This rubbing behavior is called "chinning"...


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Cats have very different brains from people. Their emotional systems are similar, but the neocortex is very small compared to us. (or even dogs).

more on cat intelligence:

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Cats have very acute senses.. They are very sensitive to loud noises and sounds. Loud music, yelling, loud voices, will cause them discomfort and agitate them. They have acute senses of smell also. I watched Weezie this summer locate a snake by smell alone. They often want to even sniff what we are eating and drinking. ( I call this sniffy wiffy). Most of the time, this food is rejected. Maya is intrigued by effervescent things...she watches at a distance my AlkaSeltzer...but won't get too close.
Maya also has a "thing" for water dispensing water dishes. She attacks them to make them "glug" and makes a mess. She even uses 2 paws to bash them until empty. So we don't have those here anymore to serve water. Hubby keeps one in the bathtub for her to play with though.

When a cat is disturbed and acting compulsively, they will lick their fur or paw, sometimes until the fur comes off. We have a cousin whose cat licked her paw so much, that she developed mouth cancer! (I think perhaps the mouth sensations preceded the licking).

Cats that never go outside develop habits indoors to vent their hunting urges. I have a couple of games I call bitey-bite for Maya who we do not let out. She gets very tense watching birds and squirrels thru the screens, so I do a game with a towel and stick where she can safely catch a string under it and bite it without hurting me or anything else. 10 minutes of this game and she is then relaxed and in a better mood. Maya came from a feral situation and is quite fearful and would take off outside without thinking. So she does not go out. Weezie on the other hand was raised in a home, with other cats, and is very calm outside and sensible. So she goes out a bit. (never at night though) Maya loves to go under blankets, towels, or papers. So we have some clean packing paper on the floor for her to play under (newsprint has lead in it from the ink). The packing paper comes from Ebay purchases. A soft old towel, that we used for all our kittens is her favorite to go under. I let it hang off our recliner and she zooms under it and takes a nap some days.
She is the most eccentric cat we have had in the past 40+yrs!
When Maya needs a bitey-bite session she will start to shred her paper or a paper bag. That is my signal to give her a good bite session!
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