Comments on: Cats manipulate their owners with a cry embedded in a purr

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:05:35 +0000

It works on me. My cat (Zosma* – a black & gold tortoiseshell) definitely owns me rather than vice-versa.

She chose me at the shelter too by licking my nose and purring. She was a very timid cat there – been bullied by the others and hiding in a little rooftop box thingy. But then I came along & it was like she knew – instant connection and instant sale. All of which is anecdotal stuff and not data, natch, but anyhow.

There’s nothing quite like a purring cat on your lap. “Connosseurs of comfort” as author & vet James Herriot once noted. Also, I think, cats are responsible for what little sanity I do have!

One old cat was especially helpful to me as “pet therapy” when I was a high school kid.

A later cat that owned me would insits I watchand prais eher when mousing. Meowing until I complied. [...Tries to resist temptation to go through another 1,0001 cat stories.]

* After the proper name for the star Delta Leonis.

By: David

David — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:30:49 +0000

You might find this blog "Please can I have some more?" http://cabiblog.typepad.com/hand_picked/2009/07/please-can-i-have-some-more.html of interest. It's based on a study published in CAB Reviews, which suggests pets may be able to negotiate with their owners over what, when and how much they are fed. It seems that there are similarities with the way babies manipulate their caregivers over food to ensure attention.

By: David

David — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:30:48 +0000

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:39:23 +0000

As the keeper of several different cats over the past 45 years I have learned they each have unique ways of communicating. The meow/purr combo is very common.
Though my favorite was the big fluffy gray tabby I had in high school who would wake me up by walking on the bookshelf and knocking things off. He broke a few bits of china (including a cat figurine). He resorted to that after failing to wake me from my teenage slumber (which if I can go by my own teenage children is something close to a coma) by sitting on my chest, purring very loud, kneeding and drooling.

By: David Harmon

David Harmon — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:30:22 +0000

My understanding is that a purr by itself isn’t really meaningful — it’s basically “heavy breathing”. People just think it means pleasure because they can hear it best when they’re petting or holding the cat.
That said, darn right cats are manipulative! Mine has gotten quite adept at telling me when she wants water, food, or to go outside. (And that last was only an option for the last couple of years, by which time Gremlin was already some 12-13 years old.) Also, she uses posture and gaze rather (sometimes in addition to) sound, because I’m hard of hearing.
The nasty part is they learn from “what you do, not what you say” — remember that bit about erratic reinforcement being most effective? Feed a cat scraps from the table once, and they’ll be hovering by you at every mealtime for the rest of their lives!
The flipside of that was that, once she did get to go outside (with me keeping an eye on her), she rapidly learned that if she wanders out of bounds, I’ll pick her up if needed to get her back onto my own front yard. (She’s too old and fat to dodge me.) Which doesn’t actually stop her wandering into the neighbor’s yard if I’m not actually out there with her, but if I go out there and glare at her, she’ll scoot back over the borders I taught her.

By: Mich

Mich — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:02:17 +0000

Our “Noodle” sits on the hope chest at the foot of the bed and waits for the first sign of movement. As soon as one of us yawns, sighs or stretches, the high pitch purr starts until my husband gets up and feeds them. “Butthead” just meows.

By: gmm

gmm — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:33:17 +0000

I hear that sound often with twin old men cats who like to go out and mouse at two in the morning. Aaarghh… and they tagteam if they are both in the mood. Relentlessly. If there is a door between them and a person, they scratch at it and make that noise until they are let out. They have different greeting sounds, but MAN do their I WANT OUT sounds sound alike.

By: rdb

rdb — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:01:14 +0000

Abstract which has DOI

By: Diggitt

Diggitt — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:13:11 +0000

How totally fascinating. I expect to get a cat in six weeks or so (after not having one for more than 30 years, because of an allergic husband) and look forward to reacquainting myself with their ways.
The cat-less years were filled with ferrets, because they don’t aggravate allergies, but they are generally silent.
I especially recall Katie, who lived with me in SW15. I could tell from all around the house when Katie came in with a bird or a mouse. The continuing growl was like no other sound.
We know that human mothers can tell whether their babies are hungry. But can a human mother hear when someone else’s baby is hungry? I suspect there may be a common, hidden note shared by all hungry babies too.

By: rachel

rachel — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:59:17 +0000

Finally, someone has picked up on this. We had a cat that never learnt to purr his whole life, but CCS (who is 10 now) has a large
vocabulary and about 2 years ago, we discovered she was adding this extra sound to her purring. Her purring was already quite loud
but there was this extra “trill” sound, so that it was modulated by the purring. So imagine a loud, purring cat, that adds a high pitched whine to here little song, so it trills with the purr – so we had 2 or three levels of sound. She does this when we are on the bed,
not necessarily looking for food, but perhaps comfort. This song is really quite noticable. Cleo fits the profile because she is an only cat in a quiet household with lots of 1 on 1 time with her humans. The other “human modifying behaviour” trait is what we call “the bedroom dance” – there has to be 3 on the bed. Two is not good enough. If 2 are on the bed, she will seek the 3rd person out and repeatedly brush against them and sit/jump on laps until the second person is also on the bed. We know it is a communication because the cat will loop towards the bedroom and where the person is repeatedly until they go to bed and within seconds the cat will materialise, purring and singing her little song. So there is a lot to cat behaviour and they are extremely complex social manipulators.