My family gave me several books this past Christmas, one of which was called The Blanket Cats (Reference 1). This collection of short stories centers around a pet shop that rents cats to people. The cat comes with a carrier, food, litter tray and their blanket. The shop owner stipulates that the blanket MUST remain with the cat and NOT BE WASHED.
Blankets – A Way for Cats to Relax?
When you think about it, most of the advice we receive about having cats seems to make The Blanket Cats unlikely: cats don’t like to to travel, cats are wed to their territory, cats don’t like change…. Can a blanket really help a cat cope with the stress of living with strangers for the 3 day rental period? The blanket has the cat’s scent on it but is this enough to keep the cat from freaking out?
Biscuits and Blankets – A Way for Cats to Relax
You may have watched a cat approach a squishy, fleece blanket. After a cursory sniff, they often will start to knead the soft surface, much like a baker kneading bread dough. You’ll hear people describing this as “making biscuits” – listen closely, you may hear a purr accompanying this activity.
Making biscuits on a squishy fleece blanket takes a cat back to their first few days of life, before their eyes opened, before their senses of hearing and sight developed. Life was centered around the smell and squishy feeling of mama cat’s belly. The biscuit making kitten stimulated their mother’s milk to flow and stimulated the glands near those nipples to exude the scent of safety and security (Cat Appeasing Pheromone).
And as the cat kneads the blanket, they release more pheromones from glands in their paws, marking the blanket as their own.
With a familiar carrier and their blanket, a “Blanket Cat” has a safe place of their own. And the more times a cat travels and spends time at new places successfully, the more relaxed they will be traveling. So, perhaps The Blanket Cats is not so far fetched.
More Thoughts on Blankets as a Way for Cats to Relax
The right blanket and thickness, though, can make all the difference. Although cats like to sit on a variety of blankets, articles of clothing or pillows, the soft, squishy fleece blankets made of “Coral Fleece” offer the perfect platform for making biscuits.
Coral fleece is a plush, lightweight, and synthetic fabric primarily made from high-density polyester, renowned for its intense softness, warmth, and textured, coral-like appearance.
Give your cat a squishy fleece blanket and let them purrsonalize it with their own scent and pheromones. Leave this blanket out for daily practice, but consider putting it in the dreaded carrier for travel – you may even want to warm it up. The gives cats a way to relax when traveling or going to the vet. Consider having more than one blanket to swap out on wash day.
Of course, not only fleece blankets fit the bill – my cat Gus likes to knead a memory foam pillow; I had a cat when I was a child who would make biscuits on crocheted afghans.
In The Trainable Cat (Reference 2), Sarah Ellis lists teaching your cat to relax as one of the nine key skills that form the foundation of training cats. Making biscuits helps your cat relax. Be sure to identify when your cat is relaxed on their blanket with a word such as “easy”, “chill” or “calm”. You may find that your cat will settle down on their blanket when you bring it to them and ask them to be “easy”.
Making biscuits is a self-soothing behavior, a way for cats to relax. In The Blanket Cats, the store owner asks people NOT to wash the blanket, so the cat is reassured not only by the soft squishy sensations but also by their own familiar scent and additional pheromones released by glands in their feet as they knead the blanket.
I offered my cat Miso a fleece blanket at the vet, putting it on the sofa next to me in the exam room. Miso was quick to take advantage of this, jumping up and “making biscuits” while waiting for his exam.
references
- Shigematsu, Kiyoshi. The Blanket Cats ©2008. Translated by Jesse Kirkwood ©2024 G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.
- Bradshaw, J. and Ellis, S. The Trainable Cat, pp 78-82, ©2016 Basic Books, New York.
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