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If you have a cat, you can consider yourself to be the parent of your cat. After all, you feed your cat, you snuggle it and you probably even talk to him.
However, your cat sees things a little differently.
According to Dr. John Bradshaw, your feline friend will probably not consider you as a parent, but as "a larger, non-hostile cat".
Bradshaw, a biologist at the University of Bristol in England, has been studying the behavior of cats for 30 years and is constantly discovering new insights into how cats interact with humans. For starters, it's always on their terms.
He analyzed the latest research, which looks at how a cat responds to his name. Researchers led by Atsuko Saito, a cognitive biologist at Tokyo's Sophia University, have highlighted the fact that they could distinguish their names from similar words, but their response is subtle.
The researchers visited several places, from households to cat cafes, to evaluate cat responses. In all cases, cats reacted more openly to their own names than to random names or other cat names, but we hear openly by head, head or ear.
"Cats are as talented as dogs to learn.They are just not as eager to show their owners what they've learned," Bradshaw told Nature in an article about Japanese study. .
This confirms what Bradshaw has preached for years. In his book "Cat Sense", Bradshaw explains that the starting point for him is that cats are always wild animals.
Unlike dogs, which have been bred for specific purposes, cats have essentially domesticated.
When humans began to cultivate the land, cats came to attack rodents attracted to crops. They made useful and attractive companions, so we kept them.
But cats have remained relatively wild because 85% of felines breed with wildcats.
Domestic cats are closer to their wild relatives than dogs (Photo: Elliotte Rusty Harold / Shutterstock)
The population of domestic cats is maintained by sterilization, so the majority of cats available for mating are those living outside our homes.
This means that the interactions of our cats with us are motivated by instinct rather than by learned behaviors.
When your cat kneads your knees or another surface, it is a behavior intended for the belly of a mother who makes the milk flow.
When your cat greets you with an erect tail, it is a friendly sign reserved for hosting a non-hostile cat. Bradshaw describes this behavior as "probably the clearest way to show affection for cats."
Rubbing against your legs and grooming yourself is another way your cat treats you like a cat. If you have multiple cats, you have probably witnessed these behaviors shared between your pets.
And when your feline friend occasionally brings you a dead rodent or half-eaten insect, it's not a gift or an attempt to feed you.
Your cat simply wants a safe place to eat his death. When he bites into his hold, he realizes that the food you provide tastes better, so he leaves the remains of the prey.
So while you consider yourself to be the parent of your cat, he sees you as a big, friendly feline, generous enough to share canned food.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated since it was originally published in January 2014.
In connection with MNN:
Your cat thinks you are a much bigger cat with a good taste in food
Dr. John Bradshaw decodes the behavior of cats and explains what felines really think of us.
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