The Grooming Habits Of Cats

If you have a cat, you know he spends much of his day licking himself. Why does it happen? Should we allow them to do this?

The grooming habits of cats and many other animals include practices they use to clean their own bodies.

Although many species have a habit of licking their bodies, this behavior is especially famous among cats. So, below, we will explain better what it is and why this conduct is so important.

How do animals take care of their hygiene?

Wild animals need to be physically and mentally prepared to survive in the wild on their own.

Some species gather in groups for this purpose, while others prefer a solitary life.

In addition to getting food, finding a refuge and defending themselves from possible predators, animals also need to maintain certain hygiene habits to maintain their good health.

This means not only cleaning your hair and skin of impurities, but also preventing the build-up of parasites on your body.

In most species, hygiene habits are determined by instinct. However, some superior animals can get into the habit of taking care of themselves to benefit their health and well-being.

Human beings, for example, do not take care of themselves only by instinct, and have developed tools, therapies and products to improve their hygiene.

Furthermore, people take care not only of the need to maintain their good health, but also to improve their appearance, self-esteem and facilitate social interaction.

Why do animals maintain hygiene habits?

The hygiene habits of cats and other animals fulfill different functions, which are directly and indirectly associated with their survival.

That is, they influence, to a greater or lesser extent, the continuity of species on our planet.

These are the main reasons why animals take care of their hygiene:

• Remove impurities and dirt from your skin and hair to preserve your beauty and good health.

• Eliminate external parasites and other pathogens, avoiding nutritional deficits, infections and other diseases.
• Maintain the optimal condition of the coat that covers and protects your body from the weather and other threats from the outside.
• Keep your good looks to attract females during the mating season. Many species also release pheromones through these habits to attract their mates.
• Some animals sanitize themselves to release smelly or toxic substances that act as a defense mechanism, driving away predators.
• Birds also maintain these habits to preserve their plumes in ideal conditions for flight.
• Most insects regularly sanitize their bodies, especially their antennae, to maintain their sense of orientation and their ability to fly.
• In some animals that live in groups, such as monkeys, hygiene habits can fulfill a social interaction function.

Why are cats’ grooming habits so important?

First, we must understand that cats have never been domesticated like dogs. They simply learned to live and share their territory peacefully and beneficially with human beings.

However, a cat’s body remains physically and mentally prepared to survive on its own.

Therefore, although they may adopt new habits in the routine of the home, the truth is that they preserve many instinctive behaviors.

One of them is, without a doubt, your hygiene routine, which would be a basic requirement to preserve your good health in nature.

A cat’s hygiene habits don’t just involve keeping the body clean and free of parasites, they are part of the feline nature.

We can even see how mothers lick their babies from a very young age, taking care of them and teaching them how they can survive.

Trying to prevent a cat from maintaining its grooming habits would be to prevent it from expressing its natural behaviors.

Therefore, respecting them is accepting and understanding that our kittens have their own personality and way of being.

The importance of promoting cats’ hygiene habits

In reality, we must not interfere with or impede or interrupt the grooming of cats. We can, however, make his job easier and prevent him from swallowing a lot of hair while licking himself clean.

With regular brushing (or daily, for long-haired cats) we will be able to eliminate dead hair and impurities.

That way, we can let our cat lick itself peacefully, without worrying about hairballs forming in its gastrointestinal tract.