Cat walking is called “Direct registering”
Unlike dogs, cats are not biologically build for long distance walking and their stealthy strides are ultimately ineffective for long distance walking as they are meant for a different purpose. They walk slowly so to not attract attention by letting their prey know about their presence. Their hind paws fall inside the place of their forepaws to minimize noise and visible tracks while ensuring a more stable footing when navigating through terrain.
Direct registering also serves a useful purpose — animals that stalk their prey can see where they place their front feet, so they don’t break twigs or make other noises. Then they place their hind feet in the exact spot, so they can move silently from place to place.
They are designed so they can crawl and dug making them very flexible. This is shown through their flexible spine and flexible front legs. If their head can fit through something, so can the rest of their body.
Compared to dogs, the cats are in general more flexible so when animating a dog, the stiffness of the body is shown through the entire body bouncing more up and down whereas for the cat their body says more from side to side due to their flexibility.
The front legs are very flexible compared to their back-feet, which can be shown through how my the foot slaps back and bends forwards for each stride. They also don’t lift their paws a lot when walking in order to conserve energy.
The head stays relatively still to focus on their prey.
Their tail is always up when happy and down when displaying a negative emotion, relaxing or planning to attack their prey.
Observation of gait1: the foot that is being put weight on shoot the respective shoulder or hip upwards whereas the foot reaching for the next step has the shoulder or hip lowered.
Observation of gait2: Their front paws when lifted off the ground and moved forward bends slightly inwards like bigger felines such as lions, with a cat the movement is merely less significant.
Inspiration from another student’s walk cycle using 10 drawings for 1 cycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hkUeuyCsJY
https://medium.com/100-naked-words/how-do-cats-move-so-stealthily-c604c710e3d3