Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Who is the real pet when it comes to cats?

In news that is a bit odd, I ran across something that is of no real surprise. Often I have stated to those friends I know that their cat seemed to have them trained incredibly well. Now I have a scientific study to prove I was right.

It seems that for those people that own a cat, especially those that have smaller households, the cats have a specific call to get fed when they want it. It’s a mix of a purr and a meow. The combination is just at the right pitch, and disharmonious enough, to get a person to react just as the cat wants.

This call is so well tuned to people that even non-cat owners note the sense of urgency in the sounds. It seems that part of the sound is a close mimic to the sounds of an infant. Which is something every person will pay attention to, even without kids.

Call it good mimicry, great genetics, or a weakness in cat owners, the result is the same. The cat gets fed when it wants to be, and the owners are the one trained to do so. I can’t help but be reminded of the mice from Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (the books and never the horrendous movie).

Now that it has been established that cats can get people trained to feed them, I wonder how long until they figure out that cats also get picked up, petted, and a host of other things on their terms.

Makes you wonder who really is the pet in the relationship?

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