cats can spontaneously type switch, possibly dependent upon the particular human-cat system the cat is situated in. Observations of free cats interacting with no human yields little insight.
Further study is needed.
This research needs more funding. Preferably in Churu packets.
I feel like this could stand up to scientific testing
I have had both over the years. I also had one whee base of the tail was the only acceptable place to touch her, and that she barely tolerated. My mom could hang with her no problem, but no other human had better so much as look at her.
Our late girl was the first one, our current boy is the second one. But to me the top image implies unfriendliness, which I don’t think is true just because of the petting preferences; our girl was also an absolute love bucket! She would crawl into my lap at every opportunity, and by contrast he gets too wiggly and excited to stay in a lap for any amount of time.
I have brothers and so one of each!
I knew a cat that allowed and demanded to be hurled across a room in a catwheel spin half a dozen times, if he felt in playful mood. Would meow loudly, paw at the pants/legs of his caretakers and raise the tail in a very specific way.
Otherwise, approaching the cat could considered an extreme sport or a hazardous activity.
My cat started as the former because it was my parents cat and they didn’t really socialize her properly. I got her now and I have 0 respect for her personal space and she’s now the latter.
