181–190 of 229 posts
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Do you also get a BRRRP or MRRRP when he's snoozing and you put a hand on him? Our cat does that. And a similar noise to say "hello" when coming into a room or approaching you.
If you like that sound, there's a subreddit called ActivationSound that's literally just videos of that. Probably my favorite subreddit.
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Long and close observation of cats leads me to the inescapable conclusion that the latter is almost always the case. The number of times they understand some obscure thing exactly when I have no expectation that they'll get it at all, and their ability to selectively ignore the things I know they already understand, plus their ability to ask for complex things (where often I'm the dummy in the conversation) makes it…
> ...their ability to ask for complex things (where often I'm the dummy in the conversation)... I love the way you put that. Whenever my office door opens and the cat walks in, she's either there for a visit or to collect me, in which case she waits by the door to lead me to her dish, her toys, or whatever she has in mind. Beyond communicating with humans, cats are pretty good at training them, too.
Mum has a cat who has this particular (and peculiar) habit of drinking from the faucet whenever he's had treats.
It's pretty hilarious how well he's trained the humans. Whenever he's had a treat, he'll walk toward the bathroom and flick his tail, ears turned back, expectantly waiting for someone to follow. If no one follows, he'll continue on his way and jump up on the counter top. If he still hasn't collected anyone's attention, he'll emit a distinctive (and very squeaky!) meow that he uses for no other purpose than "I want a drink" and will do so periodically until someone comes to turn the faucet on. Otherwise he'll lay there until he's noticed (if not, he'll give up and finally go to one of the water bowls).
He's also finicky about the flow rate. If it's turned up too high (he prefers a gentle stream—almost a dribble) he'll stare at you until the flow rate is corrected.
Talk about training his humans indeed!
There is a phone app, I think it was called “MeowTalk” that purported to machine learn cats vocalizations. With two of our younger (4yo sibling tabby) cats it seemed to “translate” their infrequent meows as “I love you” “I want to play”, so kind of, yea, probably, not impressive. But for our third cat, (an elderly female cross somewhere between Maine coon, silver tabby and sofa, a 22 pound ball of complaints) the app…
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My cat and I have one firm English phrase: "3...2...1". I say that whenever I want him to make up his mind, and at the end I always close the door, pull the sweater from under him, or whatever. He definitely knows what it means, and knows I mean it. > between "No, I don't understand you." and "I understand you perfectly well, but [nothing in my nature compels me to care]". This is where he and I are for lots of other…
As a parent, this works well with toddlers too. When you start counting they know a storm is coming and they can avoid it if they choose their next answer/action carefully...
I have tried to train my two cats with just these words: 1. "Let's go" - morning meal 2. "Upstairs" - I am going to bed 3. "Dinner" (plus clink bowls together) - evening meal 4. "Lie Down" and their names. Emerald, who prefers being upstairs, definitely responds to "Upstairs": she charges upstairs when I say it. Jade remains enigmatic and skeptical: that seems to be her nature. But if she is in the mood for a tummy r…
This is really more of a comment on a lot of the replies to this comment than the comment itself: Something to keep in mind is that cats have a very broad but different hearing range from humans. Their central frequency range of hearing overlaps with human speech but doesn't entirely cover it on the low end. So if your voice is low, you might need to raise your pitch a bit to help the cat recognize it as vocalization…
These cats do a thing where they get inches from each other's faces and make a very loud, very long moaning sound. I imagine it's something in the local gene pool (my neighbor has been feeding strays for over a decade, I hate it)
I have tried to train my two cats with just these words: 1. "Let's go" - morning meal 2. "Upstairs" - I am going to bed 3. "Dinner" (plus clink bowls together) - evening meal 4. "Lie Down" and their names. Emerald, who prefers being upstairs, definitely responds to "Upstairs": she charges upstairs when I say it. Jade remains enigmatic and skeptical: that seems to be her nature. But if she is in the mood for a tummy r…
I feel skeptical, I think cats and also most dog breeds understand only pitches that sound excited, because that means walk or tummy rub or food, but the actual said words could be anything, every time
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> For me, the great charm of cats is that it is impossible to tell the difference between "No, I don't understand you." and "I understand you perfectly well, but I plan to ignore you completely until I feel like responding". Incidentally, this is why I dislike cats so much and prefer dogs :)
I love how dog people feel the need to talk about how much they hate cats at every turn but cat people kind of like all animals
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House cats and big cats don't behave very differently. https://lithub.com/house-cats-and-wild-cats-arent-actually-t...
Uh, that article is not about house cats vs big cats. The still-extant ancestral species of the domestic cat, F. lybica , is a small wildcat, as were its ancestors, and as such a predator but not an apex predator. Big cats, which typically are apex predators in their respective ecosystems, are a wholly separate branch of the felid family.
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rabbits are just prey animals and that shows in their behavior and attitude, whereas cats do a lot of predation themselves.
Some rabbits (or rather hares) are pretty hardcore. https://www.reddit.com/r/Backcountry/comments/ul61y6/snow_ra...