Closeness, Not Years: Why Your Relationship With Your Cat Matters More Than How Long You’ve Had Them
I grew up with a cat named Raani. She was our family pet and lived to the ripe old age of 17. I lived with her from my teenage years until I left for university. Still, we never became especially close. Raani was independent and full of attitude. I loved her, but we mostly just shared the same space.
As an adult, I adopted my first two cats, Athena and Ruski, and things were completely different. Athena joined me on daily walks (yes, a cat going for walks). Ruski spent hours curled up on my lap while I worked. We were a little team. After my separation, Ruski moved with me and became a kind of emotional support animal. We went through the upheaval together and gradually found our way forward.
I’ve had Ruski for only a few years, compared with all the time I spent with Raani, but there’s no doubt which relationship feels stronger. So when a new study from Kyoto University suggested that closeness, rather than years of ownership, was associated with an owner’s mood, it struck a chord. I wanted to see how that finding compares with other research.
What the Kyoto Study Found
Led by cat researcher Saho Takagi and published in iScience (https://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/research-news/2026-10-16-0), the study tracked 29 cats and 19 owners over one month. The cats wore Bluetooth beacons that communicated with their owners’ phones. Both cats and owners provided urine samples to measure oxytocin, which is linked to bonding, and cortisol, a marker of stress. Owners also completed questionnaires about their moods.
The university reported that owners’ positive moods “were not connected to how long they have had their cats, but rather to the overall physical proximity between owners and their cats.” Oxytocin levels in cats and owners shifted together, while cats with higher oxytocin lived with owners who described experiencing less negative mood.
However, the details are important. A closer examination of the methods (https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/cat-may-doing-more-emotional-160700683.html) reveals:
• The beacons tracked proximity, not time spent together. They recorded signal strength when cats and owners were near each other, rather than measuring their total time together.
• The finding related to one aspect of positive mood. Closeness was associated with vigour and activity – feeling lively and energetic – but not with every measure of positive mood.
• The length of ownership didn’t consistently predict mood in either direction. An initial association with more negative mood disappeared (https://www.sci.news/biology/cat-owner-hormones-15138.html) after households with multiple cats were taken into account.
• The study was small. Hormone measurements were available for 24 cats, 16 of the 19 owners were women, and the university notes that the results “only exhibit associations”.
Do other studies support the finding?
Studies That Support It
Cats may boost our energy, not merely help us relax. In a 2023 study (https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/13/13/2116), Takumi Nagasawa and his colleagues asked 32 Japanese cat owners to spend 10 minutes either interacting with their cat or resting. Following rest, participants’ vitality and pleasure declined. After spending time with their cat, those measures did not fall. Heart-rate results showed a similar pattern, leading the researchers to suggest that cats may have an “arousing” effect, rather than simply calming us. This fits closely with the Kyoto study’s finding about vigour.
The nature of the interaction matters. A 2021 study in PeerJ (https://peerj.com/articles/12393/) measured oxytocin levels in 30 women before and after they spent 15 minutes with their cats. Overall, oxytocin did not increase any more than it did while the women read a book. But levels rose more among women whose cats initiated contact, and when the interaction included gentle petting or hugging. Oxytocin fell when cats became scratchy. Put simply, being near a cat wasn’t sufficient on its own; the quality of the interaction mattered.
Cats form attachments to us. A 2019 study in Current Biology (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190923111229.htm) found that around 65% of cats and kittens were securely attached to their owners – almost the same proportion as human infants. The idea that most cats are aloof, then, doesn’t hold up.
The Study That Makes Things More Complicated
The evidence isn’t entirely straightforward. A 2003 Swiss study (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50911102_Spouses_and_cats_and_their_effects_on_human_mood)