# grooming each other...sign of dominance, acceptance?



## cal4ever0407 (May 17, 2005)

I know this was sort of touched on in another thread, but I wanted to explore the topic some more. I am trying to determine what grooming each other means in terms of cat social heirarchy (if one exists) or just social interactions. It appears that Kit and Fry (the two smaller cats) will fight for Brutus' grooming session. When Kit snuggles next to Brutus to be groomed, Fry will run in front of her and try to get Brutus to groom him. Sometimes, Kit and Fry wrestle to see who can groom each other. When we first got Kit and Fry (at different times), Brutus was quick to groom both of them. I cannot figure what grooming means. Acceptance? Sign of dominance? I know this is normal cat behavior, but I'm just curious. I wish I could get in the head of these little guys. Thanks for any information!


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## coaster (Dec 1, 2004)

I don't think it's so much who's grooming who, but HOW. Grooming is an act of social bonding. If you see one cat grooming another cat, and he's got a leg on top of the other cat while he's doing it, then that cat is the dominant cat (or wants to be.) But that's just my observation -- I can't find any authoritative reference to back it up.

The article linked below maintains that cats groom "down" the hierarchy, i.e. the dominant cat grooms the subordinate cat. But I haven't observed that to be black and white, as I have two cats who groom each other, and I know which one is the dominant cat.



> behavior specialists believe that grooming behavior...is more commonly done "down" the social hierarchy. What this means is that the more dominant cats tend to do the most social grooming.


From here: http://www.rivma.org/wisecatbite.html

Here's another reference:



> ...unrelated adult cats can also induge in mutual grooming if they feel a strong bond....This type of bond is a kind of displaced parenting behavior....It can occur across species, too; cats that are strongly bonded to their humans will often give <them> a bath.


From Communicating With Your Cat by J. Anne Helgren


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## Dusty&Lou (Jun 16, 2004)

Dusty sometimes grooms Bella. Never the other way around. And Dusty is definitely more dominant over Bella. It's not very scientific, but that's what happens in our house. :wink:


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## nanook (Jun 12, 2005)

I've often wondered that too. My guys groom eachother constantly and sometimes seem to struggle over who's going to groom who first. It's really funny. I've caught them with their arms round eachother cleaning eachother's face. Cracks me up!


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## cal4ever0407 (May 17, 2005)

Thanks for the responses. I feel so special to have been given "baths" by Kit and Brutus. They make a strange face afterwards though. I guess I taste weird. Fry has to groom me...he's still young. 

Brutus is the only one who puts his foot on Kit or Fry when he's grooming them. I'm not surprised he's the more dominant cat. However, all three of them groom each other, so I think you're right, Timskitties, that grooming alone is not necessarily a sign of dominance. Thanks for the links, I'm going to take a look at them. 

I love watching cats groom each other. It's so fun. Once I tried to be part of their groomign session. No, I didn't start grooming one of my cats, but I did stick my head in between them. They ignored me. They only groom me when they're alone with me.


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