{"id":1572,"date":"2024-02-29T08:36:21","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T08:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/?p=1572"},"modified":"2024-02-29T08:36:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T08:36:21","slug":"body-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/?p=1572","title":{"rendered":"Body Talk\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When I was a small child, we had a family cat called Gem. Gem was fascinating to me, and was for the most part, extremely accepting of my attention.&nbsp;On one occasion though, she displayed her dissatisfaction with me extremely directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> She had gone behind the settee to find a quiet spot and I crawled behind there to fuss her. I\u2019d been repeatedly told that if the cat moved away from me, she no longer wanted my attention. But as children often do, I believed I could convince Gem to have fuss on my terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Obviously that wasn\u2019t the case, and I received a swift swipe to the face. She scratched extremely closely to my eye, and after ensuring no serious injury had occurred, I was told in no uncertain terms I should\u2019ve have acted accordingly when Gem moved away from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Years later, I see this meme and recollect the interaction with Gem. How she established  her boundaries very clearly when I continued  to push them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recognising a cats body language is key to showing them the autonomy they deserve. And the more you know, the better your relationship with your feline family member will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can find a good resource for knowing the basics here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/icatcare.org\/advice\/cat-communication\/#:~:text=An%20arched%20back%20may%20indicate,with%20a%20readiness%20to%20attack\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/icatcare.org\/advice\/cat-communication\/#:~:text=An%20arched%20back%20may%20indicate,with%20a%20readiness%20to%20attack<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/AB918899-7C56-482C-874A-855B53E9BB71.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"540\" height=\"334\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/AB918899-7C56-482C-874A-855B53E9BB71.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1578\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/AB918899-7C56-482C-874A-855B53E9BB71.jpeg 540w, https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/AB918899-7C56-482C-874A-855B53E9BB71-300x186.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Cats will tell you what they want\u2026you just have to know how to listen.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was a small child, we had a family cat called Gem. Gem was fascinating to me, and was for the most part, extremely accepting of my attention.&nbsp;On one occasion though, she displayed her dissatisfaction with me extremely directly&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1572"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1580,"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions\/1580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ailurophile.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}