Allogrooming refers to animals grooming each other. This is a social activity that also provides health benefits.
Grooming themselves and each other is a behavior that cats learn from kittenhood and continue to practice throughout their lives.
Allogrooming is a multifunctional behavior that has many advantages. Understanding it will help you decipher your own kitty that much better.
Kittens are born extremely vulnerable. They’re blind and deaf, covered in blood, and generally relatively weak. The mother cat compensates for this by allogrooming.
Cats groom their family not because they are related by blood but because they have a strong social relationship.
Felines groom other felines when they want to bond. So, if you have more than one cat and they’re not related, they may lick each other’s coats.
If you watch your cats when they lick each other, you’ll probably notice that there’s generally one cat who does most of the grooming. That is likely to be the dominant cat.
Cats have a tongue designed for grooming. Their tongue can detangle knots and remove dirt from their coats.
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