Cat Body Language (eyes n ears)

article n pix : http://www.tbvet.com

Look Into His Eyes

• Eyes that are half-drooped signal feelings of trust and relaxation.
• Eyes that widen into circles show a shift from a relaxed mood into one where he is alert and attentive.
• Staring, with wide open eyes, represents a threat (this can be said for both cats and dogs).
• Blinking is a reassuring signal that breaks the threatening stare.
• A cat's pupils (the black hole in the coloured portion of their eyes) will tell you how aroused a cat is.  As his arousal level increases, his pupils grow larger and wider.  The bigger the pupils, the more likely a cat is to take action of some sort.

Ear Direction
Because a cat's ears are pricked and stick up above his head when he is relaxed, they are easily seen and changes in ear position provide good signals of fluctuations in your cat's mood.  Cats have around 30 muscles that allow them to move their ears in many ways.

• A calm attentive cat will have his ears up.
• If something catches his attention, a cat will angle his ears slightly forward in the direction of the interesting event.
• A frightened cat will tend to flatten its ears down against its head.
• The first sign of rising tension in a cat is when his ears flatten out to the side giving the impression of airplane wings.
• The ears of an aggressive cat will rotate so that the inside surfaces are toward the side and the backs of the ears are now visible.  In some of the larger wild members of the cat family, the backs of their ears are marked with distinctive patterns that makes any rotation of their ears more conspicuous and allows others to know that they are annoyed.  Some wild cat species have tufts at the ends of their ears that also help to make the ear's positions and rotations more visible from a distance.