When a cat rubs against your legs, it deposits its own odor via the glands located on its cheeks, its chin and its sides: it is an olfactory marking which creates an odor common to the group, a sign of social inclusion, much more than a simple request for food.
A chemical language of social cohesion
The cat has several sebaceous and apocrine glands concentrated on the head (cheeks, chin, base of the ears), at the base of the tail and on the sides. As it rubs, it releases facial pheromones which permeate the affected surface. This behavior, called "bunting" among felines, serves to mix its scent with that of familiar individuals or objects in the territory, creating what ethologists call a "group scent" shared between members of the same colony.
In domestic cats living in colonies, behavioral studies show that this marking by rubbing is associated with affiliative interactions between individuals who know each other well: cats rub more against conspecifics with whom they already share strong social bonds, rather than between strangers. By rubbing against you after an absence, the cat therefore renews this common marking, a bit like it would do with another cat from the same social group.
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This behavior does not exclude other concomitant motivations, such as the anticipation of the meal, but research in feline ethology underlines that it also appears outside of any food context, notably during reunions or in the presence of new odors to integrate into the familiar territory.
A preconceived idea correct
Contrary to widespread belief, rubbing against the legs is not only an interested maneuver linked to the bowl: it is also observed between cats in the same colony, between a cat and its environment, or towards a human considered as a member of the social group, which makes it above all a signal of belonging and mutual recognition.
