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Why are cats so weird? They’re so much unlike us: they clean themselves meticulously, the don’t need training, they can handle alone time for extended periods without issue, seemingly.
Meanwhile, when we walk in the door, they affectionately greet us.
Cats have their own way about them, and we can’t really change them. We have to accept them on those mysterious terms. What are the terms? We can’t really identify them, can we? Why are cats the way they are? We can’t really say. What are cats then?
Can we schedule their lives for them? Arguably, we can’t. They retain that control. They come and go by their own will or whim. They choose their own mates — they are hard to breed, so we don’t have guard cats or hunting cats or herding cats.
When they approach other cats, are they looking to make a friend? Some say no, they approach with suspicion, maybe even fear.
In groups, the bond is usually matri-related females. Male young cats are often driven away. They don’t sustain big groups of friendly relations or inter-group alliances. They compete. They can’t negotiate.
Note: when cats get near each other, one might put its tail up. Scientists guess this might mean the cat is happy to approach. It’s the same gesture kittens use to greet their mothers. The other cat might lift up its tail in response. Maybe the raised tail is the cat smile? If both raise their tails, they might rub (heads, flanks, tails). Is this the cat handshake? They may also groom eachother.
A more familiar can signal, purring, is thought by behavioral ecologists not to be an indication of friendliness or anything. They do it when hungry or mildly anxious, sometimes even angry or distressed, in addition to when they’re being petted. Scientists think it might be a manipulative signal, intending a message like, “Please settle down next to me.”
Likewise licking and rubbing are not understood. Its something adult cats do to each other and to owners. Cats that like each other groom each other, this we know.
Mewing, perhaps surprisingly, is not something cats do in the wild (feral) much. They’re more silent. But cats learn to use mewing by trial and error to achieve desired ends, it seems, so it might make sense that they use it with humans, who treat them the same way their mothers do when they’re kittens.
On the other hand we pretty much understand dogs. They seem more open. They seem biddable. Their attitude seems honest and their rules seem a lot like ours. Call a dog or ask one to do something, and you can know with a fair degree of certainty they what the dog will do.
Cats outnumber dogs as pets by a large margin (as much as 3 to 1) as American pets. Why is this? Partly, they are more convenient (probably around 3 times or so, I’d guess).
