# Do grown mammals remember/love their mothers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 20, 2017, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335 "2017-02-20T18:02:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/21 "2017-02-21T16:21:12Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > What were the circumstances and what was your role, if I can ask? Years ago, my ex-wife worked for a non-profit that assisted adopted kids (now adults) in finding their birth parents. Some meetings I went along to make her feel more comfortable, depending on the specific case. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/22 "2017-02-21T18:00:28Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > In one of James Herriot’s books, he describes an incident in which a grown bull was lured from a pasture by sending his mother out to get him. > > Those stories were “based on” his experiences but not (necessarily) actual events so I wouldn’t go the bank with it. But he was a vet and it would make sense if he tried to be true-to-life in details of this sort. I thought of that anecdote as well. I got the impression from the book that the bull and his mother had been in more-or-less continuous contact since weaning - the farmer kept the old cow around to help control the bull. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/23 "2017-02-21T18:48:00Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Bolding mine. > > I can’t address the OP’s actual question. But I noticed an interesting linguistic side issue. > > The word “child” seems out of place there. IOW, at least to me, “child” is offspring of human, not offspring of critter. A better word choice might have been offspring or young or descendant. > > OTOH, saying \*that \*dog / sheep / whale is the parent of _this_ one sounds completely normal to me. So “parent” works on all species, but “child” doesn’t. > > Likewise “mother” and “father” seem to work OK on critters, but “son” or “daughter” are limited to humans. > > Hmmm. > > I’m not nit picking on the OP. Just commenting on how weird English (or at least my understanding of it) is. Then you’ll probably hurt yourself twitching if you ever hear me refer to an animal as a person. The word “person” means “human” to most people, but to me it refers to any sentient individual. My dogs are people, for example. They’re people that I know and love, they know and come to love me. But no, I’m not saying that I think they’re human. I came to realize that I thought this way after some humans that I was close to died, and later a couple of my cats and a dog died. I felt equally bereft and heartbroken for all, and started telling people that I just hate it when people you love die. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/24 "2017-02-21T18:58:34Z")
Separation or no, cats will happily roger their siblings if left to their own devices - sisters, mothers, daughters, it’s all good. As the late Terry Pratchett would opine, some boot-faced, lace-eared alley tomcats are quite likely their own grandfathers. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/25 "2017-02-21T20:06:06Z")
I don’t remember that line, but I do remember a line about a kitten all of whose male ancestors for the previous dozen generations were the same cat (Greedo, of course). ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/26 "2017-02-21T20:13:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t remember that line, but I do remember a line about a kitten all of whose male ancestors for the previous dozen generations were the same cat (Greedo, of course). It (or something close to it anyway, my copy is not within arm’s reach and I’m a lazy bastard) is from _The Unalduterated Cat_ ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/27 "2017-02-21T20:13:31Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Separation or no, cats will happily roger their siblings if left to their own devices - sisters, mothers, daughters, it’s all good. As the late Terry Pratchett would opine, some boot-faced, lace-eared alley tomcats are quite likely their own grandfathers. There we go. They may remember them or not, but apparently some cats do, in fact, “love” their mothers. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/28 "2017-02-21T23:13:58Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t remember that line, but I do remember a line about a kitten all of whose male ancestors for the previous dozen generations were the same cat (Greedo, of course). Perhaps not for a full dozen generations, but I bet similar feats have been done for a handful of generations by powerful men down the ages. Even unto today. ---
**Author:** ![jjakucyk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3d9bf3/32.png) [@jjakucyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjakucyk)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2017, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/29 "2017-02-22T01:14:17Z")
There’s various stories (and videos) of lions recognizing and getting quite lovey-dovey with their human caretakers after being separated for at least a couple of years. Not sure that translates to their natural parents necessarily, but it’s something. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2017, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/30 "2017-02-22T03:31:41Z")
My uncle, when he lived in one part of my hometown, fed and adopted a stray cat. When he moved, he brought the cat with him but his new apartment had no outside area, so she was confined to the apartment. Turned out she’d had a little fun just before my uncle moved and was pregnant when he did move. That cat had a litter (two of which have lived with my husband and me for the last eight years). Apparently believing that cats have some kind of sexual morality, my uncle couldn’t bring himself to get the kittens (or the mother) fixed. So, he has the mother and a male and female kitten left. He was SHOCKED that the mother cat got pregnant again, given that she had never been let outside since the move. Fast forward this two years and the sordid swamp of kitty incest has become kind of horrific. There were some pretty unfortunate individual kittens out of that one. Finally, my other uncle basically forced him to do SOMETHING with the (now 15) cats because that was WAY off lease and the landlord was in the process of evicting my uncle for it. So he abandoned them at an old, defunct factory and visited a couple of times a week until someone poisoned the whole lot. In a lot of ways, that uncle was really a naive idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2017, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/31 "2017-02-22T11:48:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t remember that line, but I do remember a line about a kitten all of whose male ancestors for the previous dozen generations were the same cat (Greedo, of course). So I guess Greedo really did shoot first! ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/32 "2017-02-24T05:58:56Z")
We have three English springer spaniels, two of which are mother and daughter. We had put a deposit on a puppy from Mom’s litter, and when the pups were born, the breeder told us that they were retiring Mom from breeding, and would we like to give her a home as well? We thought about it for about two seconds and said YES, because we had met her and she was a total doll. We took the puppy home at age 7 weeks, and the breeder kept Mom for another two months. We visited Mom at the breeder’s with our other dog a few times to make sure they would get along, but left the puppy in the car, away from the fenced yard. Mother and daughter were not reintroduced to each other until the puppy was 4 months old. Do they know they are mother and daughter? Who knows? Mom lets puppy (now almost 2) chew on her ears and steal toys right out of her mouth, and they wrestle. Our other dog wrestles with the daughter, but not the mom. But mother and daughter are the only two who will cuddle together. Interpret that as you will. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/33 "2017-02-24T11:10:44Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > Do they know they are mother and daughter? Who knows? Mom lets puppy (now almost 2) chew on her ears and steal toys right out of her mouth, and they wrestle. Our other dog wrestles with the daughter, but not the mom. But mother and daughter are the only two who will cuddle together. Interpret that as you will. This is an experiment needing a control, because the puppy was only 4 months old when re-introduced. We cannot know if the mother recognised the puppy, or if the maternal instinct of the mother means she would treat any puppy (if only the very specific case of a puppy you had in your care ) that way. Why would it matter if the puppy is in your care or not ? Well dogs are very smart and they may assume that if the puppy is in your care, it would please you if they looked after the puppy. Its well known a mother dog may adopt a non-child puppy as if it was her own, especially if you demonstrate that is what you expect (eg by housing them together. ) Its sure that any female dog will look after the puppies of the other bitches in their pack. Its unclear if “wrestling” would be restricted to their own puppies… ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/34 "2017-02-24T17:25:16Z")
We’ve had a handful of service puppies come through. Some would ‘wrestle’ with our unrelated ‘forever’ dog. She doesn’t seem to really like to play the same as other dogs- maybe because if the shepherd in her. At any rate, play seems usually instigated by the pups. So I think it has less to do with relationship of the dogs than desire/tolerance for play. I guess I’m suggesting that two dogs playing with a third sitting out may be more related to dog temperament than anything else. Also, mama dog is probably quite used to puppies chewing on her. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2017, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335/35 "2017-02-24T22:21:25Z")
What about dogs and their owners? Anyone know of a case where some human had a dog for a relatively brief but formative period, say, adoption-as-puppy through 18 months of age, and then had to give the dog up and didn’t see them for 8 or 10 years? Did the dogs recognize them after all that time? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-grown-mammals-remember-love-their-mothers/780335.md?page=1)