Microblog Memes

From wikipedia

Adult cats rarely meow to each other. Thus, an adult cat meowing to human beings is generally considered a post-domestication extension of meowing by kittens: a call for attention.

My cats meow at each other sometimes, especially when surprised or trying to pick a fight, but it's very different than how they meow at me. And they seem to favor non verbal cues with each other as well.

Domesticated cats meow much more than wild ones do, since they’ve learned to do it for us. Cat mothers chirp to their kittens. So while yes, they do, the tweet is right; cats meow to get our attention, and they meow at about the same frequency as babies.

I believed the tweet for a second, but then I remembered all the times I have woken in middle of the night with the gangs of cats outside my street just meowing to each other

Edit: I am wrong, I looked up Yowling and that’s definitely what I heard, not meowing.

They don't, they chatter and chirp. But not full meows.

Do they though?

Not generally in the wild. Domesticated cats are much more vocal.

Watch “Mr. Kitters the Cat”, the guy that straps the camera to his cat and you get to see kitty adventures around the neighborhood. The cats talk to each other all the time.

Yup. Here are two cats having a conversation.

This is the first time I've seen the word factoid used for its actual original definition... but why you put it in quotes?

Combining sound and food stimuli is classic pavlov conditioning. Cats learn very quickly if they make any sound that a human will react in a way, ie scratching a door for territory or meowing for food.

Wanna play nightcrawlers?!

I wouldn't classify the screaming as meowing

Well it's based on a fact, iirc the real thing is domesticated cats learn to keep their kitten mew because humans respond to it, nothing to do with imitating human babies. But that does mean that only cats raised by people meow.

I can independently confirm. My cats definitely know their names, and their ears will perk up when called. But most of the time they can't be bothered to turn their heads towards the sound, there's no chance they'll get up to engage unless they hear a treat bag crinkle with it lol

Here's the study on that, it was specifically the name calling that was studied. Where they concluded that the cats brain reacted to their name, but actively decided to ignore it. Always stuck with me as well!

My cats don't ignore it, and will come running when they hear their name.

When my cat is laid down, and I call him, his ear move on my direction for a second and them come back. Consecutive calls don't even gain an ear movement.

Dogs are also guilty of adapting their natural behaviors to communicate with humans too, and it's really interesting. Things like eye-contact or being extra expressive with their "eyebrows"

I heard once that dogs can't really hide their emotions because they are telegraphed by pheromones from anal glands, so the only thing they can do is adjust how widely the pheromones are spread, by wagging their tail to spread positive feelings and tucking their tail between their legs to hide negative emotions.

Cats know they're the gods 🤣