Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives • Hacker News Board

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#211

Post by animal531 » Tue, May 17, 2022, 9:11 AM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #140

godelski wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's weird, my cat will come no matter what name I call her as long as I use the same intonations. I'm not convinced she knows her name but rather that she knows pitches. Similarly my cat won't do tricks without the hand gestures despite me always using the same commands. Maybe my cat is just dumb or stubborn, or both. I have seen her run head first into a wall before.

The last part reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H25ve3qts4

I loved the monologue in Austin Powers when Dr. Evil is talking about his childhood and he mentions that his father was a boulangerie owner. I didn't know what it meant at the time and had to google: "Bakeries must bake their bread on-premises to hold the title of 'boulangerie' in France"

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#212

Post by andrepd » Tue, May 17, 2022, 10:33 AM UTC

amusedcyclist wrote: post #176

andrepd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

That's called a confirmation bias, friend.

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#213

Post by Johnythree » Tue, May 17, 2022, 10:39 AM UTC

ericlavigne wrote: post #145

With some assistance and teaching, cats and dogs are capable of learning to speak in sentences. In 2018, a speech pathologist named Christina Hunger, who used AAC devices to help special needs children learn to talk, tried applying a similar approach to her dog, Stella. It worked surprisingly well. Stella could speak in four-word sentences with a vocabulary of around 15 words by her first birthday, and was up to 49 w…

And of course, "BilliSpeaks"

https://www.youtube.com/c/BilliSpeaks/videos

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#214

Post by TowerTall » Tue, May 17, 2022, 10:45 AM UTC

dghughes wrote: post #153

herodotus wrote: post #21

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…

Cats are incredibly good at knowing the time if it's the same time they probably already know and are thinking "Whatever food giver make those thumbs dance". Mine gets treats at 9pm and she knows almost exactly when it's 9pm maybe a 1 minute deviation. This is without an external cues. She sits there waiting for me if I forget.

I can confirm that cats knows the time. My cats come everyday 3:30 pm sharp signaling that is food time. They are outdoor cats and often go wandering but by 3:30 they are back home.

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#215

Post by bravura » Tue, May 17, 2022, 12:26 PM UTC

The Naming of Cats T. S. Eliot - 1888-1965

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,

     It isn’t just one of your holiday games;

You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter

When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.

First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,

     Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, or James,

Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey—

     All of them sensible everyday names.

There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,

     Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:

Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter—

     But all of them sensible everyday names,

But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,

     A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,

Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,

     Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?

Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,

     Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,

Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum—

     Names that never belong to more than one cat.

But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,

     And that is the name that you never will guess;

The name that no human research can discover—

     But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,

     The reason, I tell you, is always the same:

His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation

     Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:

          His ineffable effable

          Effanineffable

Deep and inscrutable singular name.

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#216

Post by animal531 » Tue, May 17, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #173

X0Refraction wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes a long time to introduce a new cat, we have 3 indoor cats all introduced one at a time. It took around a month for both the second and third cat to be completely accepted. The approach we took was to keep the new cat in a separate room for the first few days to allow them to begin to get used to the new scent. We would then swap blankets to give them further time to get used to each other's scents. Then we'd…

> It takes a long time to introduce a new cat, we have 3 indoor cats all introduced one at a time. Yep. > It took around a month for both the second and third cat to be completely accepted. Oh boy that's nothing. I think we were like 10 months. They still don't get along flawlessly but it is now tolerable. We did precisely the recommended steps (scent swapping, separate spaces, associating each other with food, play…

It's funny if you think about it, in a certain way cats are very much like people. Those that are poorly raised or socially isolated when young have issues later on to adapt to having others around, whereas if they've been brought up properly (and maintain that through practice) then it's a lot easier for them to make new connections later in life.

It's probably true for a lot of other animals as well.

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#217

Post by UncleMeat » Tue, May 17, 2022, 2:29 PM UTC

animal531 wrote: post #216

UncleMeat wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It takes a long time to introduce a new cat, we have 3 indoor cats all introduced one at a time. Yep. > It took around a month for both the second and third cat to be completely accepted. Oh boy that's nothing. I think we were like 10 months. They still don't get along flawlessly but it is now tolerable. We did precisely the recommended steps (scent swapping, separate spaces, associating each other with food, play…

It's funny if you think about it, in a certain way cats are very much like people. Those that are poorly raised or socially isolated when young have issues later on to adapt to having others around, whereas if they've been brought up properly (and maintain that through practice) then it's a lot easier for them to make new connections later in life. It's probably true for a lot of other animals as well.

It is hard because adopting is important but you can't really know what was in a cat's past. One of our cats is very grumpy at the other. This could be caused by something in her past that we aren't aware of. Our other cat also has very poor manners for a cat (he stares at everything) that might have developed by being raised with other animals.

What I wish people told us was that sometimes it isn't enough to do everything right. We planned everything and did as much as we possibly could to socialize them effectively and it ended up only fine after a lot of struggle. I had always figured that people who had cats who hated each other simply didn't follow the best practices when introducing them to each other. But that's clearly not the case.

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#218

Post by goodpoint » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:38 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #83

goodpoint wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those videos are comically misleading. The author acts as if cats can understand abstract concepts and combining words into a SVO grammar. And with dozens of words! "later morning" "later play [with] dad" "love you mommy" This is simply far outside the cognitive abilities of cats. Edit: Confirmation bias is so strong that I get downvotes for writing this.

You're getting downvoted because you are making a strong contrary claim with no evidence whatsoever. It's the equivalent of two kids going: "Yes it is!" "No it's not!" "Yeahuh it is!"

Not only there is widely available scientific literature on the topic, but is is also stuff that people should have learned in high school if not before.

Do I also need to provide evidence that the earth is not flat?

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#219

Post by DFHippie » Tue, May 17, 2022, 4:48 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #6

Cats have friend cats? I'm surprised. This seems like the exception rather than the rule. Seems to me like most cats prefer a life without other cats around... with human caretakers and all the comforts they provide... kept all to themselves. In my almost-50 years I think I've only met "cats with cat friends" a handful of times. Even when we had a pair of sibling cats that "liked" each other, when one of them died th…

We used to have two male cats adopted together as kittens from the local humane society. One was timid and mostly stayed home. The other preferred to be outside. They loved each other, though, and the indoor cat would wait at the top of the stairs for the other to come home.

The bolder cat was hit by a car one morning and died. His adoptive brother never fully gave up waiting for him at the top of the stairs. As far as he knew his brother just hadn't come home yet. It was quite sad. It wasn't long after that that he went outside for the last time and never came back.

Re: Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

#220

Post by vorpalhex » Tue, May 17, 2022, 7:07 PM UTC

goodpoint wrote: post #218

vorpalhex wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting downvoted because you are making a strong contrary claim with no evidence whatsoever. It's the equivalent of two kids going: "Yes it is!" "No it's not!" "Yeahuh it is!"

Not only there is widely available scientific literature on the topic, but is is also stuff that people should have learned in high school if not before. Do I also need to provide evidence that the earth is not flat?

Then please cite it.

Citations here should be trivial.

I can absolutely cite and argue that the Earth is not flat - and win.

I suspect you will not be able to do so for this claim you are making.