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Cats are an interesting, and amusing house pet. They have their own personalities, and you have to earn the affection of the cat, which actually has a really interesting backstory, from an evolutionary perspective. See, dogs were domesticated by force, in a sense. They were bred into being submissive and affectionate, which has led to the kind of dogs we have today. That’s also the reason why some dogs have genetic problems.
For example, pugs, or any other flat face dog. They’re bred in a way that makes their bone structure an anomaly and prevents them from breathing right. Cats, on the other hand, don’t suffer from the same kind of genetic issues, and their illnesses are usually from kidney damage because cats aren’t used to living as long as they do or having surplus amounts of water. Instead, their genetic “issues” result in the best kind of fur.
Source: Reddit
There’s a reason why cats are the way they are, especially if Pet Coach has anything to say about it!
Once you and your cat get past the initial pleasantries of greeting each other, your cat uses its voice box to get your attention, as need be. Cats beckon us when they want to play, or when they just want to cuddle or share space. They’ll also use their voices to let you know that the door to the room with the litter box is closed, or that they’d like the window open for a bit of fresh air. And probably the most urgent of feline vocalizations comes at that terrifying moment when the kibble bowl reaches the half-full point – remember, the bowl is almost always half-empty, when you’re a cat.
In the United States, the overwhelming majority of owned cats are spayed or neutered. So many of us cat owners don’t get to experience the joy of being kept awake at night by the mating calls of intact cats, but if you’ve heard this bizarre type of meow, you’ll likely not soon forget it.
The mating call of a cat that’s ready for love starts off as a “meeeeeeeooooooowwwww,” then rapidly progresses to a “yoooooowwwwwwlllllllll.” Some people have even mistaken this type of meow for the sound of a baby crying – this author included, given the simultaneous fog-inducing states of veterinary school and motherhood. As if overpopulation, sexually-transmitted diseases, and the dangers associated with “catting around” in the midnight hours weren’t enough, ending the mating meow should be a great reason for anyone to get their cat spayed or neutered.
This one is interesting. Earlier in the article, we talked about how cats learn as kittens to vocalize as a tool to indicate to their mothers where they are. Once they live with humans, meowing again signals location, and when we reward them by going to their location and acknowledging them, we reinforce the behavior, and it continues.
Sudden blindness or decreased vision is often a cause for increased vocalization. A cat that can’t see well may meow more, in an attempt to find its people, which in a sense is a way of verifying location and navigating in the dark. Cats most commonly lose their vision due to extreme hypertension (high blood pressure), which comes on secondary to heart disease or kidney failure. Any increase in vocalization warrants a visit to the veterinarian, and a thorough eye examination should be performed to look for ocular abnormalities
When you think about it, cats have a limited number of vocal tricks in their bag. The family dog can whine, yip, bark (typically in a number of different ways), and howl. And if you’re my Chihuahua and one of the family cats gets too close to you, you can actually scream like a little girl, but that’s another story.
Cats can pretty much only meow as a way to communicate with us, so it’s best if you pay attention to the tone and situation when your cat vocalizes. Pain often causes a cat to meow loudly, and one of the most common types of pain that seems to trigger loud meowing is urinary pain. There are a number of urinary conditions that cats are prone to, including sterile cystitis (severe bladder and urethral inflammation), urinary tract infections, and urinary stones. If you hear your cat meowing loudly and find it in or near the litter box, monitor this behavior closely to see if the vocalization is occurring simultaneously with the attempt to urinate. And if there’s a correlation, get your kitty right into the veterinarian.
Would you adopt one of these kittens? Tell us down in the comments!
