Cats are not considered to be musical. Yet many cats do like music. My Lawrence used to rub his face on the speakers during saxophone solos. RJ is definitely a prog-rocker, while James Bond is more of a folk-rocker. While Puffy… well, Puffy has a children’s song.
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Each of my cats has their own song. We let them know it’s their song by putting their name into it, and singing it to them.
That’s why Puffy’s song is, Down at the station, early in the morning, see the little Pufferbellies all in a row. By the time I get to “pufferbellies,” he’s rolled over for me to pet his tummy in time to the song.
Mr. Bond’s song is Pancho and Lefty, with his name introduced into the song where it fits. While RJ’s song is Home, by the Talking Heads.
When cats speak to us, they have tonal sounds in their voices. This lets them respond to tonal sounds in our voices. They are listening to the emotion, and when we sing, no matter how badly, they will hear emotion more easily.
On a previous mention of singing to cats on my old blog, a reader let me know she tried it at the vet’s office, with great results. A fantastic idea! I tried it on Mr. Bond’s last visit, and it did seem to calm him. So a cat’s song allows us to convey our reassurance at times and places when we don’t have other options open to us.
Try to pick a song that you can sing without self-consciousness. It might be best to avoid heavy metal or songs that are too rowdy… unless we find the cats like it. They are all individuals, just as we are, and musical tastes differ.
After all, it’s just us and the cat. They won’t tell anyone.
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There’s more ways to get our cat to be affectionate in The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my CAT AFFECTION posts.
I had a cat when I was young who loved Billy Joel. When we were on the bus to the vet, he’d calm right down if I sang one of his songs, or even better, popped one on my mp3 player and turned the headphones towards his carrier.
One of my current pair, an unnervingly intelligent alpha tortie, doesn’t seem to have a particular favourite song but really responds to certain kinds of voices; she tends to gravitate towards music that to us, sounds sinister and horror-movie worthy (the song from The Omen comes to mind).
Cats and their musical choices are fascinating to me. I definitely think it’s an underexplored topic, so thanks for going into it!