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VeryAmaze ,

In the wild, cat moms would share mothering duties. So a kitten would have a mom and a bunch of aunts.
Wild cats generally only meow when they are kittens communicating with their mom. Kneading ('making biscuits') is also something they only do to their mom (it stimulate milk production).
Domesticated socialized cats basically... Mentally stay in the kittenhood phase. So they literally think you are their mom or aunt.

HeyThisIsntTheYMCA ,
@HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world avatar

“I deserve this”

stebo02 ,
@stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

pretty sure cats know they’re gods in the human world

Agent641 ,

“Once again, the ransom payment is on time.”

mryessir ,

Fixed it:

Hey, cat here. I just deserve it.

theneverfox ,

I think people often underestimate the animal mind

It’s not like they have discrete thoughts in words, but animals form friendships even across species in the wild. It’s not abnormal for one animal to partner up with another - with an imbalance in size/strength the smaller one often will scout out prey and the larger one will give them scraps. Sometimes equals will share territory and even raise kittens/cubs together, taking turns babysitting.

With less abundant food, that’s certainly got to be more rare now, but we’ve seen it happen, even captured it at length on video

Cats are going to have all sorts of ideas about our relationship, from a parent to a big predator friend to a giant clueless kitten. Or, maybe just another predator sharing space, or sometimes they totally discard their instincts and live by human rules

It’s not so dissimilar from what we’d think if an alien took us as a pet and we didn’t try to put a label on it - every relationship is unique

ProtonBadger ,

And like with dogs different breeds often have particular behavior. For example the Norwegian Forrest Cat tends to bond with one particular human.

In addition, unlike dogs, cats have not evolved their body language to be easily understandable by humans, so we have problems interpreting them. Does my cat turn her back to me because she doesn't care or because she trusts me, etc.

Their independence can also be off-putting to some humans, but like with humans independence doesn't have to mean they're don't care about us. And then there's the lessons in consent they try to teach us, which some of us don't want to understand.

theneverfox ,

It’s actually kind of interesting - cats have culture. I’m sure there’s a generic competent too, but cats apparently get their social skills crammed into them by their mother in a crash course when they’re weaning. It’s apparently very slow and difficult to change after that period. They’ve studied certain marker behaviors the way they study how language branch out, and they estimate it takes upwards of a dozen generations for a line of cats to fully adapt to the local “dialect”

It’s not just that cats are standoffish and hard to understand, it’s that western cats are in particular. In Japan, they’re far more “extroverted”, they’re far more likely to approach humans and perform “cute” behaviors like big kitty eyes and “cute” juvenile sounding meows for attention

It makes you think - up until like the 70s, people would just kill cats for fun, cheap fur, or because they annoyed them. A lot of older people have stories about watching someone drown kittens

English has a ton of words and idioms relating to killing cats in the context of it once being a relatable behavior

In Japan, they have idioms like “[I’m so busy] I’m in no position to turn down a cats help”. Eastern cultures also generally see their presence as lucky, say they can see and protect against spirits, and Japan has a spirit called a bakeneko which is a two tailed cat who has lived 100 years, and is now a powerful trickster that sometimes will curse someone with fatal levels of bad luck.

It kind of makes sense - they were largely seafaring and have all sorts of annoying critters around, whereas in Europe and America they were brought on the ships to defend the food, but once they got there they became an invasive species inland, where they’re far less valued

It makes sense they’d be more standoffish - they want to be around because they’re adapted human settlements. They’re definitely social animals, but maybe their fickleness is a way to remind people that they can do some damage if their cornered

Anyways, I saw a documentary about the trainability of cats and thought it was interesting… I’m definitely more of a dog person, but it made me think - out of about a dozen cats I’ve spent a significant time around, 4 were assholes and 2 I formed a deep bond with.

It made me want to add a couple cats to the dog and local wildlife I’d adopt if I ever manage to afford a place in the boonies

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

They probably wonder why we don’t more often.

I’ve seen my cat look at his empty food bowl after he ate everything in 2 seconds and then look at me like “hey, what the fuck dude? Give that back!”

UncleBadTouch ,
@UncleBadTouch@lemmy.ca avatar

Cat: “Why has it taken you so long to feed me? I can see the bottom of the bowl, WTF is going on? Do you know how close to death I was?”

MxM111 ,

I am quite sure it is not like “HUMAN, WHERE IS MY FOOD?”

Bumblebb ,

I mean it depends on the cat

I have a feral who acts like it's some great coincidence that she lives in the ultimate lap of developed world luxury and humans just happen to be there and no they can't touch her

I have two kitten brothers who only love because they are fed. If one of us starts being more regular about feeding them then that's their new best friend

I have an old lady cat who couldn't care less about food she just wants her belly rubbed and a friend to be with

My husband has his geriatric boy who I'm fairly certain is a small man in a cat suit. He keeps us all on a tight schedule of demands.

VanillaGorilla ,

First is a cat, second is a dog.

dulce_3t_decorum_3st ,
@dulce_3t_decorum_3st@lemmy.world avatar

If my cat can’t connect his relentless walking over my head while I’m sleeping, and then guiding me to his bowl, with me actually feeding him, there’s no hope for the little shit.

001100010010 OP ,
@001100010010@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

“Annoying the human will magically summon food. Must annoy the human more!”

-😺

radix ,
@radix@lemmy.world avatar

My cats are more likely to wonder why they aren’t being fed RIGHT NOW.

suzyq ,
@suzyq@lemmy.world avatar

I have one that will relentlessly attack anything plastic - like Ziploc, trash bags, store bought bread - until someone refills the food. Had to buy an honest to goodness bread box so she’d stop destroying the loaves.

Hogger85b , (edited )

My cat brings me "offerings" back too, probably wondering why I don't eat his birds, frogs, mice

cerevant ,

I think this is essentially the answer to OP - Cats understand the concept of feeding their family, and eventually figure out that the person is a pretty effective provider.

Niello , (edited )

I don't think this question is that different from asking whether a cat ever wonder why a dog might want to play with it. A cat probably assume something, which might not even be the same as another cat. It probably also depends on their personality and experience. Kind of like how humans often assume certain things without thinking about it too deeply, like the motivation of another person, even if that assumption is wrong.

BornVolcano , (edited )

I don’t think they question it. Just like if you feed a stray cat, they will often continue to come back

“Human gives food. I stay with human.”

It was this evolutionary trait that allowed us to domesticate animals in the first place. I don’t know if they have the complex psychological capacity to question or doubt it to that level. It’s a trust bond, not a superiority one.

Mouselemming ,

I think it depends on the cat and also on the moment. Sometimes it’s “Thanks fam, I know you can be relied on to bring the cat food.” Other times it’s “Okay kid, you need to work on those clumsy hunting skills, try practicing with this dead mouse.” And sometimes it’s " Hey, fam, come you never share the good stuff, like that pizza?!" It’s a bit like stepsiblings in a feral cat colony, they teach each other and sometimes fight but also defend and share and groom each other.

over_clox ,

Not related to food, more to your second question…

“What do cats think of their humans?”

I had one cat that apparently thought something was wrong with my face because I wear glasses. Any time he got close enough to my face, he’d try in his own silly gentle way to ‘help’ me by gently biting the hinge on my glasses and pulling them off my face LOL!

Was the weirdest cool quirk I’ve ever seen out of any cat. I could tell he was deliberately doing it in his own effort to try to ‘help’ me. Never could totally break him of that habit either, I just had to make a point to not let him get that close to my face.

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