I don’t know if you’ve ever studied cat walking, but I’ve been doing just that and it’s fascinating.  I’m not referring to catwalking by the way, ie. the hips-forward, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, model-on-the-runway type walk.  I’m meaning the way that cats actually walk, and how they can be so silent about it.

Upon researching, I’ve learnt that their stealthy ways stem from three main components:  their particular gait, their ability to perform direct registering and also to digitigrade.

And there I was thinking cats have a simple life.

Someone’s gait, or way of walking, can be described in beats.  Cats have a four beat gait because they only lift one paw up at a time.  They also move their legs symmetrically, almost as if their right and left legs are mirroring each other.  This four beat trick and the ability to do the mirror walk not only results in less contact with the ground, but also means they can get a good flow going on, walk-wise.

Cats also do a direct registering thing.  This is when they place each back paw in pretty much the same spot as their corresponding front paw was previously placed.  It keeps their walk quiet because they can check to make sure there’s nothing noisy in their path before they place their front paw down, and then they know it’s also going to be a quiet spot for their follow-up hind paw.  Clever!  As a bonus, this direct registering also makes them pretty darn steady (which is good really, being as they don’t have any arms to hold out if they get the wobbles).

And then there’s their digitigrading powers.  The “digit” part of that fancy word refers to the cat’s toes.  Hmm, I’d never thought about cats having toes before, but there you go.

Digitigrade locomotion (go me!) is when you walk along the length of your toes, rather than on the soles of your feet.  And cats do this.  It means that they have less contact with, and put less pressure on, the ground.  Another reason as to why they are such jolly quiet walkers and just so incredibly stealthy.

We humans on the other hand, tend to walk heel to toe, and we place our entire foot on the ground as we walk.  When we want to be quiet we’ll often tip-toe, avoiding the whole-foot-on-the-ground thing.

I don’t normally spend time reading up on animals and I’m not particularly interested in the lives of cats.  We do have cats – two in fact.  I like them most of the time, but just not at four-thirty in the morning, or when they persist in scratching my couch.  I have been known to think and even say some not-nice things to them at those particular times.  Sigh.

The reason for my interest in the topic of cat walking stems from this:  We have squeaky floorboards.  There, it’s out.

Having squeaky floorboards has never troubled me, until a month ago.  Until our first airbnb guests arrived and I heard them squeak-walking in our hallway.  Until I realised that if I could hear their squeaks, then they could hear ours.

Horrifications.  What to do?

Well, the answer (and we have researched and talked to people who know about floor boards and squeaks) is that there is pretty much nothing we can do, apart from trying to walk quietly.  Like a cat.

I’ve become quite good at it.  The other people in our household are a lot heavier than me however and find the whole cat walking thing a bit of a challenge.  I make them wear socks.  This helps.

I will confess though, that on the days when we don’t have guests, we will often shout and make a clatter just because we can.  We even take our socks off and do a bit of stomping.  Which scares our cats.  And possibly the neighbours.  But it feels so squeakin’ good!

Courir mon minou, courir.

(Click here to watch a cat doing its gaity thing.)