• iqwertyasdf@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Cats just meow to get our attention. Fun fact do you know that meowing is them mimicking the sounds of a baby?

    • MuchPineapples@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Not a human baby (how could they, most cats have never seen a human baby), but as a kitten they meow to their parents to get food etc. So we’re their parents now and I guess they never really grew up and became independent.

      • joel_feila@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Well adult cats raised around humans figure out what meows work the best and that is one that sounds like baby

      • dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Cats meow in the same register that human babies cry. They aren’t saying that cats are specifically trying to cry like a human baby, but that cats as a species have grown over thousands of years to meow in the same pitches as human babies.

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      While I’m still not sure if this is true, there was a very interesting clip I saw to support the evidence, where a tiger enclosure was somehow across the street from a farm’s cow enclosure. The tigers had started “mooing” along their edge of the fence in an effort to make the juicy, meat-filled cows feel safe around them.

  • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    Well, if you were speaking actual jargon to your cat, if your cat was knowledgeable about the niche topic of discussion, surely they would respond.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I read a headline on the internet once (in other words: What I’m about to say is almost certainly bullshit) that cat owners can understand THEIR OWN cats.

      Anecdotally as a cat owner, it seems we train each other, cat makes a noise to get attention, human gives a kind of attention when hearing that noise, cat starts making that noise to get that specific attention. My cat has a food meow, an attention meow, a bath water meow (my cat likes to drink from the tub faucet) and a “it’s 3 AM and my brain can’t handle it” meow, and I can definitely tell them apart. There’s also a difference between the “enjoying a shoulder rub” purr and the “make me breakfast make me breakfast make me breakfast make me breakfast” purr. Hand me a different cat and that cat speaks mandarin Swahili.