Why Does My Cat Purr, Why Do Cats Purr? Purring In The Cat.
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When I am sitting relaxing in my favourite chair on my veranda of an evening listening to the noises of the tropical night and having my evening drink before I go to bed very often my own cat Don Pedro will climb on to my lap. After he kneads for a moment or so he will settle down and start to purr loudly, all is well in his world, the purring is relaxing for him and therapeutic for me.
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But how do cats purr? In fact relatively little is known about it, lets start with the actual mechanics of purring. Purring is thought to involve activation of nerves within the larynx, these nerve impulses cause the vocal cords to vibrate at a set frequency and the diaphragm then serves as a pump and pushes air past the vibrating vocal cords thus creating the constant musical note of purring. Purring happens both on inspiration and expiration by the way and is to some degree under conscious control.
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When do cats purr? You would have thought this was an easy question, they purr when they are happy, yes of course! Certainly that is true but there is more to it than that. Like all small animal vets I have had the responsibility and privilege of tending to quite a few cats close to the moment of death and strangely enough I have know a few purr then, when they would obviously be far from happy. They may do this to comfort themselves but some authorities also think that this may be down to euphoria caused by endorphin release at this time as the organs are shutting down. Endorphins are the bodies own morphiates and can cause euphoria and may as an aside be part of the reason for the reports of human near death experiences.
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Mother cats and kittens tend to purr to each other as well and kitten purr while they are nursing. When kittens are very young and cannot see so well the purring from the mother cat is a beacon they can follow. But it works the other way round as the kittens can purr before they can meow so the mother cat can find them easily. Adult cats may purr to each other as they approach one another as part of displaying a non threatening body language. And as I said at the start they do purr when they are happy and content …
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