Question
I have asked another question, concerning the cats' tails, where people answered me that cats show their emotions through their tails.
Generally, I have seen the cats move their tails a lot. Are these movements (not only limited to the expression movements) voluntary or not?
For instance, a friend of mine has a cat, and when she calls her name, she wiggles her tail. Is that voluntary?
Answer
As far as I can tell, the answer is somewhere between "both" and "depends the cat."
Some cats seem to have to pin their tails down with a paw when washing. Others don't seem to have that problem.
One of mine used to sit down next to a board game, sweep her tail across it, and then give us a hurt look when we complained: "don't blame me for what the tail does."
Tails are certainly used for signaling, for balancing, as nose- and paw-warmers, and as a way to fidget while holding the rest of the body perfectly still... but I don't know how to ask a cat how much of that is deliberate and how much is reflex.
(Edit: We don't like to admit how much of our own behavior is involuntary -- or at best something we've trained our ape-selves to do -- and justified afterward with "of course I meant to do that.")
Answered By - keshlam