What Did You Say, Primate?

I've given two possible names to the picture in the header, found one day in a random search for an angry cat face. One is, "You should be running." The other, which I think I've mentioned here once or twice is a suggestion that extinction won't erase the insult which has been done to this poor tabby, something along the lines of "There isn't enough killing."

I like both dogs and cats. But since leaving the parental abode, I've only had a cat. I mostly lived in places either dog-unfriendly or which would accommodate only those small yipping things that people call dogs but which no self-respecting wolf would stop to urinate on. The cat in question lived 20 years and although I still like them, I found I like hairless couches, carpets and clothes too.

Cats are famous for their aloof nature, which is a genteel two-word phrase that we all know how to express in terms more suitable to the barstool. And, for that matter, probably more suitable to the cat's mindset. But a researcher in Japan conducted a study in which she found that cats probably differentiate enough among human vocalizations to understand which one we mean as their name. She said the cats probably don't associate the sound with their own sense of identity the way dogs do -- I'd wager the only sounds cats associate with their own identities are the names of deities -- but they do connect the sound with treats, food and petting, so they respond to it.

Cats, on the other hand, would probably deny that they pay attention to any sounds that humans make. According to the article, dogs have a 20,000 year head-start on cats in the living-with-humans area, so they have been bred to associate the noise we make as their name with their own sense of identity, in whatever way they perceive that. We also domesticated dogs intentionally, whereas cats domesticated themselves when they found the stupid two-legged things stored their food in big buildings that attracted -- and fattened -- lots of delicious mice.

Cats, we might imagine, would probably see things differently. They would see that relationship as them domesticating us, but badly because we are so very stupid.

In any event, researchers noted that cats recognizing their names does not mean they will answer to them unless, in accordance with their creed, they damn well please.