I got these two rescue kitties a couple of years ago for my birthday. And I am so glad I did. They are such an important part of my life now, as were all the animals I ever had.
Snowball is an obese white cat, who is very extroverted and sociable. She right away trusts everybody. Twinkle is a gray, striped cat. And she only trusts me and maybe one or two other people. They both are sisters, and the best of friends, which I understand is rather atypical for cats.
And that is the one thing I have never been able to understand: cat psychology. Dogs belong to a social hierarchy, both in the wild, and in human households. Dogs have masters (and servants).
Cats typically hunt alone, and have no masters.
So what do they think humans are? We care for them, we feed them, we give them shelter. ***Why *** do they think we should bother to do such a thing? Nobody would out in the wild.
My cats sometimes cry for food. Or sometimes they just cry for attention. Why do they think I give it to them then? If I cried for food, they wouldn’t give it to me. Think about it.
Dogs think we are the Alpha male. What would cats call us?
Cats (of this ilk at any rate) are not pack animals and probably don’t react to anything as the Alpha-whatever. How they regard us is probabily similar to how we regard them: “I have this human that I keep. They’re warm, they like to scritch me, you can train them pretty well if you’re patient, and once you’ve got them domesticated they’ll feed you pretty dependably. Wonder what the heck they get out of it?”
They think you are their own personal butler and they are right. You feed them, pet them (on their terms), & scoop up their poop on a daily basis. And if a neighbor started serving better cat food, they’d desert you in a New York minute. It’s what I admire about cats.
I’ve heard many reports of cats bringing home mice, birds, etc. as food offerings for their humans. I’ve never been a cat owner though, so what do I know?
YouTube has shown me that many diverse species can live and support one another just fine. It warms my heart to see such videos.
“Slave”. “Dear Slave” if they’re particularly fond of us.
I wonder what goes through Baby Ruth’s little grey head all the time, but the bottom line is that I think they think of us as family. Domesticated cats have the ability to form stable family groups; these can even extend to sociable relations with non-related cats (like a large semi-feral cat colony or a bunch of barn cats).
Personally, my 2 Siamese call me slave. They really wouldn’t care if I fell dead, except for the fact I have opposable thumbs and can get their food. I kid. The male Bear-bear is more social and I have taught a few commands. The female Meko is more aloof. They do like me because they seek out my lap and sleep in the bedroom most nights. They don’t sleep in my bed because the 2 nasty dogs are there. They come to my pillow in the morning to wake me for their breakfast.
I assume they think of me as an extended family member. I hope they don’t plot my murder.
Not at all unusual. I’ve had cats who were biological siblings, and others who were adoptive siblings–they don’t care. Under the right conditions, cats will be buddies, even mates regardless of ancestry.
Not exactly true. Lions & Cheetahs are famous for hunting in packs. Housecats do it as well from time to time, and not only with just other cats. When I was a kid my cat and the family dog generally steered clear of each other. But one afternoon we all spotted a mountain beaver strolling across the back yard. Cat and dog both trotted off the porch. Cat circled right and approached the critter from the front, making a big show of itself and getting the beast’s attention. I thought the cat was nuts because the critter would have torn her up if they got into it. Meanwhile, dog snuck up behind completely unnoticed and grabbed the rodent. Crunch. Cat looked a little revolted but trotted back up to the porch. Another time I watched my old cat loudly confront a pair of intruder cats in the house (they had been coming in through the cat door during the night and eating his Meow Mix). Again, the two young intruders would have made short work of him, and indeed appeared prepared to do so. But we had a 2 year old unaltered Tom who came in to see what all the fuss was about. While the old codger kept up his noise, the Tom strolled up to the intruders and mopped the floor with them. It was beautiful.
Again, you do your kitties an injustice. Cats certainly do provide comfort and society to each other. They just like it. They know you like it, so they include you on their list of critters they will socialize with. If they have a relationship with the family dog, same thing. I’ve got a 8 month old cat who seeks out our pitbull. Sometimes it’s for nuzzles, sometimes it’s for a game of chase. Sometimes the dog will want to mess with my senior cat (who has no interest) and the youngster will interfere and take the dog out to play.
Bottom line, cats are not aloof, solitary things and you can really screw up a good cat by treating it as though it is. Also, screwed up cats are almost always unconfident in their standing in their environment. If they don’t have a high perch, if they are constantly shoo’d away from one place and another, if their dish is frequently empty…they become chronically stressed out and worried. A worried cat will act aggressively toward other cats, even other people, because it doesn’t appreciate the competition for what it sees as already short resources. On the other hand, a confident cat will not only be ‘nice’ to have around, it will quickly warm up to (after some initial boundary setting) and accept an additional cat. Once cats bond with another creature, they will protect each other and their common turf, and they will be disturbed if one turns up missing.
I believe in the accuracy of the theory that cats actually bent us to their needs rather than the other way around. Therefore, I am a domesticated animal.
Cats will form friendships with individuals nearly as easily as humans or dogs will. The difference is that cats don’t have any notion of groups. A dog or a human will hang out in a pack, and as long as they mostly like most of the members of the pack, it’s all good, and they’ll be loyal to the pack as a whole. Like, if I meet someone who went to the same school with me, I’ll immediately feel some level of camaraderie with them, even before I get to know them, because we’re part of the same pack.
Cats don’t have that. If cats A, B, and C all get along, it’s because A and B get along, and B and C get along, and A and C get along. If A and B get along, and B and C get along, but A hates C, then A and C will fight. And since the number of relationships grows so quickly with the number of cats, it’s very rare that you’ll get more than two or three cats who all like each other, so you don’t see large groups of cats.
One more thing. I don’t suppose anyone knows for sure, and I don’t want to sound all New-Agey, but cats seem to care less about the size and shape of another creature than they do about it’s energy & attitude. Your habits and general attitude, what sorts of things you focus on and how intensely–THAT is what they would call you. I can see them giving native-American sounding names like, “Slow moving warm lap” or “Generous with skritches but stingy with food” or “Doesn’t like cats”.
Cats are semi-social - not solitary. Feral cats will form “colonies” that hang out more or less together; cats are fully capable of forming friendships - with other cats, other animals, and people.
What they do not do, is cooperate in the act of hunting.
As for their owners - what cats tend to see them as, is partly as their mother, partly as another, huge and weird-looking cat.
The relationship of cat and owner is sort of like the relationship of mother and kitten: the owner protects, feeds and nurtures the cat; the cat purrs (something cats mostly, but not exclusively, do as kittens with their mothers), and will even “knead” their owners with their paws (this is what kittens do, to get milk).
In turn, what do we do? We pat them. Grooming is what mothers do with kittens.
Other types of cat behavior (blinking at us, holding tail up, rubbing against us) is stuff that cats do with each other when living in colonies, when they are friendly.
In short, cats tap into the same types of behaviors they would naturally use with other cats, to respond to us.
We do the exact same thing back - treating cats sometimes like babies, sometimes like tiny, furry other people; most people talk to their cats (even though they know damn well the cats don’t understand them ).
That’s what animal behaviorists think based on the way they treat us. We’re large, clumsy, mostly hairless cats who can’t hunt worth a damn but have magical hands to make up for that.
Oh, no my cats understand many words. I have yet to fool them about anything. Sometimes they know what I am thinking.
Right now my hand is injured so they are being exceptionally sweet. It concerns me. They can be devious.
