Thanks for stopping by! Get The Way of Cats, delivered, by asking for my RSS feed. Get my free cat advice newsletter by signing up here and get the FREE eBook, Ten Cat Tricks (Every Human Should Know.)We need a good grasp of cat senses to understand the process by which our cat knows it is us when we walk into a room.
While their hearing is far keener than ours, both high and low, their vision does not work the way ours does. While we can easily recognize a person’s face near and far, even after years of absence or the changes that come from aging, cats have a recognition process that works very differently from a human’s.
Cats won’t recognize us from a photograph. Cat police would not be able to use a lineup.
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As far as vision goes, cats rely on recognition of our unique body language. That’s why they can sometimes be thrown by hats, parkas, or Halloween costumes unless we call to them and let them know it’s us.
Our voice is always going to be the most distinctive part of us, and our cat can recognize it even when we use accents, different pitches, or over the phone. When I’m away, Dear Husband always lets Mr. Bond listen to me saying hello. It lets him know I’m still out there, somewhere.
While our scent is equally distinctive, this isn’t necessarily something a cat can pick up on short notice or from across the room. If we pet them in their sleep, this is one of the senses they use to know it’s us.
The popular game known as “sneaking up on the cat” gets its confusing power from the way our body language changes when we creep on on them, a posture very different from our normal range of motion. While the cat is pretty sure it’s us, we are sending enough confusing signals for the cat to suspect their leg is being pulled in a joke.
This is the same confusion that occurs when we dress differently from our normal routine, and see that the cat is wary or confused. Our profile has changed, we might be wearing perfume or cologne, and if we don’t usually wear high heels, even our walk has changed.
We shouldn’t feel hurt if the cat flees. We are sending the same kind of confusing signals as we do in the “sneaking up on the cat” game.
Remember that our cats are solitary predators. Caution is how they kept away from bigger, stronger, predators. Any time we look differently, or act differently, we are confusing the cat.
They will not be enthused until they are sure it is us, and what our intentions are.
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There’s more ways to understand our cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my posts on WHY CATS DO THAT.
When my cat was younger he would wait for me to come home from work. He knew which car was the right one and once he heard (as opposed to saw) the right one, he would run to the house to greet me. When I got a new car the behavior stopped. PS found you on B.J.
I have a pair of play kitty ears that I put on sometimes for halloween and such, and last time I did, my youngest cat was COMPLETELY thrown by this. Her eyes got the size of saucers and she kept straining toward me off the table, trying to figure out what was wrong.
I came inside once from doing some heavy-duty grinding and sanding to get a new towel and I was still in my full-on breath mask. My oldest had never seen it before, and she spazzed completely and ran into the other room. I felt so bad, so I called after her in my normal voice and you could see her figure it out. She just stopped where she was and acted all casual, like “Oh, I had to be down here in a big hurry, had nothing to do with you. I am going to wash my tail now. Ignoring you!” She hasn’t reacted to the thing since. It was so funny, but I felt bad for scaring her. I didn’t mean to!
I have two cats who have helped me through some recent, hard times. I am constantly amazed at how smart they are and how it isn’t about ‘tricks’ that you might get with dogs!. One of my cats does ‘high five’ with me (only when he feels like it and not in front of anyone I’m trying to impress lol) and the other one recognises voices on the phone, as mentioned before on this site!.
Yes, if we notice, cats are glad to amaze us. Love the “high five!”