Cats, in addition to being extremely beautiful animals, are also animals that seem indecipherable to us, whose behaviors are as exotic as their very nature, and from purring to bad temper, these are things that seem inexplicable to us about cats; but, one of the behaviors that causes us the most surprise, is when these animals rub or rub their buttocks on the legs, sometimes the hands and even the face of a person, but why do they do it?
Why does my cat rub his butt in my face?
The first thing we should know is that, unfortunately, there are still no major scientific studies on feline behavior; However, the good news is that there are many behavioral specialists, feline ethologists, who have spent a lot of time trying to figure out their behavior, so yes, we need to study these animals further, but even though we still we are in diapers in this area we already know the basics about their behavior and we can understand that a cat is an animal that expresses a lot about its emotional state through vocalization (meows and purrs) and its body language (what they do with their body ).
That’s what happens with rubbing behavior.
You have to know that they not only do it with their owners, they also do it in furniture, in their toys and everything they consider to be theirs; They do this because when they rub the back of their body, when they have their tails raised, by doing so they allow special glands that they have in their anus to spread where they are rubbing and they do this to indicate to other cats or animals, that they are in that place and that this object or owner belongs to them.
With the substances that this gland releases, they send information about them to other animals.
We must remember that the animals that we have as pets, dogs or cats, are territorial animals in a certain way, and they usually mark their territory as a social custom of these pets, in order to prevent other animals from getting into their territory.
In addition, it is believed that by doing this, by rubbing with their owners not only with the tail, but also with the body or the head, they not only leave their scent on the person, but the person also leaves their scent on the cat to notice a kind of exchange of scents that create a bond between the person and the cat.
It is for this reason that cats rub on their owners, but when they do it with their rear end and with their tails up, well, it is to release some hormones that are released by the glands in the rectum.