Light sleepers award
Cats will often snooze with their eyes half-closed so you can’t really tell if they’re asleep, waiting to pounce, or just meditating on the motes of dust wafting through the sunlight. When you come across a sleeping cat, it often feels the need to let you know that it wasn’t really sleeping. A little short trilling furry question mark, as in, “Did you want something?” is pretty much the response when you sneak up to pet it.
The full stretch fur stole
This would be the exhausted, ‘I’m in a fairly spacious environment’ sprawl where—conventions be darned—your cat is going for a full-out snooze. In this position, your cat may appear like it belonged on the collar of your grandma’s winter coat. Or an accordion stretched out to full capacity and was never put away properly. (Have you ever seen someone ‘play’ their cat like an accordion? Funny, but surely not dignified for your cat.)
The sphinx
When your cat is tired, but not in a position to fully relax (something we can all relate to) it assumes the sphinx-like position—on its stomach, paws neatly tucked under, tail curled with its head up. The front paws may be full out front or half-tucked. The only problem with the sphinx, is that if your cat is really tired, it will rapidly degenerate into the ‘face-plant’ sphinx.
The face plant
Also known as the tired sphinx, this adorable, but scary (can they breathe properly?) position is not uncommon and also hilarious. When your cat is so tired, it sort passes out, not quite while it’s standing up or sitting down, but while pretending to lie down and be alert at the same time. Eventually it runs out of energy, its head begins to droop, and if you’re really lucky you get to witness it, but usually it is a very gradual process, and the next time you look over—there it is—passed out, so you double-check to see if it’s still breathing
The fetal position feline
One of the cutest sleeping positions ever, and very common, occurs when your cat is lays on its side curled up in the fetal feline position. Like a little baby, curled up to its blankie or pillow, you just can’t resist stroking its soft fur. Often you’ll get the light sleeper trill and a big accordion stretch to acknowledge their displeasure at having its nap time interrupted.