OK… so my friend got a puppy a few years ago. It was a cute puppy, and for the first time I got to see a puppy really grow up. My friend loves the dog, takes really good care of it and is never really apart from him.
When I see the two together, it is pretty obvious the dog sees my friend as a caretaker of sorts. Maybe the Den Leader or something similar.
Now I have a cat, and I love my cat. I take really good care of it. (Although I don’t take it everywhere I go, like he did Enu.) But frankly, I don’t think my cat sees me as any sort of leader whatsoever. In fact, I have no idea what he thinks I am. So what does my cat see me as? Am I like a roommate to him? Am I simply there as a back scratcher/chef? How do your cats view you guys?
Frankly, I think given teh choice, he’d just as soon never see me again.
Beru, my cat, is an interesting cat. She hates people. Well, everyone but me, anyway. Then again, I put the food down, so I win every arguement. That said, I think she tends to look at me as a father. I got her at six weeks, and there have only been a handful of days where she hasn’t seen me. And I’m normally the only person she DOES see. When I walk in the door, she runs in from the bedroom, fussing, purring, rubbing against me. I like to think she loves me. Don’t get me wrong…I know that, if I dropped dead, she’d eventually be forced to eat me (however, if we were snowed in during a huge blizzard, and out of food, I can work the oven). But she always seems genuinely glad to see me when she does, and I think that, since she IS dependent on me (she never goes outside), she looks to me as almost a leader of the pride/den/litter.
One of my cats thinks I am a. his girlfriend. This includes jealousy when I pay attention to the other cats or don’t pay enough attention to him. He starts purring if I sit by him, or if I look at him. My mother complains that he never purrs when I’m not in the house
Another thinks that I am b. a chew toy. I have fingers that fit nicely into his mouth and he likes to nibble them. If they are under the blankets, cat II will choose another appropriately sized appendage to chew on, such as tip of nose or earlobe. Eyebrow was tried once but I presume he didn’t enjoy it. Chew toys are also useful when they have the wire brush.
The third (oldest) knows I am the butler. If the dish has no food, he mews loudly until I fill it. If he wants outside, he walks towards the door, looks back expectently, walks back towards me, then again towards the door. He will also come find me if he feels he is about to chunk up a hairball, or if he has peed on a piece of furniture. I am personally responsible for picking him up for his morning snuggle, as well (perhaps ‘french maid’ is more appropriate than ‘butler’)
The funny thing about cat III is that I never feed him wet food (I do not have the ‘privelege’) but he still expects me to dish it out for him, rather than waiting for mother (who always does the dishing). Funny cat.
The domestic cat exists in a kind of permanent cycle of sarcasm.
Just watch your cat - every action it makes is borne out of a sarcastic natural tendancy. Whether the cat is aware of this is something that scientists and biologists will no doubt debate about for decades to come. But have no doubt, if the cat was aware of it, it’d be a kind of sarcastic awareness in respect to the way us humans have a form of understanding of the cat.
Just remember: your cat has a kind of mild tolerance for you only because you have the opposable digits necessary to operate the can-opener.
I love kitties, but–have you heard the saying: Dogs have owners, cats have staff?
However, I have 2 cats–one is definitely a cat–cat. She’s got the proper “drop dead” attitude. But my other cat, is a dog wearing a cat suit… You call she comes, you want to hold her and pet her–she’ll sit… She even fetches.
But yeah, if I were the only food in the house, it’d be all over for me, too!
Funny you should post this thread now; I was just about to start my own thread about my cat. Yesterday, she called me “Mommy”. Okay, she called me “Mrowmee”, but still. When I asked her if she called me Mommy, she said “Yrrars” (yes, in cat). My cat listens to me, we talk back and forth, and she doesn’t do things she knows I don’t like (mostly), like getting up on the kitchen counter or the coffee table. I think she looks at me as her big buddy, and her pride leader. Or possibly as “Facilities Manager”.
According to Desmond Morris (a prolific writer on the subject, but one who tends to make assertions without much of a citation, at least in his “Cat Watching” books), a pet cat exists in sort of an extended childhood state. So it views you mostly as the mother cat and partly as a kitten that it must teach to do things. Because cats are solitary hunters, these are really the only two relationships in a cat’s life that tend to last more than a few minutes. The only other behavior patterns normal to a cat would be mating or fighting/territorial aggression.
Myself, I’m a bit dubious about this argument because we all know that cats can co-exist in a household reasonably happily.
If he based his research on wild felid species, I could understand. However, cats have been domesticated (or tricked us into thinking so) for most of recorded history, and co-habitated at the same time. My cats will often let the other(s) eat part of a kill. They have a distinct pecking order. Evolution at work, me thinks
I buy the extended childhood thing, myself. My old cat definitely thinks I’m his mommy, and I think the youngsters think the same way (the kneading and drooling is definitely a mom-kitten behavior.) They also treat each other the way cats do during their kitten phase. They play together, eat together, sleep piled up together, and groom each other.
One of my best friend’s cat considers me his personal LazyBoy recliner. I sit down and Tigger jumps up on me, stretches out and goes limp. If I reposition myself in the chair Tigger moves just enough to keep from falling out of my lap. His other cat just looks at me like “oh it’s you, I thought it might be somebody important, never mind” and goes away.
My parents cat resents my existence. If I stay the night when I visit she is extremely displeased and will sit and stare at me and make these ominous growling noises. I am convinced that if I left the bedroom door open she would come at me with a butcher knife while I slept.
We have three – an old lady kitty and two younger beasts. To the old lady, we are her staff and only there for her convenience – feed her, pet her when she chooses, give her catnip. The other two have a different take on things. The older of the two quite obviously sees me as the leader of his pride and himself as an assistant/deputy leader, while Mr. Ben is way down at the bottom of the totem pole below the youngest cat. He’ll suck up to Mr. Ben, tho, when it gets cold or if he gets desperate for attention. The baby sees the other one as the leader, me as an equal and Mr. Ben as her kitten – she takes to grooming him when he needs to get a hair cut. The old lady kitty doesn’t figure into either of these hierarchies. She ignores them and they usually ignore her.
Y’all ever wonder what goes through their little brains when their ears go diagonal, they get that evil-wide-eyed look–their tails poof out–back hair slightly up–and suddenly–for NO KNOWN REASON–race madly about the house pausing only to stare at you and then continue to go racing madly about the house. What is UP with that?
[Jerry Seinfeline]
Have you seen these young cats these days? Always racing around for no reason? What’s with that? Who ARE these cats?
[/Jerry Seinfeline]
Sometimes they vary the order of the thoughts, but that’s about it. Those moments when they jump straight up and freak out are caused by overlapping commands in the cycle, so that “Feed me” and “Pet me” create “FPeeetdmmee”. Naturally, the cat freaks out because he has no idea what he’s supposed to be doing.
This is how people work, too. We just don’t (usually) get to bite anybody.
They sit bolt upright and stare into the distance * not * from seeing ghosts.
It’s interior decorating.
“You painted the kitchen * beige*? Good gad, man, the refrigerator is arctic white!”
or “French Provencal and Danish Modern? Have you lost your mind?”
I’m pretty sure this is close to accurate. He appears to be excited when me or my so come home. But, I believe she only wants food… because once you give him his nightly feeding he is off to go ruin our sheets.
When we go to sleep… he will meow and meow and meow and meow and meow and meow until you pay attention to him. He will NOT allow you to hold him. But you are allowed to pet and touch him. (We are SO lucky)
Pretty much the same here. My cats look at my mom, my dad, my sister and I as the Parents. My Mom is Ma-Ma, (in baby talk), and Dad is Daddy. To Buffy and Gypsy, though, I’m Mommy, even though Mom is still Ma-Ma.
The four of them do act like sisters. It’s funny-although Buffy and Gypsy ARE sisters.