How Cats Are Actually Telling Humans What to Do
By Joanna Rothkopf / Salon April 28, 2015
When I heard that Dr. Gary Weitzman, president and CEO of the San Diego Humane Society and SPCA, had co-written a book called “How to Speak Cat,” I jumped at the opportunity to interview him (not for me, because I speak cat, but for the public).
You know what they’re asking you for because they’ve trained you, and that’s the beautiful part. The difference between cats and dogs is that we can train both species but, for the most part, we train dogs to respond to what we want them to do. Cats, on the other hand, actually train us to respond to what they want us to do. It’s really kind of cool!
Here’s my crazy-person question: Sometimes we meow back and forth with our cat and it feels like a real dialogue. Is that stupid? What’s going on?
It’s really just a bonding experience. Do our cats know exactly what we mean with those noises? Yeah, actually, I think they do. I don’t think it’s an exercise in futility whatsoever because we do it because we’re in a good mood or we’re about to do something we do routinely with them in some kind of a positive interaction. I think they know what it is, absolutely. It’s amazing; they know what we want before we even articulate it, and dogs do too. Dogs and cats can read a mood before we even open our mouths, so making any of those noises of endearment, they know what that’s about. Now, are you asking, say, “do you want chicken or tuna?” when you make a chirping noise at your cat? Well, now you’re getting a little specific and I don’t know that I’m willing to say yes to that, but the general context, yeah, absolutely. Animals are always contextual.
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You can go to the world’s best book store, Powell’s Books and buy this book. http://bit.ly/1bDYkGp This looks like a great reference book for a Professional Cat Sitter to me!