What are cats doing when they groom themselves?

Anyone who has a cat knows that they spend most of their day doing two things, sleeping and grooming themselves. It almost seems like when they get bored they pass the time by licking themselves. They are actually doing more than just passing the time. Their grooming habits perform important functions for them.

Types of hair your cat has

A cat’s hair is made up of three types of hair, down (softer hair or undercoat), awn (the base coat) and guard (longer hairs that extend past the awn). Each breed of cat has a different proportion of those types and the moulting of this hair is a 365 day a year occurrence for your cat, especially indoor cats and mostly consists of the down hair. When a cat grooms themselves they are removing much of their loose hair and loose skin flakes. They either swallow it allowing it to go through their digestive system or it becomes caught in their throat and they vomit up a hairball.

So what’s going on here?

By grooming themselves your cat is doing several important things for themselves. They remove parasites like fleas from their coat. By removing loose fur it helps to insulate their body better and smooths out their coat, stimulating their skin to produce oils that make their coats shine. In hot weather their saliva also acts as a cooling agent as it evaporates. Their saliva also keeps their coat waterproof, as well as spreading sebum along their coat, which produces Vitamin D when it comes into contact with sunlight which is then ingested during their next grooming session. Socially they spread their own scent across their body and it can help to create stronger social bonds with other cats when they groom each other. This is also your cat’s exercise as their grooming sessions help to build muscle tone.

Groomers by nature

While it may seem easier to just simply put your cat in the bathtub and give them a good ol’ fashioned scrub down they will not like that. Cats have an aversion to water that will make this difficult at best and impossible at worst. For your cat their grooming habits are second nature to them and they like them just the way they are. It has been performed by cats for millennia, so why mess with a good thing? They are neat-freaks after all.

I’m not sure why I like cats so much. I mean, they’re really cute obviously. They are both wild and domestic at the same time. — Michael Showalter