Few animals are more aloof and impenetrable than the cat, no matter how much we bond with them

Olivia Petter, The Independent

If there’s any domestic animal in need of some good PR, it’s the cat. In the pet world, they are a much-maligned anomaly. While other animals are permitted depth of character, cats are often reduced to stereotypes. They’re aloof. They’re demanding. They think they’re better than you. Some of that might be true. But internationally renowned cat expert Dr Sarah Brown has made a career out of proving why it isn’t always the case.

Dr Brown began her studies more than 30 years ago, and has spent years analysing the minutiae of feline behaviour, highlighting all the quirks and complexities that motivate cats. Having done her PhD on feral cats, she also works as a cat behaviour counsellor, visiting owners in their homes to try and help solve their pets’ problems. Typical issues range from spraying around the house to attacking owners’ ankles. On one occasion, Dr Brown dealt with a cat who’d been chewing the television cables. “That was a pretty dangerous one,” she recalls.

I’ve invited her to my house to meet my own cat, Blanche DuBois, and it only takes a few minutes for her to decipher our entire dynamic. “I imagine you don’t leave her alone much,” she says. “I can tell you’re very bonded with her.” She’s right: I am completely obsessed with Blanche. Although I’m not sure it takes a cat expert to work that one out. Much of Dr Brown’s new book, The Hidden Language of Cats, revolves around debunking some of the common misconceptions surrounding the animals. In it, she traces cats back to their ancestral roots and examines historical records and scientific studies to illustrate some of the previously unexamined magic behind these furry creatures. “A lot of people misunderstand cats,” she says, putting this down to the fact that they descend from North African wildcats, which is an entirely solitary species.

“They didn’t come across each other very much and would communicate via scent,” Dr Brown explains. “Face-to-face contact wasn’t really a thing for these animals; unlike dogs, which descend from social wolves, cats had to develop their language from scratch, so to speak.” In short, they had a lot more work to do, and some have clearly worked harder than others. Cats also haven’t been domesticated for as long as dogs, which, in part, is why their signals for communication are often more subtle. “It’s things like whether their tail is up or down, and which way their whiskers are pointing,” says Dr Brown. “Their ears alone have seven different ways of moving. It’s not that they’re aloof; it’s that most of what they’re doing we’re not noticing. You just need to look harder.” New research is coming out all the time to prove this. In fact, just this week a new study published in the Behavioural Processes journal revealed that cats have 276 facial expressions, a range that is thought to have evolved as a result of living with humans. The researchers found that through a variety of facial muscle movements, including nose licks, nose wrinkles, and blinks, cats were able to express themselves in far more ways than experts have previously thought.

It’s a number that isn’t far off from the 357 expressions that have been spotted in chimpanzees; but it’s a far cry from the 27 facial movements observed in dogs, though no one has studied the number of expressions that can be derived from a combination of these movements. Still: take that, dog lovers. In terms of the things cats are trying to communicate, Dr Brown explains it’s mostly along the lines of, “feed me, let me out, let me in, pet me, play with me, leave me alone!”. “The thing with cats is that they like to lead interactions, to have them on their own terms,” she says.

This is something I know all too well. You see, Blanche does not like to be told what to do. Whenever I have to shut her in a room, for example, she scratches furiously on the door, meowing until I open it. That said, she is hardly a problem cat. If anything, her only issue is that she does not have enough issues. An indoor high priestess who spends her days perusing her kingdom (my flat) from either her palace (cat tree) or her conservatory (chest of draws that overlooks a shared garden), Blanche is nothing if not overindulged. Occasionally, I worry this affects her behaviour. Dr Brown, who has spent the last 30 minutes assessing her, assures me this is not the case.