kneading is good... right?

[Mystik Spiral]

I've had my cat for 10 months now, I adopted her when she was 5 months old, and she has never been a "kneader" that I noticed.

Recent health issues (of mine) have necessitated a temporary move in with my sister and her boyfriend. The problem is my cat is afraid of dogs and of ALL people except me. My sis and her BF have a HUGE Weimereiner (sp?). He is as sweet as can be and wouldn't hurt a fly, but he's also just out of puppyhood and is VERY curious, especially about the new kitty living in his house. As you can imagine Holland is terrified of him. So, she ends up staying in our bedroom most of the time. I just keep reminding myself that this is a temporary situation and she will be OK once we get back home.

Anyway, we've been here for a week and for the past 3 nights I've woken up around 3 in the morning with Holland laying on my lower belly kneading my legs. I can hear her purring while she's doing it (she's a quiet girl, usually I have to put my head to her back to hear her purring. She has NEVER done this at home, and I'm hoping it's just her letting me know that she's gotten more comfortable here. I just want to make sure it's not some doomsday sign that she's going to suddenly claw my eyes out for making her life hell lately...

[mews2much]

My cats do that all the time whe they are happy.
It is fine.

[strange_wings]

Like purring, cats will knead in some situations to help comfort themselves. That said, she probably wasn't very upset at that moment and you probably just looked too soft and kneadable to pass up.

I have one cat that can't resist soft things and will also knead when he's nervous.

[Grogs]

In my cats, kneading always seems to be a sign of contentment. They all knead from time to time when they climb up in my lap, usually accompanied by profuse purring. If I pet him enough, Tre will even go into a kneading frenzy that looks quite a bit like a catnip high and knead furiously until he pulls all the covers off of me.

That said, I have had a situation where the kneading was kick started by a stressful situation. 3-4 years ago, Thufir got blocked up with bladder stones and came pretty close to dying. He spent over a week at the vet with a catheter and an IV coming out of him. After he got home, he started kneading on my feet every night. When I would climb into bed, he would jump up and knead furiously on my feet for a good 10-15 minutes. After several months, he mostly stopped and only does it occasionally now. My thought was (and still is) that he was saying "Thank god you got me out of that awful place! I'm so happy to be home now." Maybe that's what your cat is saying, "Thank god I'm snuggled up safe with you away from that crazy dog!"

[StefanZ]

About the dog. If you try to introduce them to each other, let the dog lie down when they meet.
Train with the dog to lie down on command, if he cant it yet.

A forumist advised a similiar idea: Let the dog lie down, and set the cat UPON the dog... this way, the herarchy is shown in double...

As this dog is quaranteend friendly, you can do all this experiments without any real danger.