I’m wondering if cats think of us kind of like how a person thinks of a friendly bull: aware that they could easily kill us, but not necessarily afraid of them; or more like a large Dalmatian: they could fuck us up, but most of us don’t really think about that unless they’re being aggressive.
I grew up with dogs and feel like I understand them a lot better than I do cats as a whole. I adopted my cat almost four years ago and I feel like I get her pretty well, but I don’t really have an idea of what she thinks about me. I also don’t really know any other cats, though I’ve gotten along with strays and friends’ cats a lot better since I got mine.
Cat tax:
Making fight decisions based on “could I kill it” is a convenience of human technology. The ability to seclude ourselves during healing and medicine allowing us to avoid infection, heal faster, and heal from more serious wounds has skewed how we think about fighting. Most animals make fight decisions less on “can I kill it” and more on “how badly can it injure me”.
Sure a human can kill a house cat, absent technology can the human do it without having the skin on an arm or leg shredded? Will the injuries be significant enough to make you unable to protect yourself from other predators? Will the injuries set up infection and kill you?
Cats are basically the perfect land predators. Even with their small size domestic cats are the most deadly and destructive hunters on earth.
They are ambush predators. They are really good at evaluating prey, identifying strengths and weaknesses, figuring out how, when, and if they should attack. Cats know whether or not they can win a fight. Cats will sometimes charge into fights they can’t win, like attacking the bear, because they know that they can inflict damage and that the other animal is making a similar fight decision. The hyper aggression of a 10lb claw tornado flying toward a 200lb bear is usually enough to convince the bear that the fight isn’t worth it.
10 pound claw tornado… I’ll be stealing that :p
To be honest, I don’t think your cat thinks about things the way you’re thinking about them. Your behavior has shown your cat that you’re safe, so your cat isn’t afraid of you. If you start acting aggressive or scary it will treat you like a threat and fight or flight based on what it decides in the moment, but that’s about it. It’s not thinking, “this giant ape could kill me if it wanted, I’m glad it’s my friend,” it just has a positive association with you based on your pattern of behavior.
Also, cats social cues aren’t as obvious as dogs, but if you don’t know what you’re cats thinking, here are some clues: is your cat walking around with its tail up a lot, usually curled at the top like a little question mark? Your cat feels super happy and confident in it’s territory (AKA your house). Does it ever look at you and narrow or close it’s eyes and look away, sorta like it’s nodding off? Your cat is saying it trusts you enough to let it’s gaurd down, it’s basically a cat hug.
Edit: cat tax.
Oh, one more I forgot, cat-loaf! Cats put their paws underneath them to conserve heat. It also means they’re putting their primary weapons away, so they only do this when they feel happy and safe…or they’re very cold. If your cat is loafing a lot, it’s either very happy or you need to turn your heat up.
I am sure they are aware of it. I think it’s like us and horses: yes, this creature is much larger and could hurt or kill me if it wanted to, but horses are basically cool and friendly and we trust them.
I’ve been with my SO for more than 4 years, and I often don’t understand her motivations either.I have fought an angry cat before and I’m not certain I could kill it with my bare hands. Maybe if I got lucky and had both hands around its neck before the fight began, but I’m not convinced a cat couldn’t sever my hand tendons to get out of that.
Cats are fucking insane when they’re in battle mode. Maybe if I got lucky with a spine breaking hit before it got my eyes. Maybe.
I don’t know if I could be in a room with a fully loaded Glock 19 in my hand, and win a fight against a cat. It would do some Trinity shit up the wall and still scratch my eyes out.
If cats are that crazy, then dogs are even worse. My neighbours dachshound killed off an adult cat a few years ago. Apparently the cat didn’t stand a chance.
The dachshund was bred to scent, chase, and flush out badgers and other burrow-dwelling animals. The miniature dachshund was bred to hunt small animals such as rabbits. >
Yeah, I think dachshunds are gonna have an easy time with a cat if they were bred to take on badgers. Ultimately, hunting dogs were bred for the purpose, whereas house cats and feral cats weren’t bred for anything beyond looks, even if they were utilized for their mousing skills. Dachshund /= mouse
They use the same communicative signals with us as with their young. To cats, we are overgrown, clumsy kittens that never learn to hunt but know a mysterious way to get food.
My last cat had 100% faith that he would be completely safe when I was near, basically trusting that nothing bad could happen to him. If he was lying on the leather couch, stretched or turned and started slowly sliding (more like flowing like a liquid) out of the couch, then he’d not react, he’d just continue sliding until I caught him and put him back on the couch. The kind of trust that a toddler can have in the infallibility of the parent to catch them. As long as it never gets betrayed, they don’t lose that trust.
I imagine that if I had been clumsy around him: tripping over him when he was standing in the way or not always catching him, that he would have lost that trust.
The cat before that only was adopted when he was already older and more world wise, he was always attent and seemed aware of the size difference and the possibility of accidents if we were to trip over him.
Hmm interesting. I have terrible eyesight so I don’t always see my cats when they’re somewhere I don’t expect them to be. But they’re not afraid of me. They’re still very affectionate with me and they do seem to trust me a lot. One of my three cats has figured out that if she makes any kind of noise I’ll notice her but the other ones don’t, but still don’t seem to get too mad at me when I do accidentally run into them. I do love them very much though and I’ll spend as much time with them as I can or they let me. So maybe they have internalized that I don’t do it on purpose. Might also just be how I react to when it does happen though. I genuinely feel bad every single time. That same cat also figured out that if she stands on her hind legs and knocks on the glass door I will always hear it. Scared the crap out of me when she did it for the first time but if only I could get my other cats to do the same…
So cats are ok with us tripping over them, as long as we profusely apologize afterwards, interesting :)
It sounds like the 2 cats count on the smart cat to get the door open for them. They have no reason to learn as long as the present system works.
lmao my orange boy will jump onto my lap and then go limp and if I dont catch/support him then he will flow off of my lap (50/50 chance he will grab my thigh with claws at the end)
When cats square up to each other they arch their backs and their hair stands on end, to me, that’s an effort to make themselves look bigger. Therefore they know bigger == more dangerous.
Cat tax:
Fuck me is that Boris Johnson? That’s animal abuse 😂
I remember reading on the old site that cats saw us humans as “big, neutral cats”.
The trouble I have with this idea is that adult cats meow at us. They don’t do that in the wild with each other. Kittens do it to get mom’s attention, but not adult cats. They mostly communicate with body language.
Yea that’s right, except kitten at their mothers. Perhaps they see us as caretakers, surrogate mothers ?
