Kris­tel-Marie Ram­nath

For rea­sons un­known, hu­mans have a lot of bread analo­gies when it comes to cats. Per­haps the most fa­mil­iar is ‘knead­ing’: the mo­tion that cats make by push­ing in and out with their paws, al­ter­nat­ing be­tween right and left, re­sem­bling a bak­er knead­ing dough. To­day’s ar­ti­cle will look at an­oth­er: the loaf.

We’re all fa­mil­iar with the shape of a loaf of bread: com­pact and rec­tan­gu­lar with round­ed edges. When a cat tucks her­self in­to a rec­tan­gu­lar shape with her front paws tucked un­der­neath her chest and her back paws tucked un­der her bel­ly and the tail ei­ther wrapped around her body or like­wise tucked be­neath her body, she re­sem­bles a loaf of bread, hence the term ‘loaf­ing’ was cooked up to de­scribe the po­si­tion.

Not every loaf of bread that we bake looks the same, and sim­i­lar­ly, there are vari­a­tions on the cat loaves ob­served by own­ers. The full loaf is the clas­sic and most com­mon pose: head up, all four paws tucked neat­ly be­low, and the tail wrapped tight­ly around the body or tucked un­der­neath the body. The par­tial loaf: the front paws are usu­al­ly vis­i­ble, or the el­bows may jut out to the side, or the tail may be un­furled. The par­tial loaf may al­so in­volve one paw ful­ly tucked and the oth­er half-tucked in front of the body, or both paws ex­tend­ed for­ward like a re­gal Sphinx.

The face-plant loaf may cause ini­tial con­cern for some own­ers be­cause the po­si­tion is that of the tra­di­tion­al loaf, ex­cept that the face is plant­ed in­to the sur­face in front of the cat. Some cats sleep in this po­si­tion, per­haps to show that they don’t want to be dis­turbed (maybe the light is on), or to try to keep warm. Fi­nal­ly, there is the loaf that has not yet been re­moved from its bak­ing pan! This is when the cat squeezes her­self in­to com­pact spaces such as box­es or plas­tic con­tain­ers with all of her ap­pendages tucked be­neath her.

Cats tend to loaf in their favourite spots, and there might be a rea­son for this. The cat loaf pose seems to be a com­fort­able po­si­tion for them to re­lax in. With their paws tucked away, they are not in a de­fen­sive po­si­tion where they are prepar­ing to spring in­to an at­tack or to run away. If the loaf is ac­com­pa­nied by slow blinks and purrs, this is a sign that the cat is hap­py. Maybe this is where the term “loaf­ing around” was coined to de­scribe hu­mans be­ing idle!

An­oth­er po­ten­tial rea­son for loaf­ing may be to help cats con­serve body heat. By tuck­ing them­selves in­to neat lit­tle loaves, cats are bet­ter able to main­tain a com­fort­able body tem­per­a­ture with­out mov­ing, es­pe­cial­ly if the cat has a short­er coat or does not car­ry around an ex­tra lay­er of ‘dough’.

Al­though the ma­jor­i­ty of the time a cat is loaf­ing in­di­cates that the cat is hap­py and con­tent, it is al­so pos­si­ble that your cat may be try­ing to in­di­cate dis­com­fort. Cats are skilled at hid­ing pain, so it is im­por­tant that you look for dif­fer­ences in the loaf. You may no­tice that the cat can­not tuck her paws un­der the body, or that while in the loaf po­si­tion, her head is low­ered, her eyes shut, and she is trem­bling or shak­ing. You should al­so look out for an arch in the back and stiff­ness in the body be­cause cats fre­quent­ly do a hunched po­si­tion when they are in pain. If you sus­pect the cat is ill, con­tact your vet­eri­nar­i­an im­me­di­ate­ly.

If all is well, it’s sim­ply best to en­joy the adorable po­si­tion your cat is in … and maybe do some ‘loaf­ing around’ your­self!

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