Why does my cat stare at me?

How to read it

Cats Protection’s behaviour guide says cats usually try to avoid eye contact, because holding it, between cats and between cats and people, is confrontational. A cat that looks away when a person looks at it is being polite, not rude. Blue Cross says a cat that is happy to look you in the eye with a soft, relaxed gaze has accepted you as no threat. The Cat slow blink sits between the two: Tasmin Humphrey, Karen McComb and colleagues at the University of Sussex suggest it may have begun as a way to interrupt an unbroken stare, which is potentially threatening between cats (Scientific Reports, 2020).

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Staring for food or attention

Cats pay attention to where people look. A 2020 review in Frontiers in Psychology by Hikari Koyasu and colleagues summarises the studies. Cats chose more food from a person who called their name while looking at them than from one who called without looking, and cats followed a person’s gaze to one of two food containers in about 70% of trials. Shown an unfamiliar object (a fan with ribbons tied to it), 80% of cats looked back and forth between the fan and their owner. The same review reports that cats looked at a familiar person for less time when that person looked straight at them.

A stare that is a warning

Tom cats in a stand-off sit or stand stiffly with their hackles up and stare at each other (ASPCA). Cats Protection lists staring, with a tense body, dilated pupils or ears turned to the side, among the signs that a meeting between two cats is going badly, and says ears facing forward combined with staring can mean a cat is trying to block another from a resource. International Cat Care says direct eye contact can feel threatening to a cat, and Cats Protection that a cat can see being stared at as a threat. A fixed look can also come before a pounce: the ASPCA describes a hunting cat’s silent stalking, watching and waiting. International Cat Care mentions cats staring into the top corner of a room just before a burst of racing about, which it puts down to excess energy.