• Pinklink@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Cats don’t meow at each other. Isn’t that weird? They communicate with each other in other ways, but meowing is a strictly cat->human communication behavior

    • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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      8 months ago

      From what I understand, a lot of cat vocalizations to humans like meowing and purring are primarily things kittens do that cats later stop as they grow, to communicate with their mother. They learn to continue using such vocalizations with humans because humans don’t understand their body language as readily, so they discover that, for example, a certain type of meow when hungry might remind a human to feed it, and keep doing it. This also means that the meaning of a given sound is somewhat specific to a given cat, rather than some sort of universal cat language. Or at least, this is what Ive read

      • Dandroid@dandroid.app
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        8 months ago

        I definitely have learned my cat’s meows. She has a short, high-pitched, sheepish meow when we closed a door and she got stuck in the room. She has a very deep, long meow for when she’s bored and walking around at night while we are on bed. She screams at us as loudly as possible when she wants to play. Oh, and she sees another cat outside through the window, she sounds like she dying. Like, deep moans, sort of like the “old long Johnson” video, but less like words and just moaning. And then there’s meows for when she’s happy to see us after work, when she wants attention, etc.

        She’s very good at communicating.

      • Pinklink@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        STFU you can’t say I’m wrong on the internet in front of all these people who’s opinion I care deeply about! You wrong and I’m going to dig my heels in till I reach Australia!

        Jk I like how most of Lemmy actually doesn’t do that bs. But seriously thank you for the further insight

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      That’s because cats use meowing to get attention of their mother. When cats meow at you, they’re essentially saying “parent, help me with this thing”. Usually that thing is begging for food at 5am

    • eric@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      There are plenty of videos that disprove what you’re saying. Cats do meow at each other, especially as a form of aggression, where it’s usually the deep and long almost growl-like meow.