Charles Manning

1 month ago | kinship.co.uk | Charles Manning

Cats shed. It’s nothing to worry about. Sure, it sucks having everything you own covered in a gossamer web of discarded fluff, but everything has its price. Even kitty snuggles. Excessive hair loss, however – the kind that leaves your cat’s coat thin or patchy – is a different story. It almost always indicates a bigger medical issue and should be assessed by a vet as soon as possible. “Benign hair loss is extremely rare in cats, so rare that it’s unheard of,” says Dr Sarah Dougherty.

1 month ago | kinship.co.uk | Charles Manning

Everyone knows that the beans (the fleshy pads of the paws) are the cutest and most alluring part of the cat. Attempting to massage the beans when one is not blessed and highly favoured by the cat is risky at best, as the beans are connected to the claws, which are designed to do maximum damage. And yet, the temptation to touch the beans of any cat is almost irresistible, especially in the case of a polydactyl cat, which has extra beans and thus beckons cat people as the sirens did Odysseus.

1 month ago | kinship.co.uk | Charles Manning

My cat, Pumpkin, is a monster. A snuggle monster, but a monster nonetheless. Every morning, as the sun rises, so too does Pumpkin. He walks across my chest, sticks his paw in my mouth, meows, purrs and cuddles up beside me, forcing his way into whatever nook I have created with my body and cuddling contentedly for about a minute before getting bored and aggressively grooming himself. All the while, he’s chewing at his belly fluff like a dog attacking a stuffed animal.

1 month ago | kinship.co.uk | Charles Manning

Cats often get a bad rap because they’re not as demonstrably affectionate as dogs. But just because your cat doesn’t greet you at the door with slippers in their mouth, it doesn’t mean they don’t love you. They just have different – less desperately thirsty – ways of showing it. How to identify when your cat is showing affection  Some signs of cat affection are obvious: purring, rubbing up against you, allowing you to stroke or hold them.

1 month ago | kinship.co.uk | Charles Manning

Cats use their tails for all sorts of things – from balancing to marking their territory to just generally looking cool. But more than anything, cats wag their tails to communicate, both with humans and with other cats. And while other forms of cat communication can be quite difficult to decipher – Why do you keep meowing at me?