This is Stella – Go ahead – touch my belly – you know you want to.

As you may know, many (if not most) cats do not like their belly touched. You may even have the scars to prove it.

Cats take particular glee in this. They will roll over exposing that soft soft fluffy fur and practically beg you to rub their belly.

Do not be fooled.

Cats are not dogs.

Cats are fiendish little killers we allow to live in our homes. And they like to play with their prey before they finish you off.

We had a very evil cat named Stella (Stella Planeta was her full name – it means wandering star). Stella claimed us. We were coming home from a rehearsal and there was this beautiful long haired tabby in the middle of the road in front of our house. My husband slowly pulled the car right up to her – figuring she would get out of the road. Ha. Not Stella. I got out of the car to see if she was okay. She jumped into my arms and started purring like crazy. It was all over for us. We had a new cat.

Stella was beautiful and evil. She was called from time to time the “Crunch Cat” (because she liked to purr, purr, purr than chomp down on you), Smella (because long fur and nasty butts often go together – especially when the cat disdains cleaning her own butt hole – duh, that stuff is nasty – she also hated us cleaning her and would scream “bad touch, bad touch” during the whole process), and now she is “Ghost Cat” – being blamed for wicked ideas that get into our current kitties’ brains.

Stella loved to roll onto her back and show us her beautiful white soft soft furry belly. But oh the consequences if you succumbed to the temptation and touched that belly. Again, having the scars to prove it.

So imagine my surprise to find that two of our current cats, Leo and Ollie LOVE to have their bellies rubbed. I am most surprised at Ollie who is a total scaredy-cat. His mom-cat was feral and although we got him young, he has never quite grown out of the “humans-are scary” mindset.

Ollie is a big gray fluffy cat, and he loves to get on the bed at night and first thing in the morning and have his belly rubbed. And what utter joy for me to be able to rub that furry belly. Luxury!

Leo is not as big a fan of belly rubs as Ollie, but he does like them quite a bit. When he wants his belly rubbed, he just comes over to you, flops, and rolls over. Since Leo is a short hair brown tabby, rubbing his belly is not quite the decadent experience as Ollie-rubbing, but it is still a pleasure.

So live and learn. Some cats do like to have their bellies rubbed. Who knew?