Cat Food Wars - Dominance and Subservience

This is not exactly a war over cat food but you can see how stresses can be built up in multi-cat households in areas where there are food bowls and where there is the cat litter. Cats will or might compete for either. These are areas where a hierarchy between cats is shown up and where a dominant cat will push out a more subservient cat.

I think this is quite an interesting animated GIF, which are a series of still images strung together to make a video that repeats itself. Each image is in the GIF format.

Clearly in this instance the ginger tabby is dominant over the bicolour ginger and white who is overweight so perhaps being pushed out of the food bowl is a good thing. I wonder if the slight overweight problem that the bicolour cat has is linked in any way to his or her subservience to the ginger cat? Perhaps he's pushed out and therefore he is keen to get at the food when there is a chance and hence he eats too much as a precaution against not being able to get to a food bowl when they are put down.

The experts would say that it is important to make sure that a subservient cat has a place to hide and then each cat gets its own food bowl and as best as possible is allowed to get to it. Cat litter trays should also be considered carefully in multi-cat households because you can get competition around a cat litter tray. All this means is that the subservient cat is liable to become stressed and it is a cat owner's duty to make sure that all her cats are content!

This does, though, seemed to be a setup situation. Although, it does not detract from what can go on in multi-cat households.

Why does my cat bury his faeces?

When a cat buries her faeces it is not because the cat is being tidy and clean etc. but because she wishes to make sure that the smell of her faeces is not recognised. Cats nearly always use urine as a way to mark territory but sometimes cats use feces to do the same job.

A cat lives in the human world: it is a world of giants and although we look after our cats we are very large compared to them and we should recognise that. Although we can be very gentle towards our cats, from their perspective we are dominant and they are subservient and when cat is subservient he or she will display subservient behaviour, an example of which is to bury her feces.

You will find that dominant males in feral cat colonies do not bury their faeces because they want to send out a signal that they are the boss and that this is their territory.

Accordingly, when a cat buries her faeces she is doing it because she feels subservient and is playing out a subservient role to us, the caretaker.

Sometimes when a cat uses a litter tray in the home she may not bury her faeces. I would take this as an indication that she does not feel subservient to you and is relaxed, which I would take as a compliment. It would indicate that the person who looks after her cat is a 1st class cat caretaker because one of the 1st objectives of a cat caretaker is to make the cat's environment stress free, friendly, and rich in stimulants. Another less praiseworthy reason for not burying feces in the litter tray is because of practical difficulties. Perhaps the tray is too small, for example.

How do cats show dominance?

In group living there may be competition for food and in the case of domestic cats using a litter, there may be competition for the litter. The formation of a hierarchy with dominant and subordinate cats helps to "mediate access to resources" and to control aggressive encounters (1).

Managing the use of resources - Photo by MelvinSchlubman

A subordinate cats will defer (give way) to a dominant cat. Large colonies of cats have complex hierarchies that are partially linear. In a linear hierarchy there is more than one dominant cat. He is dominant to cats below him but not above him.

A cat will defer to another cat by, for example:

• walking around the dominant cat;
• waiting for the cat to pass before entering an area;
• retreating in the face of the dominant cat;
• avoiding eye contact.

As to body language and posture, the subordinate cat might display

• hunching;
• crouching;
• rolling over onto the back;
• tucking the tail to either side;
• turning the ears down or back.

Dominant cats might block subordinate cats from doing something. The dominant cat might "bat at the subordinate" or chase the cat.

Dominant cats will signal dominance with body posture such as:

• keeping ears up and rotating them to the side;
• arching base of tail and staring at the subordinate cat;
• raising the base of the tail with the rest of the tail hanging;
• wag his head from side to side;
• simply stare at the subordinate cat and at the same time rotate stiff erect ears to the side;

Dominant cats might control access to food or litter. These are important resources. Harmony is achieved when the subordinate cat defers to the dominant with respect to access to resources. Sometimes the dominant cat might threaten the lower ranking cat even though the subordinate is not seeking to use a resource. Alternatively, the dominant cat might willfully monopolize a resource even though he has no use of it.

Ritualized dominance and submission avoids aggression. Where two cats are in balance as to dominance they might fight.

Note: (1) The Welfare of Cats by Irene Rochlitz