Cats recognize their names

Cats know their names when they hear them. Surprise! Maybe not.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/cats-own-name-1.5084054

The next question to research: does 'Mookie' wish you'd called him something less cute, like 'Snarlfang'?

Cats know when you say their names, but they usually don't care.

>1 Cecrow: I know my cat knows when I call him, as he comes running (not so much out of servility as out of intermittent reinforcement that I will have opened a window or the catio). I always wondered if he knows his name as opposed to the tone of voice I use, though.

But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover -
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name;
His ineffable, effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular name.

(Old Possum, of course!)

name? maybe. Tuna fish? they know that word!

Nope >5 al.vick:,

I always have Food out for my 2. One is a nibbler (5Kg) and the other one Needs food (6.8 Kg) I really don't know how to limit Fatso's (Buffy's) food.
without hurting Max's needs. They know their names when it is convenient. I wish I knew when that was :-)

PS. The shelter I got "Fatso" (Buffy) from tried to put her on a diet for 3 months before I adopted her. They said that when they found her (after several weeks on the streets,
although how they knew that...) she weighed 6.8+ Kg.

Short of starvation, how do you diet a Cat? Perhaps then they will know their names :-)

>6 guido47: I finally gave up and saved up for a microchip-reading food dish. It opens for one cat, not the other. This lets my grazer eat at her leisure, without her constantly-ravenous sister snorfling up all the food immediately. I like it so much I'm working on getting a second one, since the grazer periodically decides that her sister's food looks perfectly good, too.

>7 lorannen: How does that work? I never heard of such a thing. Is it a food timer that you set? I have one for my Lexi for when I'm not home to feed her.

I wish we could do that. We have 5 cats that should be on 3 different diets, but first of all, they have never worn collars. Second, I think training them would be a nightmare. Maybe if we had them as kittens it would work. I do know someone who fosters lots of cats and she uses the microchip-reading food dishes. I don't know how she does it!

>8 framboise: It's a battery-powered dish that reads each individual cat's microchip (also comes with a tag to put on their collar, in case your cat isn't chipped). So, if the cat with the right chip approaches the dish, the lid opens. If the wrong cat walks up, it stays closed! When the cat's done feeding, the lid closes back up again.

There's even a training mode feature that sets it so that at first, the dish doesn't close at all, then you push the button again, and it closes a little bit, and so on. It helped my cat get used to the noise and motion of her new dish.

There are a couple others on the market (I think), but I went with this one. It was worth every penny.

>11 lorannen: I've never heard of such a thing. How does it position itself to read the microchip which is in the back of their neck? The other cats must get so frustrated. Of course, they could always push the microchipped cat out of the way if they're that motivated!

>12 framboise: Here's what it looks like:



The bar across the top of the feeder is positioned such that it's over the back of their neck/shoulder blades area. So, when they step onto the mat and lower their head to eat, it gets a read.

>11 lorannen: - What a cool dish! Not something I need with my current cats, but sure could be useful in the right situation.

Regarding the original topic, I have had cats that would come running to their names and some that obviously knew their names but wouldn't even think about coming when called.

>14 NorthernStar: Yes. With cats it is difficult to tell whether they are pretending not to know their name or really don't know it. I have seen cats turn away from me when I call them. Very suspicious. Now what they think it means is another issue.

I've known many many cats, and only one of them definitely proved that he understood words. A lot of my other cats most likely responded to certain tones in my voice that mean things like "dinner is coming" or "time for your pill". Dogs are pretty good at recognizing sounds that we make as having meaning, but Hobo was special, and extremely smart and the only cat I've ever known that I was certain of his understanding of words.

He would look at the thing I was talking about, even if I wasn't talking to him. If he heard me talking about other cats he would look at them when I said their names. He responded accurately to some other words like 'bed' or 'food', and if I asked him to get a toy he would go find one and bring it to me. Or if I said "couch" he would run to it and expect me to come sit with him.

He was the best and we miss him terribly.

>16 Darth-Heather: he sounds like a special cat!

>16 Darth-Heather: Tell us more! How'd he respond when you said "vet"? Or did you have to spell it out?

My Lexi usually comes to me when I call her name. Or else turns her head to give me side-eye, as cats do. I swear she understands English though when I tell her I'm going away on vacation or that we have to go to the vet the next day as she usually meows in protest.

My late cat Jasper could speak a little bit of English.

Me: Jasper, when do you want your dinner?
Jasper: Now.
Me: When?
Jasper: NOW!!!

>19 Crypto-Willobie:, yes! Had a cat like this, her meow sound like "rrrraaii - yeow", a little catch in the middle. I interpreted that as "right now".

>18 framboise: Hobo absolutely LOVED the vet. He would get excited when he saw the carrier come out of the closet. He was insulin-dependent diabetic so he went there a lot. He would start purring as soon as we got in the door.

Hobo had a whole entourage of groupies at the vet hospital. He would stay with them when we were on vacation, and they adored and spoiled him.

He was the most social and affectionate cat I've ever met - maybe that is the key! Maybe all cats know so many words, but they just don't care as much to respond. Hobo was more like a dog in his desire to please his friends.

My Mattie-cat says OW all the time. She's also my nurse. When I'm sick she knows and lays with me. Even if I'm upset she knows and tries to comfort me.

>21 Darth-Heather: Hobo sounds amazing! I never heard of an animal that liked going to the vet! How long did you have him?

>23 framboise: I found Hobo eating from our dumpster at work one spring, and it took a few months to make friends with him. By the end of the summer he was ready to come home with me. I wasn't sure how my other two cats would feel about it, but Hobo was just so calm and mellow, he ignored their initial attempts to establish dominance and eventually they all got along. I should probably mention that until he got sick, Hobo weighed 23lbs so he was just too big to be bullied.

We had five joyous years with him. I am blessed to have known him; he taught me what 'Perfect Love And Perfect Trust' is supposed to mean.

I've never had a cat that liked the vet before either! My vet definitely deserved Hobo (aka Mr. Wonderful) after she put up with our previous cat, Iggy, for 7 years. Iggy was a lovebug at home but a terror at the vet. The techs would see him in the waiting room and sigh, and go put on the leather bird-of-prey gloves and come strap a mouth guard on him before they could examine him. He had a bright red folder with BITER in big letters on it... Poor Iggy. He had a lot of medical issues and was just really fed up with vet visits and all the invasive and painful things that came with it for him.

Is Lexi an only child? How does she respond at the vet?

>22 morningwalker: awww. What a sweet girl :)

>24 Darth-Heather: Thankfully, Lexi only goes to the vet once a yr or so for her annual visit. However, she does not like it. Last year (exactly to this day actually) I brought her and she howled, screamed and wailed, the vet put a towel around her and she pooped in it, then clawed through it with her claws. But in Dec I had to bring her in because she was having diarrhea & vomiting and she surprised us all by how angelic she was acting. A few yrs back, the vet had put a "Caution" sticker in her chart (!) & in Dec he said "I wonder why I did that." I was so proud of her.

>25 Darth-Heather: She is a sweetie.

>26 framboise: when they are actually sick sometimes they seem to sense you are doing something to try and help. When they just need routine care being taken to the vet is sheer torture for them. Anyhow that's what I think. I know cats don't probably think the exact same way we do but they have some sort of emotional wavelength as per all of the stories in this thread.

>28 anna_in_pdx: Yes, I agree that they realize you're trying to help them. Once Lexi had some kind of cold that manifested in one leaky eye and after going to the vet and giving her eye drops, she was more affectionate as if to thank me.