I love my little cat. The idea of names and using words seems extremely silly to me.
My cat’s real name is “wwhhq.” It is a sound that is completely different than any word or sound I ever use. I also have a low volume high pitch whistle I can make that is barely audible to me and consists of a specific quick up-down-UP tone. She can hear that over any white noise and will usually respond, at least, more usual than most cats I’ve owned or been around. I’d call it a 90% response rate. No one else in the house can generate that kind of response from her, especially with a silly anthropomorphized name. I’ve gotten to the point where all words directed at an animal seem like unnecessary nonsense. They are only responding to tone and actions. So, I figure why not simplify my vocalizations to make my communication entirely on her level of tones and actions making my intent more clear and easy to interpret. It has worked really well for me over the last 9 years with my current cat. I don’t think I will speak to a cat ever again.
There’s nothing wrong with nonsense or silliness in this context, imo. “Wwhgq” is kinda nonsense, too! I also don’t understand what you mean by “real name,” but whatever works for you!
This is an animal that is said to have domesticated itself and started mimicry of baby cries, just to try to communicate with (see: manipulate) us, and you don’t think there’s merit in speaking to it?
I’ve adopted silent cats, and by way of speaking to them regularly, seen their own feline vocabularies grow. They learn new ways to audibly express themselves, and their personalities seem to grow, for the better of their own contentment.
I genuinely think you should reconsider your outlook on this matter.
You’re smart
I mean, but teaching them to respond to my various swears is so much fun
I have pavloved my cats with the laser pointer. Just jingle it and they come running! Same thing wish the cat food too unfortunately. Any can I open and I’m quickly joined by cats
Joey and ChandlerI’m a bit of an oddball because I named a lemon tree and I talk with it. But even then, I don’t think that this behaviour towards cats is silly, it’s just humans harmlessly following their own instincts. Cats chase small things, spiders weave webs, and we humans talk.
And even if the response rate might go down, I don’t care too much about it. I just make sure to include a few key words and/or sounds into what I’m talking, emphasise them when speaking with my cats, and make them iconic. At least for things that matter. (Granted, I use German with one of my cats, but that’s for another reason - to keep myself from forgetting the language.)
Hey, has it been about ten seconds since you talked with your lemon tree?
No, I spoke with Malena as I was watering her, some ~4h ago, why?
I can totally respect that perspective.
My real motivation was simply stating I get far better results by simplifying the dialogue to something that is better understood. I find it super annoying when someone is yelling words across a house at a cat. Like all you are doing is saying “stay away from random yelling ape making random weird scary sounds.” Just keeping it simple, conscious, and consistent with a cat’s cognitive abilities can generate real results most people assume cats are incapable of doing.
Ah, I get it. It looks for me like the “target” of your annoyance is that some people expect their cats to behave like humans, including understanding speech; that’s far from true and it goes way past the human instinct that I mentioned.
What do you mean by “make sense”?
As in giving them human word names they won’t understand is weird? Or the names themselves don’t make sense?
If the latter, that’s gonna be an opinion that few share.
Talking to them isn’t really silly either. They definitely do recognize it, as you’ve found, and while trying to communicate 1:1 with them is fully, your voice is comforting for them to hear. They won’t know a thing you say, but they can associate words with specific actions. And hearing your voice is comforting, even if they don’t know what you say.
And when repeating yourself to them, I think you can communicate certain phrases, and it will be easier to remember what you said if you use the English (or whatever language they usually hear) words, since it’ll be easier to repeat later if you don’t have to remember what random sound you used last time.
so do you have other ‘gibberish’ words that are commands for her? i’ve never had a cat so idk if you can train one in the same way you can a dog.
We have a lot of little sounds and prompts surrounding all kinds of activities. She has more to say than I do most of the time. It is hard to explain. I don’t really think of them in terms of words. She can communicate play time, I need to be brushed, sick, catnip, chase, let’s be close but not too close, etc. I’ve managed to train her never to bite or scratch me by simply stopping all physical interaction until the next day.
