A study suggests that humans often misinterpret a pet’s signals; even purring doesn’t guarantee a contented cat.
  • Australis13
    16•9 months ago

    Cats’ body language is often more subtle or more complicated than dogs. It’s no surprise that the average person gets it wrong. It takes time and close observation to learn an individual cat’s signals.

    • @johannesvanderwhales
      10•9 months ago

      I think cats adapt their communication over time too. My 17 year old has started whining and crying whenever he senses that I’m going to make him get off of my lap, which is something he never did when he was younger. Makes a real show of getting mad. He seems to get over it real fast if I offer him catnip as compensation, though…

      • @[email protected]
        6•7 months ago

        I see my cat doing the same! At 16, she started pawing me incessantly while I was sleeping. Over 3 weeks I lost a lot of sleep and tried many ways to appease her. Finally I was so fed up I grabbed and held her so close she couldn’t paw me any more. She instantly relaxed and purred. The whole time the pawing was a request for me to cuddle her in my arms.

        Three years later, the pawing has continued and expanded. She uses it to make me lift the blanket for her or reposition myself in ways more comfortable for her. In the past year, she’s decided I must face her while I sleep, so if I ever roll over on my side she will paw the back of my head until I face her again. She is so needy and getting worse all the time, but at 19 years old, I’ll give her whatever she wants for whatever time we have left together.

      • Australis13
        3•9 months ago

        Definitely! One of ours has gotten more vocal as she has worked out she can “ask” for different things.

    • @[email protected]
      5•9 months ago

      Well this article was talking about all the subtle variations in a dogs tail wag and how they all mean different things…but they didn’t specify what “above the midline/below the midline” or “favoring the left/right” meant, but they did say some of them are pre-aggression signs. This article sucked.

    • @[email protected]
      2•9 months ago

      We’ve had them domesticated for about half as long as we’ve domesticated dogs, so it makes sense that we’re not as adept at interspecies communication. Dogs follow your finger when you point at something. My cats just stare at my finger / hand.

  • @[email protected]
    16•9 months ago

    my cat sometimes will leave the room, wail in a seemingly stressed way and if I go up to her and she sees me she meows sweetly and then follows me back to where we were.

    I’m always thinking if I find a genie, one of my wishes would be to understand her better.

  • @[email protected]
    13•9 months ago

    It’s very, very annoying to me that this was discussing and even listing some of the subtle differences in behavior…and then not fucking explaining them.

    “You’re misunderstanding your pet’s signals! Read more inside!”

    Inside: “You’re an idiot, you don’t understand your pet. Idiot. Oh, you thought you knew what _____ meant? We know. But you don’t.”

    Wtf