[HN Gopher] Purring is a love language no human can speak
___________________________________________________________________
Purring is a love language no human can speak
Author : pseudolus
Score : 157 points
Date : 2022-09-08 12:14 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I've always interpreted it as the intersection of happiness &
| self soothing. Sort of like a hum or song for humans.
| topspin wrote:
| Cats have a several of those signs. Slow blinking, still tail,
| etc. Seems like it's very important to signal when they're
| relaxed and secure and when they're not; likely because they're
| full of claws and teeth.
|
| I inherited a male cat, now about 4, with a property. He
| couldn't follow the previous owner because he mostly lives in
| the woods and there is none at the new place. He is wonderful
| and amazing. I send videos and the guy tears up when he gets
| them. One nick name for him is Garage Lion.
|
| Yesterday I had to invent 'cat sticks.' He likes to sleep
| curled up in my planters and that kills the sprouts. So all the
| planters but one -- the designated cat planter -- have random
| sticks now...
| steveBK123 wrote:
| The slow blinking thing is the best
| codeduck wrote:
| slow blinks aka kitty kisses
| linguistics__ wrote:
| Indeed, in Danish the verb 'misse' means to slow blink like
| a cat, and comes from the word 'mis' which can be
| translated as 'kitty' or 'pussy-cat'.
| billforsternz wrote:
| I remember idly commenting to a colleague once "Scientists don't
| know how cats purr" (I'd read it on the internet so it must have
| been true).
|
| He replied pointedly "They must be stupid then, they do it like
| this ...." and he started purring just like a cat.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| I'm on the side of "vocal tic"; the non-purring cats are
| intentionally trying _not_ to purr, while purring itself is just
| relaxed or tired breathing. Sort of like vocal fry in humans.
| saghm wrote:
| That's definitely consistent with one of my cats! (Not that
| it's inconsistent with the other; she's just a better example
| of this). She's basically constantly purring while awake unless
| she's making some other sound, and a lot of the time the other
| sounds she makes seems like they're almost unintentional; she
| chirps loudly when jumping (almost like a grunt of effort, a
| habit I've seen in plenty of other cats as well), or if she's
| running towards something with interest (e.g. running over to
| hop on the bed when she wants to cuddle) in a way that almost
| makes it seem like she's just exhaling hard and not bothering
| to put in the effort to avoid making a sound while doing so.
| Sometimes if a sound out in the hallway of the apartment
| surprises her, she'll jump off of wherever she's currently
| laying down (usually my desk or a couch) and let out this low,
| rumbly growl that I could totally believe is just a fight-or-
| flight reaction (she always chooses "fight"; if something falls
| off a table or something and makes a loud sound, she always
| runs _towards_ it as if she's expecting some sort of threat she
| has to defend us against). The only sound she makes that I'm
| fairly positive is intention is when she meows sweetly in a
| plea for pity, which only happens when I'm bringing her wet
| food bowl over to her dining spot, when she's in her cat
| carrier on the way to the vet and wants to be let out, or when
| I'm holding her still so we can trim her claws. Her meows are
| so different from her regular "chirping" sound that it's hard
| not to conclude that they're mostly just a way to try to guilt
| us rather than an actual sign of distress; she's quite
| effective at the "mimic a human baby sound to elicit sympathy"
| trick.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| This article bothers me, because it feels like it is trying to
| make this more complicated than necessary.
|
| "I don't think we have any studies that are like, I sat with a
| purring cat on my broken leg for 15 minutes a day; I healed more
| rapidly than someone else,"
|
| That may be true, but I guarantee anyone with a cat has been part
| of a "purr circle." I was sick about a month ago, and all of my
| cats _knew it before I did_ and made a point to stay extra close
| and then to pile on me when I finally did go to bed to rest for
| the day. When one of our cats was near his end, those last few
| days they held vigil the same as you or I might around someone in
| hospice. Is the purring therapeutic? Hard to say, but to the cat
| it clearly holds ritual.
|
| >Nor can experts say, exactly, what purring means.
|
| This is an odd thing for the article author to write, when they
| then proceed to demonstrate what any cat owner knows - cats purr
| for a variety of reasons and the human has to interpret based on
| the context. They purr when they are happy, they purr when they
| are scared, they purr when someone is sick, they purr to entice
| you to give treats. Wouldn't surprise me if the frequency is
| someday found to be different between purr types or some other
| nuance that might not be obvious. I've observed that a happy purr
| is often more sustained than a scarred purr.
| fareesh wrote:
| For some time now I've suspected that the cat can't control the
| purring, it happens on its own like laughter and there's a domino
| effect
| squarefoot wrote:
| I can actually purr very realistically, and my cats appear to be
| interested when I do, although of course I haven't the slightest
| idea of what I'd be saying to them:)
|
| If you want to try you need to imitate first the letter "R" as
| they do in France, which is roughly done by exhaling while
| keeping the upper rear part of the tongue in slight contact with
| the rear of the palate. It comes easy to me as I had this "R"
| pronunciation until about 17 when I started correcting it (with
| some of the family disapproving). Now do the same but not using
| any vocal cords, that is, only breath, then repeat also while
| inhaling. Keeping the mouth barely open helps a lot to give it
| its particular sound which with practice can become really close
| to a real cat purring.
| SamBam wrote:
| I can do that pretty well on the exhale, but no way for me on
| the inhale.
| arbitrage wrote:
| Practice will improve the result. Same with whistling. I can
| whistle quite well on the inhale, now. It took me years to
| get right, simply because we don't make that motion with our
| face parts very often at all.
| gumby wrote:
| You might want to try to learn "circular breathing" which is
| the technique used to make a continuous sound while playing a
| didgeridoo.
|
| You can learn with a straw and a glass of water so no need to
| find or purchase a didgeridoo, though they are fun to play.
| SamBam wrote:
| The sound comes from my throat. Circular breathing involves
| a continuous exhalation from the mouth forward, but the air
| in the throat still moves forward and backward, so it
| doesn't help.
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| used to make a continuous sound while playing any wind
| instrument
| gumby wrote:
| As an australian child I was told is was a special
| australian thing so please do not puncture my bubble!
|
| OK, with the obligatory jingoism out of the way: that's
| quite interesting. And having heard a long note held for
| some time, I'm embarrassed not to have realized this on
| my own.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It's used by some jazz brass players. It even works with
| a Tuba! Though that is MUCH more difficult because of the
| volume of air involved.
| dylan604 wrote:
| My band teacher from middle/junior/high school tried to
| teach it at different points to any/all that was
| interested. There was one trumpet player and one sax
| player that could do it when I was in school.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| I can do what OP was describing on inhale and exhale, and I
| have a small amount of didgeridoo experience, but I don't
| think circular breathing works here. Mind you, I'm not GOOD
| at circular breathing, but my understanding is that it
| works by using the cheeks to force air through the lips as
| you are inhaling.
|
| The purring sound here though comes from too far back to
| make that work, I can't get air to pass through that part.
| jcims wrote:
| Open it up until you're just barely 'purring' on exhale then
| gently but quickly start to inhale (think of your breath as
| the bow on a violin). There will be a slight timbre change
| but cats have that too.
|
| It sounds more like a dragon purring than a housecat but
| close enough.
| marzell wrote:
| I find that an exhalar uvular trill can be similarly
| effective
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| I am always afraid this sounds too much like growling, which
| they don't like.
| [deleted]
| snarfy wrote:
| Whenever my cats are purring when I pet them, I make an
| affirmative 'uhmmmm hmmmm' humming sound, with pitch going up on
| the uhmm and going down on the hmmm. It's not purring, but my
| cats seem to get the idea.
| log101 wrote:
| It might sound odd but I can purr by exhaling while closing my
| lips and putting my tongue at a certain position. This has
| interesting outcomes, such as understanding why cats purr! Yes
| because I also do it from time to time and somehow I can imagine
| the situations one might have that need to purr. That's why I was
| bit puzzled while reading the article because the purring is an
| understandable act to me, not scientifically but psychologically.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I purr pretty well for a 40 year old man. My cats always nuzzle
| my neck whenever I start purring. Cats are amazing creatures. We
| have two dogs and two cats.
|
| Watching our cats interact with our baby when we brought him home
| was a beautiful thing. The dogs were very curious and would lay
| beside his crib each night but the cats would actually try to
| help us.
|
| They would alert us whenever the baby cried or became fussy. Now
| that he's 3 years old, the cats follow him around everywhere and
| they will come upstairs to the master bedroom to tell us when he
| wakes during the night and each morning. They'll meow at us until
| we go downstairs. Of course we have monitors and motion sensors
| and such but it's cute watching the cats communicate.
|
| It's the complete opposite of what I learned as a child watching
| "Lady and the Tramp."
| gnulinux wrote:
| > Cats are amazing creatures.
|
| This is it. It makes me so sad seeing online people claiming
| cats are vengeful, aggressive, selfish animals. Cats have a
| huge variety of personality and so, yes, some of them _are_
| vengeful, aggressive and /or selfish. However, once an average
| cat trusts you there is a very special kind of bond between you
| guys that I only experienced with a long term human partner.
| Cats are _amazing_ , _amazing_ creatures. Obviously I don 't
| know what's going inside my cat's brain, whether he actually
| experiences what we label "love", but his behavior is
| oftentimes consistent with it. Every morning I wake up my cat
| next to me and I feel so lucky to have experienced a cat's love
| in my lifetime. I'm so thankful to our neolithic ancestors to
| have domesticated and introduced these quirky, lovely little
| mammals in our lives.
| kortilla wrote:
| I love cats but some of them absolutely do decimate local
| bird populations in the local neighborhood when they are left
| out unsupervised.
|
| My grandparents' cat was like this. Very friendly to all
| people but when left outside would usually have a bird killed
| within a half hour.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| >I love cats but some of them absolutely do decimate local
| bird populations in the local neighborhood when they are
| left out unsupervised.
|
| Not disagreeing per se, but every time this comes up on HN
| or in other public discourse, I ask for sources.
| Specifically, there is a statement that I see used
| regularly (including from the Audubon Society) that makes
| claims on the order of "billions" of birds killed every
| year by domestic cats.
|
| The question isn't whether cats will hunt a bird or rodent,
| but to my thinking whether their impact is any greater than
| say the risk of birds running into windows, etc. Feels a
| bit like when we blame the cow for burping (IE: doing what
| it does naturally) as the cause of global warming while we
| continue to drive around in our carbon-belching cars.
| imustbeevil wrote:
| The first result on Google for "how many birds are killed
| by domesticated cats" is a scientific article from the
| Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S.
| Fish and Wildlife Service.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
| pvaldes wrote:
| An article is as good as the data that supports the
| research.
|
| We have to keep in mind that this is an article based in
| google search and bibliography and is just a very raw
| estimate. Bibliography studies mostly the worse and
| special cases. There is a risk into taking the worse
| cases as a sample of the global situation.
|
| Is a guess, much better than having none, but still a
| guess. Don't overthink it
| GVIrish wrote:
| The thing I always wonder is, in habitats where birds
| would normally have to deal with feline predators, how is
| the domestic cat worse than that? Any birds in
| environments that have feline predators would already be
| adapted to avoidng cats, unlike say, small Australian
| fauna.
|
| I can understand the damage inflicted by cats in
| environments that never had a very efficient bird
| predator like cats (e.g. New Zealand and other islands).
| But in North America there's the Bobcat, Lynx, Ocelot,
| Margay, and Jaguarundi. Even without the domestic cat,
| birds would still get eaten in sizable numbers by cats.
| Sure there are a lot more domestic cats out there, but
| without civilization there would be a lot more wildcats
| out there eating birds.
|
| Maybe the impact is simply that outside house cats exist
| in numbers that are not supportable for a normal wild
| predator due to the fact that house cats have meals
| provided by humans to sustain them. So house cat numbers
| don't reach an equilibrium with their prey the way a wild
| cat could. Either way I suspect that the impact on bird
| populations by domestic cats is often overstated.
| dTal wrote:
| >Maybe the impact is simply that outside house cats exist
| in numbers that are not supportable for a normal wild
| predator due to the fact that house cats have meals
| provided by humans to sustain them. So house cat numbers
| don't reach an equilibrium with their prey the way a wild
| cat could.
|
| That's exactly it. The density of house cats is orders of
| magnitude larger than the density of wildcats would be.
|
| > Either way I suspect that the impact on bird
| populations by domestic cats is often overstated.
|
| Why?
| hollywood_court wrote:
| https://abcbirds.org/article/study-documents-dramatic-
| new-im...
|
| https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Medina-
| et-al...
|
| https://abcbirds.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2015/09/Loss_et_al._...
|
| https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Doherty-
| et-a...
| culi wrote:
| > We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill
| 1.3-4.0 billion birds and 6.3-22.3 billion mammals
| annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause
| the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that
| free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife
| mortality than previously thought and are likely the
| single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US
| birds and mammals.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
| hollywood_court wrote:
| https://blogs.umass.edu/natsci397a-eross/the-
| environmental-a...
|
| We've had 3 birds hit our windows in the 12 years I've
| owned this home. To combat that, I made sure all the
| windows had blinds. It hasn't happened since.
|
| My one neighbor's cat kills more than 3 birds per month
| in the warm seasons. I haven't been able to combat that
| unfortunately.
|
| But I did build a dry stack retaining wall that has
| allowed the chipmunk population to have a bit of refuge.
| They are slowly growing in numbers. We had scores of them
| until the neighbors moved in next door. Within months
| they dwindled to less than a dozen. My wife and I used to
| love to sit at our breakfast table and watch them scurry
| around the yard and patio. Our neighbor's cat ruined that
| for us.
|
| I shouldn't have to spend $5k+ to prevent cats from
| killing chipmunks, but I'm always willing to do whatever
| I can to improve something rather than just complaining
| about it.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| Probably depends on the individual's tendencies. My cat's
| kill stats for year to date, not too many birds:
| Total 106 --------------------
| Bird 3 Red Squirrel 1 Chipmunk
| 9 Rabbit 11 Vole 59
| Deer Mouse 23
|
| My garden and house really appreciate the
| vole/mouse/chipmunk control
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Goodness. How big are the rabbits in your area? The ones
| here are so large that I imagine that A) a cat could not
| catch them and B) the rabbit would disembowel the cat
| with its rear feet. I've seen rabbits do impressive
| things to small dogs and snakes. I wouldn't want one near
| my cats.
| dageshi wrote:
| Living on a farm, I've seen some fairly impressive semi
| feral tom cats. When they're young and they hunt a lot
| they develop muscle on every inch of their body, once had
| one who was quite tame, his back muscles felt like a bag
| of marbles, they were that well developed.
|
| I'd have no doubt he could've taken a rabbit especially
| given the ambush nature of their hunting.
| mhuffman wrote:
| My grandfather used to keep a couple of rabbits in the
| barn to run off the rats! He swore that rabbits naturally
| hated rats and would fuck them up if they could get near
| them.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Rabbits can be fierce. They aren't as intimidating as
| wild turkeys or the boars around here, but I wouldn't
| want to try to handle a wild rabbit.
| gpderetta wrote:
| I have seen cats catch rabbits as big as themselves.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| That's impressive. On my mothers farm, the turkeys run
| the show followed by the geese. But neither one of them
| will ever bother the rabbits. It's interesting watching
| the hierarchy.
|
| She has numerous 150lb+ dogs and they all defer to the
| turkey and geese. Even the donkeys don't go near the
| turkeys and geese The geese can't really hurt you, but
| I'd rather fight a 150lb dog than a 60lb turkey.
| dboreham wrote:
| Smaller cats will catch the baby rabbits, but a larger
| cat has no trouble catching and eating adult rabbits in
| my experience. The largest thing I've seen a cat catch
| was a grouse. Turkeys are too large. Weasel like things
| seem to be too fierce.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| They don't want to catch a turkey. We've had turkeys kill
| medium sized dogs and they've put holes in the side of
| the feed man's truck with their claws.
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| How did you produce these numbers?
|
| You sound way too confident in it's validity unless
| you've put a camera on the cat and check the full
| recording every day...
| _eht wrote:
| My educated guess would be that the gato presents them
| with these offerings.
| user5678 wrote:
| So these numbers are lower bounds.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| Lower bound but pretty confident in accuracy - Have eyes
| on all catflap traffic, some accelerometer/position data
| (a _cat collar_ tracker, not a _cat_ tracker!), and
| observation thus far supports the conclusion that he
| stages all kills in his "abattoir" area unfortunately
| underneath the couch regardless of their eventual
| disposition - pretty common behavior
| [deleted]
| t-3 wrote:
| My cat only very rarely manages to get chipmunks and
| mice, but he doesn't usually kill them, generally
| alternating between cuddles and grooming and beating them
| savagely to make them jump and run. He's scared of birds
| after being mobbed by robins and crows.
| eitland wrote:
| The last rabbit we had at home ran around on its own.
|
| I developed a friendship with our horse, but did not seem
| to be on friendly terms with the neighbors cat. One time
| I saw them running across the driveway: the cat first,
| panicking, the rabbit a meter or two behind chasing it.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| philote wrote:
| I recently got a new kitten and we decided it'll be an
| indoor cat (though I'm harness training her so she can go
| out on walks). I've had several cats over the years die
| because they were allowed outside (one got hit by a car
| and one I think got locked in my neighbor's
| crawlspace/basement though we never found her). I
| personally haven't had many of my outdoor cats bring me
| birds, but where I live now we have bird feeders and
| don't want the birds preyed on.
|
| Edit: I forgot about the outdoor cat I had that I left at
| home when I went off to college. It got run over by my
| neighbor because it was sleeping under his wheel and he
| didn't notice.
| not2b wrote:
| Yes, our cats have always been indoors; our next door
| neighbor's cats have been outdoors. One of them was
| killed by a coyote and left on our front lawn for my
| daughter to find.
| pvaldes wrote:
| A cat must live the life of a cat, not the life of a
| doll. And yes, life sometimes is risky, and there is
| death in life, and there is dirt and half mice. We better
| learn to deal with it instead to keep running towards an
| hyperpuritan, hypersensitive society, unable to stand the
| minimum amount of frustration or to make anybody happy.
|
| To help birds, we plant trees and dense shrubs and wild
| hedges full of biodiversity and fruits and insects. We
| build nestboxes. We build ponds and birdbaths. We stop
| pruning like obsessed. We put seeds in winter. We know
| that birds and hedgehogs trive in areas full of cats. If
| they find any minimum refuge, this is unavoidable.
|
| If there are none of that things around, is not cat's
| fault. Build it. Children need to be exposed to free
| animals to turn into healthy people.
| spicybright wrote:
| Why shouldn't the answer be don't own an animal that
| can't live happily while co-existing with the ecosystem
| around it? And if that's the case and you want a cat
| anyways, why shouldn't we require people to build/fund
| infrastructure to offset the effect it will have?
| hollywood_court wrote:
| The dead cats don't bother me as much as the dead birds.
| Introducing just one cat can completely change an entire
| ecosystem. Outdoor cats are a threat to global
| biodiversity.
|
| I know it makes you feel better to allow your cats
| outdoors but please recognize that it affects the
| ecosystem on a larger scale.
| pvaldes wrote:
| The danger depends a lot on the area and month. There are
| more factors involved
|
| Some ecosystems are resilient. Some wipe actively any
| cat. Some should ban entirely cats while in other places
| removing cats could in fact harm the birds by the rodent
| population explosion. It changes also if the bird is
| migrating or not, if is young or not...
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| It's my yard. It's not an ecosystem. It's my cat's one
| job to threaten my yard's biodiversity.
|
| Birds are noisy. At 4:30 in the morning. Anything that
| wakes me up at 4:30 in the morning is a problem that
| needs to be dealt with immediately with whatever level of
| violence is necessary to stop the squawking.
|
| You get all chirpy in my yard, you deal with Mr.
| Tiddlesworth. Same with the squirrels that get on the
| roof. Die!
| detaro wrote:
| I wonder if you'd approve of a neighbor dealing with Mr.
| Tiddlesworth in a similar fashion if it were to annoy
| them in their yard.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| They couldn't reasonably become upset if someone were to
| kill Mr. Tiddlesworth for venturing into their yard.
| Their logic would not allow it.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Mr. Tiddlesworth's pronouns are he/him/his.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Just get better windows
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Yeah I was scratching my head about that one too. We
| can't hear much outside our windows.
|
| Triple pane is the way to go.
| gsich wrote:
| Larger scale? More like local scale. Also sources.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| > Outdoor cats are a threat to global biodiversity.
|
| Not a tenth as much as you are.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Are there any other fallacies you'd like to share with us
| this morning?
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Are you saying that you don't eat, or use oil in any way,
| or any sort of technology?
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson estimates that 30,000
| species per year (or three species per hour) are being
| driven to extinction. Compare this to the natural
| background rate of one extinction per million species per
| year, and you can see why scientists refer to it as a
| crisis unparalleled in human history.[..]
|
| https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_a
| nd_...
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Your neighborhood didn't get a cat, you did. Your
| neighbors shouldn't be expected to take responsibility
| for limiting the damage your cat does.
|
| The solution is not to make the world fit cats, the
| solution is for you to take personal responsibility for
| the animal you decide to host at your house. If you can't
| keep that animal at your house, then don't get an animal.
| It's simple.
|
| Nobody would suggest if I buy a hyena that eats dogs that
| people should start putting their dogs in hyena proof
| armor so as to accommodate the preferences of the hyena
| owner and the inclinations of the hyena.
| cityofdelusion wrote:
| I've had a cat hit by a car and a cat lost forever. They
| were both indoor cats that were completely unprepared for
| what was outside. They escaped.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| Is this an American thing or something? Almost all the
| cats I've ever known were outdoor cats in the UK.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Is this an American thing or something? Almost all the
| cats I've ever known were outdoor cats in the UK.
|
| I can't speak for anyone else, but I'd never allow my
| cats outside.
|
| Not for ecological reasons, but because I live in a flat
| on the fourth (that'd be the third floor in the UK) floor
| of an apartment building in NYC.
|
| If my cats got out of my apartment, they'd have to go
| down three flights of stairs and then wait for someone to
| open two separate doors in order to get out into the
| street.
|
| Once on the street, there are many hazards for cats, not
| least of which are automobiles.
|
| Having been to London, I imagine that there's a similar
| dynamic there as well.
|
| As such, I'd say that it's more about
| urban/suburban/rural settings than different countries.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| I mean yeah, it's irresponsible to let people go outside,
| drive cars, play sports, consume media by personal
| choice, engage in romantic relationships, climb stairs
| and ladders, drink alcohol etc. Yet we still generally
| feel the quality of life improvements outweigh the
| quantity of life decreases.
|
| Consider also that humans confined to an indoor
| environment have much more environmental enrichment
| available in books, television, internet, games etc. The
| only environmental enrichment available to cats indoors
| are really terrible simulacra of nature (strings, balls,
| furniture) and many of these are only available when
| people are available to play.
| isthrowawaybul wrote:
| >It is incredibly irresponsible to let cats outdoors.
|
| Istanbul has left the chat.
| lIl-IIIl wrote:
| I have never heard of this. Why wouldn't you be surprised
| if your police officer spouse hits you or commits
| adultery?
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Police officer's commit domestic violence and adultery at
| a rate far higher than other non-LEO civilians. Some of
| us who have experienced it first hand may talk about it
| in jest to help alleviate the anxiety and other problems
| it has caused.
|
| My aim wasn't to offend anyone. Well unless you're a cop
| that commits domestic violence. They should probably be
| offended.
|
| It was a tactless analogy, but a strong analogy
| nonetheless.
| lIl-IIIl wrote:
| There were a few things that bothered me in that
| statement.
|
| "what did you expect to happen" blames the victim.
|
| "Police officer is as likely to engage in domestic
| violence as a cat is to kill a bird outside" is not a
| strong analogy. I think almost all young cats would kill
| birds outside. It's a far cry form "a far higher rate".
|
| As a rhetorical device, it falls flat because it argues
| for something obvious by comparing it to something
| obscure. It would work better the other way - if you were
| on a thread talking about domestic violence and comparing
| it to cats killing birds.
|
| Men commit violence at a far higher rate than women. But
| it's still lower than the "what did you expect"
| threshold.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| A quick search can't find anything to validate the claim
| of police officers committing adultery more than other
| roles. Ironically tech and entrepreneurs rank highest
| among men in most polls, along with trade workers
| kerblang wrote:
| This was at worst a mildly controversial comment until
| you got to the point declaring that all police officers
| are spouse-beating adulterers.
| edgyquant wrote:
| It's ridiculous the lengths people go to inject their
| politics into their every post. Also sometimes cats just
| get out and run away, not everyone is letting them
| outside. In fact I'd wager that's almost never the case.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| You'd wager that people rarely allow their cats outside
| intentionally?
|
| I imagine you'd lose that bet.
|
| Indoor/outdoor cats have been common everywhere I have
| lived.
|
| My next door neighbor's cat, Mr. Freckles, almost
| completely wiped out our chipmunk colony and I still find
| dead birds he has killed every few weeks.
|
| I live in a small neighborhood of 43 homes and there are
| 6 cats that I know of that spend the majority of their
| time outside.
|
| I wish I lived where you live where it was less common.
| njacobs5074 wrote:
| This behavior always reminds me of book "The World Without
| Us"[0] in which the author points out that, of all our
| domesticated animals, cats would definitely survive due to
| their excellent hunting skills in a world without humans.
| -- [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| >cats would definitely survive due to their excellent
| hunting skills in a world without humans.
|
| I don't know about yours, but my cats would not adjust
| well.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > absolutely do decimate local bird populations
|
| Which is why it's best to keep them indoors or perhaps have
| a catio so they can experience the outdoors without
| impacting the local wildlife. It's also better for the cats
| as indoor cats tend to live longer.
| purim wrote:
| Why does people having different opinion upset you? People
| claim dogs are also unfavourable. I personally do not like
| cats but the personality effect is more pronounced among cats
| because they do not express themselves as much as dogs.
|
| In general I do not like pets or children. If you think they
| are amazing, great! but know others may not share your
| opinions.
| gnulinux wrote:
| Well, it's not because they have different opinions. It's
| because to me it feels like one of the greatest things life
| can offer. Just like most people would consider intimacy
| with a partner, having children, finding a satisfying
| career/hobby as great things life offers to us humans, I
| tend to think having a bond with an animal (cat or dog I
| suppose, but they're very different kind of bonds) is
| another thing life has to offer to us. Of course, I don't
| mean to imply a human is less valid without the love of an
| animal (or less valid without the love of a partner, child,
| job etc) but I still do think that some people _are_
| missing out on this. This is part that makes me sad. If you
| truly gave cats a shot and you dislike them, I don 't give
| a shit how you feel about them.
| kelnos wrote:
| Not the person you're replying to, but I don't think I'd
| characterize myself as being "upset", just... disappointed?
| Annoyed? Most people's opinions of cats as pets are
| informed by inaccurate, negative stereotypes, while most
| people's opinions of dogs (even if they don't have one or
| rarely interact with one) are positively influenced by the
| "Man's Best Friend" stereotype.
|
| Opinions are fine, if they're informed by actual
| experience, or at least secondhand experience by trusted
| parties. But I think most opinions about cats are not that,
| and it's unfortunate. They do the entire species a
| disservice.
| tarentel wrote:
| It's cool if you don't like cats but I think the op was
| pointing out that some people think cats are just vengeful
| little maniacs. Which some of them are but they have a very
| wide range of personalities and classifying them all as
| such is a bit unfair.
|
| Also, cats express themselves just as much as dogs if not
| more. They just do it much differently. I can tell what my
| cat wants just by the way she meows.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| totally agree, with one thought : if you've seen people with
| rescued pumas (who also purr) they're _exactly_ like
| "domestic" cats...just much bigger.
| honkycat wrote:
| You can make the same argument about "love" with cats as with
| dogs. They're both projections of a human emotion onto a much
| less intelligent and altruistic creature.
|
| think it's an absurd toxic masculinity "dogs for men cats for
| women" thing.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Amy's Baking Company.
| purim wrote:
| I don't think its particularly healthy to be purring, you are
| most likely causing damage to your vocal chords. The way cats
| do it are completely different and it causes their whole body
| to vibrate. You are better off humming to your cats.
| [deleted]
| erybodyknows wrote:
| Parent likely meant a vocal trill, similar to "rolling your
| r's".
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| We had inside/outside cats growing up, and they would follow us
| to school and make it back home on their own. When we were
| playing in the street or in our backyard, if we hurt ourselves
| they would go inside to "tell" our parents.
|
| One of my cats would wait by the window when I was at school,
| and when I stayed up too late at night come to "complain" to me
| to get me to go to sleep.
| miriam_catira wrote:
| Every time our son cries, our cat runs to him - from the time
| he was a baby to now. We can't decide if it's a maternal
| instinct to "make sure the baby is ok" or if she just needs to
| know about everything going on in the house. I like to think
| it's the former.
|
| Plus, this cat wears her emotions openly - much more so than
| other cats we've had. When she's happy / excited, her fur puffs
| up. It's the same fur as when they're angry / scared - the tail
| poofs and the fur along the spine stands up. We were confused
| at first when she was a kitten, since it's so different from
| expected. But we learned that the puffed fur combined with
| intense purring and even rolling seems to be her way of
| expressing joy & pleasure. It's also absolutely adorable.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I purr to cats as well. I recall visiting some friends who have
| cats a few years ago and purring to one of them - the cat did a
| double take and had what seemed to be an expression of surprise
| on his face - like "a purring human, how can this be?!".
| Everyone observing noticed his response.
| nottorp wrote:
| Speaking of cats purring on broken legs, i have an anecdote:
|
| The missus was down in bed with a freshly out of surgery broken
| leg. It still hurt so we kept the leg packed in cold packs.
|
| Every time she laid in bed with the cold packs, our feline owner
| jumped on the bed and laid down near the leg, purring. We naively
| thought she was helping the leg heal.
|
| Until we finally realized she liked the cold packs! She was
| licking them for some reason, i think until she stopped feeling
| her tongue. It was funny to watch her tentatively move said
| tongue in every direction like she was trying to figure out if
| she still has it.
|
| Later we experimented with ice cubes, ice cream (needs to be
| plain vanilla, no other tastes on it) and even snow. Our cat just
| likes something cold now and then!
| bdowling wrote:
| > Purring Is a Love Language No Human Can Speak
|
| You might say that the human version of the language is not
| "purring complete".
| lysergia wrote:
| Certified ailurophile[0] here. I've found the gentle hum of
| purring very soothing, almost like having a hot chocolate on a
| cold day, or chicken soup. It's very comforting, and I'm lead to
| believe the specific frequency of the hum is in line with nature
| and The Universe itself. It has the same frequency of the Omm
| mantra which is apparently the frequency our bodies emit when
| we're in full health and homeostasis or in a meditative trance.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/ailurophile
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| There is nothing that has made me at peace more than my little
| feral kitten that is now 17 and Senior but healthy and no pain
| sits on my chest cavity when I'm laying down, tucks her paws
| under her chest, then purrs away squinting.
|
| I can feel it resonate in my body and it feels like a special
| gift not everybody gets...the love of a feral feline.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| Purring is one of the minor technological/genetic innovations
| in Margaret Atwood's pre/post apocalypse Maddaddam trilogy,
| though not involving cats as we think of them.
| IYasha wrote:
| They say cat purr has healing properties.
| enviclash wrote:
| Pleasure is pleasure, and love is love. Ask my cat!
| ncmncm wrote:
| Cats purr when they want something. Often what they want is more
| of what they are already getting, so they continue purring while
| they get it. But, crucially, they purr before.
|
| Of course they only purr for what they want when somebody else
| can supply it.
| NHQ wrote:
| Counterpoint, humans are not loving on the right level to
| discover what is a purr.
| praptak wrote:
| I went with our cat for a USG. I held her while the vet examined
| her. Suddenly I felt some vibrations in her throat (didn't hear
| purring) and alerted the vet to it. He said that it's probably a
| quiet purr, cats often do that when getting examined and it's
| probably to self-soothe.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| I would argue that nursing human babies make a purring sound as
| they drink milk from their mother's breast. That sound evokes a
| sense of attachment and bonding.
|
| Many times the qualities that we find endearing in pets (for
| example big eyes) are those that remind us of human babies.
|
| My guess would be that humans (maybe subconsciously) preferred
| cats that could make purring noises and thus being able to purr
| conferred a selective advantage to cats.
| katbyte wrote:
| Bigger wild cats like cougars and lynx that have not been
| domesticated pure just the same.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| How do you explain the big cats doing it. There hardly is a
| selection pressure like that in those.
| devinmcafee wrote:
| This sounds reasonable but mountain lions and many other types
| of non-domesticated cats still purr
| (https://parks.sccgov.org/plan-your-visit/park-programs-
| event...). You might be right that domesticated cats have
| evolved behavioral traits to purr more than their
| undomesticated counterparts, but I doubt the trait itself is
| linked to domestication since it still exists in the wild.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > My guess would be that humans (maybe subconsciously)
| preferred cats that could make purring noises and thus being
| able to purr conferred a selective advantage to cats.
|
| Of course it's all speculative, but I wouldn't even expect it
| to be subconscious; if you show me an adorable but silent
| animal, and another cute animal that can express its affection
| by making some sort of pleasant sound, I'm going to be more
| drawn to the one that makes a sound.
| kranke155 wrote:
| Purring is an adaptive trait.
|
| Unnatural selection.
| garou wrote:
| Do you have any studies that prove this statement?
|
| I can raise the hypothesis here that, the cat being a small
| animal, it is also prey and the development of low
| frequency communication between mother and kittens can be
| quite beneficial in hostile environments. Of course, I
| can't claim this to be true.
| kranke155 wrote:
| No I was just joking.
| katbyte wrote:
| Wild non house cats like cougars and lynx that have not
| been domesticated pure just the same.
| kranke155 wrote:
| I was making a joke
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| _Nor can experts say, exactly, what purring means. Cats purr when
| they're happy - but also sometimes when they're anxious or
| afraid, when they're in labor, even when they're about to die._
|
| My cats purr when they're emoting. They stress-purr when hungry
| (or vet trips, etc) and regular-purr when fed. I think it
| indicates an amount of emotion rather than type.
| jerrysievert wrote:
| my cat is a very mellow lap cat, and has had the fortune of
| being socialized quite a bit (she has a space backpack that she
| can travel in, and was a frequent guest at a local pub while
| they were open). thus, on her last vet trip, the doctor was
| shocked that she was purring, in a happy non-stressed way.
|
| of course, that meant for a stop at another pub that she's
| welcome at on the way home, for some more special on-the-bar
| time.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| I swear my dog purrs sometimes when I'm rubbing his neck. Its
| very subtle but he makes some sort of low grunting noise when
| he's relaxed and enjoying his massage.
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