I know they think I went hunting

not chicken and beef

I can't wait to get a new place. I want to adopt two kitties from a shelter.

Seriously, that was 90% of the reason for each move.

Hope you get resettled soon and find some nice feline friends.

The cat tax is quite high but a pleasure to pay.

I have thumbs I can use to open cans of cat food.

one I adopted from a rescue group

the other two are a mama and her first daughter that sort of adopted us

the cat I have now (outside cat) came from a litter that happened when the male cat came and checked us out for a week or so. After our audition, he brought his current family with him one day. That's the way it looked like to me anyway.

We put up with all their crap and just keep bringing them food. No wonder they are confused.

That's why they bring us dead animals. They're treating us like kittens, and going "Okay, here's a food. Now, go do."

If you get rid of the mouse corpse a few times in a way the cat doesn't explicitly know you're NOT eating it... it'll bring you live animals. And it will watch you hunt the thing down.

They think we are big, inept cats

So it can't get away. My kitty caught a lizard last week and brought it in when I didn't even realize she had it. My mother said your cat has a bug. I went back in and the poor lizard already lost one of it's eyes. I caught it, and released it back into the field. Lizards are just toys till they die with cats. They don't taste good I wouldn't think. This was the second lizard brought in by 2 different cats. Both lizards survived, tail intact.

"Dogs think they're human; Cats think they're God."

... that the reason dogs and people get along so well is that dogs are so emotionally similar to people that we can pick up on each others emotions. A new study proves it:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/dogs-feel-emotion-the-same-way-humans-do-study/

On the other hand, cats are emotionally alien.

...almost right. Cats know they are gods.

"dogs have owners, cats have staff"

A cat will have her staff take a message and will get back to you.

Then why does my kitten sometimes jump into my arms to be held or squeak in the night to wake me so she can cuddle at my side while sleeping?

But if we're roomies, my little guy is a roomie who greets me at the door and loves to cuddle and play, so I'm good with that.

One thing that suggests cats don't totally see us humans as big cats- They don't really meow at other cats, just humans. So they do recognize something different in the human/cat relationship, although it may be they think we're their servants

Kittens do in fact meow for their mother, and since we humans regularly provide chow for our adult cats, they are not beyond regressing to an infantile stage when wanting food, seeing us as mama cats, and greeting us with those meows.

...cutest kitten talk you may ever see -

The first one was the family pet when I was a kid. The hardest decision I have ever had to make in my life was to have him put down at almost 21 years old. The second was a lovable cat who could not always manage to use the litter box, even tbough there were three of them. The current cat is a female who was picked out by my daughters and never misses the litter box, but who seems to be underfoot a lot.

It was in the top 5 I think. But he talks just as much as he gets in the way, so that theme won out...

He used to have two "sisters" (not actually related. one passed, one now living with my ex) and we found that anything less than one box for each cat would lead to soiled carpets, etc... Even if the kitties are AOK with each other, they seem to be pretty particular about their litter habits.

I do miss having more than one cat because it's so sweet the way they play and cuddle and bathe each other... but I have to admit, one cat is more than enough to keep me busy.

Anyway, I always suspected that Mao Mao viewed me as kind of a peer. I'm not even mad.

that they think we are their mother; and that when we go out they think we are hunting.

Are different in their behaviors than ferals?

If we were cats to them, then it would be no different.

However, I've seen cats at home do things a cat in the wild does not. Kissing for instance where the cat will rub their closed mouth against you - sometimes even on your own face. Not talking a marking kind of rub, but one where they rub their front teeth.

Other behaviors I see are specific vocalizations meant only for us, not to other non-hostile cats in the household. The language they use is far different.

L-

then I am honored.

My neighbor told me that his son told him that when he returned from the service after an extended stay there was all the usual welcome-back-home fanfare. Relatives dropping in, neighbors coming by, and the family dog just loving the hell out of him. But the cat, whom the son really cared for, was nowhere to be seen and it was an indoor cat.
Later that night the son was sitting in the chair exhausted from the day , lights were out, and everyone asleep except him. Then the cat jumped into his lap, curled around in his lap, and went into that cat sleep/purring mode they have. The neighbor said his son said that of everything that happened that day, that made him feel that he was at home where he truly belonged.

For example our old tom cat wanted to sit on my lap after I held my daughter when she was a baby. I do not ascribe jealousy (he never exhibited bad behavior) but wanted to sit on the lap of the person after they held our daughter. We noticed passing my daughter around to family members followed by the cat sitting on that persons lap, it was very apparent. It almost seemed like an inner dialog sort of "I want you after no one else wants you". This story gets to the heart of cat affection. I suspect it is related to why cats love to lay on computers when no one else is around so I (the cat) want your attention.

Eventually our old tom cat got to where he looked forward to sitting on the lap of family members who held our daughter and wanted to snuggle in. He never approached our daughter the entire time she was a baby unless it was with an adult family member. Most people did not know we had a cat he hid from strangers. Cats seem to have a very personal relationship with the people they trust. That cat maybe wanted that young man for himself.

I do consider myself both a cat and dog person and appreciate the different approaches they give to life.

That's what I'd like to know.

TlalocW

Cats. Keepin' it sane!!

There's some hidden wisdom there, perhaps beyond our ability to understand it, even define it.

There's no "hidden wisdom" there. That's just wishful thinking and anthropomorphism.

and poop removers....

Next time I greet my cats, I'll me certain to ROAR-R-R-R!!!

......in the apartment pool. Take off most clothes, go outside, come back an hour later dripping wet.

What did they think about that?

Not big fans of being ignored either.

I think the single thing I found most interesting was this: cats bond primarily with their space, where they live. Dogs, with their humans. Which is why most dogs travel quite well. Just throw them in the car, drive 10 hours, and as long as the human is still there when they arrive all is fine. For the cats, same trip and the presence of the beloved human doesn't matter, because all the surroundings and smells are now different.

I've long known that dogs travel well and cats don't, but finding out why was very helpful.

A couple of cat comments. One cat in old age lost her ability to purr for the last year or so of her life. It was bizarre, because she'd still sit on my lap at every opportunity, but no longer purred. It made her less loveable, since cats and purring are so intertwined.

The other is that two of the four cats I've had, at the ends of their lives, spent every possible moment on my lap. They'd always been good lap sitters, but with them, in the last year or so, I could not sit down for two minutes but they'd be on my lap. Sweet, if slightly annoying. The other two were never lap cats to begin with, so there was no change there.

One of the cats brought live prey (mouse, rabbit) into the house, clearly expecting me to complete the kill. I greatly disappointed her by capturing the animal and setting it loose. I expect the resident cat to do the killing, not me.

Right now I have no resident cats, but some day, some day I will be a crazy cat lady and have hordes of them.

will always come sit beside me, and watch my every move while I am eating. He doesn't seem to like human food, since I've slipped him a piece of cheese or lunch meat on occasion, but he always watches. My theory is that since eating is such a joy to him, everything about food, including watching others eat stuff he doesn't even care about, is like porn to him.

His sister otoh, is affection driven. She's got to be either near me, or preferably on me at all times, but especially if she sees me in a reclined position. If I'm laying on the bed or couch, or reclined way back in the recliner, she will stare at my belly longingly for a second or two, then up she comes!

I got these 2 already full-grown cats a little over a year ago, so it's been fun getting to know their personality quirks.

But yeah, I suppose so.

They hang out with us in whatever rooms we are in, sit on us when they can, and ask for interaction if we don't initiate it. Basically, they like to hang with us.

I think cats see us as their servants.

Cats don't act the same towards each other as they do towards humans.


The easiest way to test this theory would be to study the way a house cat would interact with another cat that is roughly the same size as a human (~150 lhs. or so).

If the house cat isn't doing the cat version of jumping up on it's lap or laying down right in front of it and then staring off in another direction as if the larger creature was not there, then the theory is invalid.


It isn't like cats think that dogs are just different kinds of cats. Or that a possum or raccoon is just a different kind of cat.

This theory is a joke.



edit for typos

They're just about the only companion/utility animal that coexists with us by choice. They're "commensal domesticates", as entirely capable of surviving entirely on their own, and I don't mean rummaging around dumpsters but rather in the wilderness with no human influence whatsoever, as they are of pawing at the drawer of canned food and staring miserably at the bowl of kibble. And in other news, switching to a "damp" diet makes kitty sad.