Bengal Cat Behavior

Bengal cat - photo copyright Helmi Flick

Bengal cat behaviour is particularly interesting to cat lovers and of course to people thinking of adopting a Bengal Cat. My cats are non-purebred cats, very domesticated, domestic cats. I am therefore very familiar with their behaviour. I have researched the activities and behaviour of the Bengal Cat.

Please note that there are several posts about Bengal cat behavior on this website - use the label links to see them. For example this says some more on the breed. There are some good posts on health as well (HCM - a heart disease for example and PRA).


We know that some people like to keep F1-F3 fillial Bengal cats. These are more like the Asian Leopard Cat than the F4s and SBT (Stud Book Tradition - meaning in a basic sense domesticated Bengal cats) cats.

But the ordinary fourth generation (and more) Bengal cats still have a good amount of wild genes in them (12% for F4s). And frankly this shows a little at least sometimes. The Bengal cat is intelligent and active and therefore needs more stimulation than perhaps some other well know cat breeds. I also believe that they need more space to roam in.

I am one of those that believe they cannot be truly content locked up indoors all the time as it is too removed from the wild. I hear stories of them "escaping" from the house routinely. And of what breeders call, "inappropriate elimination", peeing in the wrong place. This can be because of emotional distress.

Animals in the wild will have various signals that they make to say they are here and stay away. Obviously one such marker for a cat is the smell of his urine sprayed on his territory. Markers such as these help avoid fights and improve survival. The age of the smell (i.e. faded or not) will tell how long ago the cat was there. It may be fair to say that Bengal cats spray more than usual, but this is anecdotal.

Five F1 Bengal cats. Photo copyright Helmi Flick.

Domestic cats have adapted to living close together in a household when there is more than one cat present. Normally a wild cat is solitary. This is a measure of the cat's ability to adapt.

One extremely interesting behavioral trait that you might see is what I believe to be a signal from the Bengal cat to other cats to respect her space. A Bengal cat may make a strange puffing sound (an extremely unfamiliar sound for a cat to make) when she wants to tell another cat keep their distance and perhaps to apply a little bit of dominance on the other cat.

This is a similar action to cats swiveling to the front their half flattened ears. This applies for example to the Serval, the wild parent of the Savannah domestic cat. They do this (in part) because there is a white blob on the back of the ear which sends a signal to stay away, beware.

The puffing sound is something new to me. The Bengal has a number of (lets say wild/active) characteristics that are manifest in her day to day activities. Another is the liking of water, a throwback to the Asian Leopard days of fishing and catching food by the water's edge in her natural habitat. Bengal cats can be great paper and cardboard chewers as well. This I see as a hunting, eating and killing play.

These wild traits are more apparent in the Bengal, an active and some times demanding cat. My reading certainly indicates that they are much more demanding than my female black tuxedo cat who is at the foot of my bed as I type this. They sometimes exhibit what breeders call weird behavior. They can bite in play more aggressively perhaps than the average domestic cat.

See and read more on Bengal Cats behavior by clicking on this link and on this link for general information. Or use the labels link in the side bar and see all the posts about the Bengal cat and select from there.

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