Tails Up

I’m sure if I did some research, researchers would confidently inform me the “meaning” of the tails-up position for cats. I’ve become lazy about research and doubtful about the human imposed view of why animals do the things they do, so I’ll just give my own particular view just for the fun of it.

I take it as a friendly gesture, a let’s-play-and-hang-out-gesture.

I’ve been trying for some weeks to get good photos of the tails up greeting, but my little camera doesn’t do action so well. The cats are usually on the move when it happens. Sometimes there are three with tails wrapped at various angles and the cats practically falling over one another to get close.

Last week, when I walked back from the Farmer’s Market, I left the studio door open a cat’s width while I took my goodies into the kitchen. When I turned, four cats were following in a line with tails up. I laughed out loud. Maybe that was what they wanted.

I’ve only lived with one bushy tailed cat before. The tails are so much more noticeable to me when they fluff out and even more striking when there are a number of them, so this gesture has come into my awareness.

I admit I did try to find something out about the tails up gesture in a book given to me about cats and secrets, but I stumbled over a page that said research shows that cats don’t like to be petted. Or maybe it said it’s not natural to be petted. To my mind, this is the sort of gross analysis that gives human thinking way too much authority about what this universe is up to.

I don’t know if cats naturally like human hands on them or not, but I’ve certainly known a number who seek out petting. Within this group, most don’t. Most of them spend a lot of time next to each other, which I take to mean they like contact. There are a few, like Trixie, who seem to prefer solitude. Oh-Oh likes to be petted by me and by my neighbor, but shies from other humans and doesn’t like to snuggle with cousins. TangaRoo and I make “Roo time” each day in which I sit on a stuffed chair and she half crawls onto my lap. I pet with my hand, she pets with her tongue. If I’ve missed doing it, she comes looking for me in the evening.

Puffer Vasu has never been a snuggle cat, but she certainly likes to get on my lap and purr and have some petting. Her choice, though. None of this picking-up-lovey-dovey stuff, thank you. Nor does she have her tail up much these days. The body is aging and not so comfortable. But as a young cat, it was a prelude to play.

Whatever the meaning, to cats or others, tails up seems a happy gesture, an expression of joy in life. The petting I leave up to them. Monkey Gurl taught me that we don’t need to touch physically when we touch so intimately on the inside. I’ve taken that lesson to heart because I find it softens the edges of separation quite nicely.

Again and again, I offer full prostrations of gratitude to these gorgeous four-legged and tailed beings for their generosity and patience in teaching this particular human to just relax and enjoy life in all its not-knowingness.