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My cat has this strange behavior which I think is extremely rare among cats.

Her favorite sleeping place is by burying deep inside my mother's lap. If my mother is not there, she sleeps either on my arms or my grand mother's arms. This touch factor is compulsory for her to get a good sleep.

When we are awake and are unable to stay still at a certain place, she tolerates that as long as she feels our presence and goes to sleep.

But if she can't see anyone of us she starts suffering from terrible anxiety and starts to cry loudly as if she has seen a ghost. She calms down only after someone of us comes to her and pets her.

Now what is the reason for this strange behavior of her?

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  • cats can get very attached to their humans. It's a bit of a myth that they are independent. They form bonds with other animals - including people.
    – user6796
    Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 7:01

1 Answer 1

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She calms down only after someone of us comes to her and pets her.

If you respond to her meowing by giving her attention, then you are teaching her to meow for attention. This is a negative feedback loop of your own creation. You're rewarding her when she meows for attention while you're hoping that she eventually stops meowing for attention.

Without a clear incentive to stop doing so, the cat will never learn to not meow.

As a simple example, we had a cat who would meow by the sliding door. Telling the cat off didn't work and we tried this for months. So I devised a lesson that the cat could learn. I would squirt some water in his direction whenever he meowed, but I would do so sitting on the couch, where I did not have direct line of sight to the cat (the back of the couch block my vision).
The only way I would know where to aim (it was a wide sliding door) would be if the cat revealed its position by meowing. Without any meowing, I would be unable to aim it at him.

The first few days, he made it a game of sitting in a new spot and trying to meow then, but he quickly learned that I could home in on his position by his meows, and once he realized that, he stopped meowing.


You need to do the same for your cat. Create a situation where meowing is either a drawback, or wasted effort. In your case, it seems better to go for the latter, and simply ignore the cat.

If you're worried that something might actually need your attention when it first meows out of nowhere, feel free to go and have a look but do not interact with it. Don't greet it, don't talk to it, nothing. When you see that there's nothing wrong, walk away and don't come back.

At best, you can call the cat from where you are, to make her come to you. She will eventually learn that there's no need to meow first if she can just walk up to you anyway.

Her favorite sleeping place is by burying deep inside my mother's lap. If my mother is not there, she sleeps either on my arms or my grand mother's arms.

Cats like warm spots, that is well known. Body creases (armpits, elbows, hips, knees) are literal hotspots on your body.

Additionally, cats can have favorites. All our cats have a clear favorite between me and my girlfriend - and it's not always the same person. For example, as I tend to watch TV (without moving) more than my girlfriend, the cats favor lying with me during the day (even when my girlfriend is sitting next to me). However, at night I have a habit of tossing and turning whereas my girlfriend doesn't, and thus the cats favor sleeping on her side of the bed.
These aren't absolute statements, but we can clearly see a general tendency to be around me on the couch and around my girlfriend in bed.

I see nothing weird about your cat's behavior. She seeks warm spots, likes affection, and has an ordered list of preferred sleeping spots.

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  • Cats are generally independent animals. I don't think it is natural for a cat to get terribly nervous when the cat is alone and no human is nearby. Also I don't think it is natural for a cat to not able to sleep calmly without human touch.
    – Sonevol
    Commented Nov 28, 2018 at 4:36
  • Also I forgot to mention that our cat is forcefully confined to three rooms and never allowed outside. So if we are outside she has no way of reaching us. It is because we live in a place which is lethal for a house cat who has never ever experienced wild life. Here we have scorpions, spiders, wild dogs, foxes, poisonous snakes, ferocious monkeys, occasional leopards, eagles, kites, to name a few.
    – Sonevol
    Commented Nov 28, 2018 at 4:46
  • And century old unused wells with open mouths covered with herbs as death traps.
    – Sonevol
    Commented Nov 28, 2018 at 4:47
  • @Sonevol: Cats are generally independent creatures but that does not mean that some cats cannot become attached or dependent. Especially if you're keeping them confined to limited area, especially if they're effectively only seeing you when you choose to visit them. Of course that creates a dependency; because your cat is well aware that it cannot survive if not for your visits (including feeding). While I'm aware this is an overstatement (for the sake of clarity, not rhetoric), you're pretty much arguing that independent animals should therefore be okay with near-solitary confinement.
    – Flater
    Commented Nov 28, 2018 at 7:58
  • @Sonevol: Note that my comment hinges on how often you spend time in these three rooms and how often you're in the house but not with the cat. Our cats never go outside either but they have access to the whole house (barring some storage rooms) and have access to us when we're home, which is most of the time we're not at work. They are attached to us but not dependent, yet don't meow for attention from another room. They come to us and only meow if they need something (food, plays) and we're not making eye contact (e.g. watching TV).
    – Flater
    Commented Nov 28, 2018 at 8:00

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