• MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    I’ve been witness to the great cat distribution system.

    Our current cat has moved house with us twice. The first house at lived at, we were on the ground floor of the place and this furball just waltzed in and took over. Much to the dismay of the cat we already had.

    The preexisting cat was similar. She would hang out at a bus stop that my SO would frequent to get to work, didn’t take long before she followed my SO home. She was a shit, but she was cute enough to get away with it. Rest in peace Zora.

    Anyways, I would submit that the only reason we haven’t had more cats distributed to us is that we lived on the fifth floor of an apartment for a long while. We recently moved into a house so that might change.

  • PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de
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    7 days ago

    DO NOT feed strangers cats. Water is fine. If you feed it, at best you’re fucking up its diet, at worst you’re basically abducting the cat.

    • Ataraxia@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      We have many strays we are trying to rescue amd until then they get fed and if some rando is letting their cat out to eat whatever the heck then find (and steal my food) on my property that’s the cat’s owner being the asshole. I’m trying to help needy cats and I can’t even oht traps down to get them medical attention because I could end up catching some irresponsible person’s cat.

      • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        We have an asshole stray in our neighborhood, but she’s smart enough she’s figured out traps. One of these days we’ll get her.

    • zephorah@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      The cat is abducting itself. They’re not dogs. They’re rarely loyal.

        • Red Army Dog Cooper@lemmy.ml
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          7 days ago

          As someone who is stauncly pro dog … and weary of cats… I feel like I need to take a side in this debate

          • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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            6 days ago

            Then say something. I have a cat and a dog. They’re both amazing. They are both loving and loyal. They play together so well. My dog needs to chase my cat to get hyped to eat, my cat knows and plays along. My cat lets me know when the dog is on the porch and wants back in. My dog cobs my cat.

            Cats and dogs are both fucking amazing. Insisting one is better than the other is foolish. We are blessed to have such amazing creatures in our lives.

            • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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              6 days ago

              i stick to the adage that dogs are extroverts and cats are introverts, dogs just inherently love you but they can also get kind of exhausting, while cats require you to earn their trust and will in turn show their affection by curiously always being in the same room as you…

  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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    7 days ago

    I have one cat and a doggy door so it can go in and out as it pleases. A stray cat figured out it could use the doggy door.

    I have two cats.

  • the_q@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    Further proof that if you’re cute enough you can get anything you want.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 days ago

      it’s literally just that cats figure out that making noise draws our attention, and even better if they make a cute noise.

    • LeFrog@discuss.tchncs.de
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      7 days ago

      Yeah that seems really far fetched. Humans are generally bad at communicating with mostly body posture and scent. We have no tail to wiggle, no easily movable ears and no chance to use cat pheromones.

      So naturally the cat has the best chance to get a response by using vocalication/sounds. It is just coincidence that their kittens do also mostly respond to sounds in their first weeks.

      • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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        7 days ago

        The resemblance to baby vocalizations can be rather unsettling with some cats. I suppose it’s somewhat natural since they’re about the same size as a newborn human, but specifically adopting somewhat human-like (and thus baby-like, because that’s the one they can imitate the best) vocalization doesn’t seem that far-fetched.

        • SwampYankee@mander.xyz
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          7 days ago

          I mean, I’m not sure cats are out there observing human babies and intentionally imitating them. They have pattern recognition machines in their heads just like we do. “Make noise = human pay attention” is about as complex as this gets. The fact that we’re susceptible to the specific timbre of their voices seems likely to be evolutionary coincidence.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        Right, but adult cats keep making those vocalizations well past that age.

        It’s not that far fetched that their neoteny is an adaptation to humans.

    • Wetstew@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      IIRC, it’s more that they over time figure out what sounds and actions get their owner’s attention. We respond better, unconsiously or otherwise when they meow at us.

      My old cat figured out, before I did, that if she knocks shit off the coffee table I get up and check if her bowl is empty.

      Generally wild/feral adult cats are more or less mute outside of anger/mating/territory calls, but domesticated cats keep their kitten vocalizations if we respond to them.

      My current cat is very vocal and we responded playfully to his meowing as he grew up.

      Edit: Here’s a scientific american blog/article about it. I don’t think it’s something we have confirmation on, just a good hunch.

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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        7 days ago

        Both of my cats came from my in-laws farm and it’s been funny with the older of the two as she needed to learn from another cat how being friendly gets you pets and scritches, meanwhile the younger one who basically came inside as soon as she was on hard food hasn’t had that difficulty

    • Anivia@feddit.org
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      7 days ago

      If meows sounded anything like human baby cries they would give me an instant headache and the desire to get rid of the cat

  • 𝓔𝓶𝓶𝓲𝓮@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    I can’t tell if I hate cats or love cats but they are never neutral. In fact there is a wild one in my house right now

    I don’t even know why is he in my house or how it happened but at this point I think we tolerate each other pretty good. He gets the hose sometimes, I get his piss hose on the floor sometimes. He gets the snacks, I get the purr and fluffiness. I guess I can live with this chaotic balance.

    I guess for someone who likes to control things cats could be a nightmare as they will never be some obedient pets but that may tell more about the owner than the cat.

    Kinda sucks that my floor and sofa is ruined tho, it’s like a mini tiger, wildlife in your house. I guess this is the pleasures of completely feral cats. It’s possible that with this experience I could take on some caracal or serval. Of course I am not crazy nor I approve to do this but I have a glimpse of what mindset and work it would take

    The Cat is also a menace that cannot stand sight of any other cat and goes straight for the throat. Little fluffy psycho, quite lovely

    • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      will never be some obedient pet

      I find it odd that people think that. Mine are all incredibly well-behaved. I mean, I invested time in training them but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. I think the secret is being consistent and correcting the behavior as it’s happening. They’re smart enough to know when they’re doing something wrong. Oh, they know! Lol

    • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      I love cats, but I also love my plants, and despise the odor of a used litter box. Therefore, I cannot have cats. It sucks.

      • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        So we got that expensive robot litter box and you can’t smell it unless you’re emptying it. It has made cat care so much easier.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      6 days ago

      Might be obvious, but have you ruled out infection? Sometimes cats pee in places they shouldn’t if they have a UTI.

      • teamevil@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        Just went through that…I thought it was megacolon because he kept dragging his ass Then I realized he was trying to pee literally everywhere…and I keep a piss free house. As soon as I figured it out he was at the vet 3 times to get it right…but very much money later he’s on the mend.

        It’s scary when your stupid fluffy baby is hurting

  • frezik@midwest.social
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    7 days ago

    Did they model their meows, or did they have a trait that happened to work in a new environment and then pass it on?

    • lugal@sopuli.xyz
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      7 days ago

      From my understanding, wild cats only meow when little and domesticated cats keep this juvenile trait into adulthood

      • MeaanBeaan@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Yes, but the question is if they model their meows to sound like human infants. We know they changed their behavior to meow when wanting attention from us. But I’d be willing to bet they didn’t model their meows to sound like that. They just happen to sound like that because they’re small animals with high pitch voices.

        • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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          7 days ago

          “They modelled their meows to sound like human infants” implies active intent, but (I’m sure you know) that’s not how evolution actually works. If the theory is correct, their meows would naturally evolve to sound more like babies because those are the cats that we would be more likely to take care of, whereas cats with meows that sounded less like our babies would be less likely to be taken care of, and thus less likely to reproduce.

          • MeaanBeaan@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            My only issue with this statement is that it implies there were cats that sounded different from how domesticated cats sound now. I’m not really conviced of that. To my understanding they have a high pitch voice because they’re small. For instance you can find videos online where they record a tiger “meowing” then they pitch it up to the register of a house cat. The resulting meow sounds nearly indistinguishable (other than the digital artifacts Inherent to doing such a thing) from a regular house cat’s meow. Now tigers obviously didn’t adapt to meowing like infants so my conclusion is that cats just sound like that and natural (human?) Selection had very little if anything to do with it.

          • Klear@sh.itjust.works
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            6 days ago

            Or: people who didn’t respond to these meows didn’t keep their cats and rats ate all their grain so people more responsive to the meows reproduced more…

        • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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          7 days ago

          There’s a good chance that it’s just a mammalian trait that predates modern humans or house cats. Pretty much all mammals require some extra protection and care when they are young and vulnerable, so it being common among other mammals isn’t exactly surprising.

      • TheFogan@programming.dev
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        7 days ago

        To my knowledge that’s a lot of how domestication winds up being.

        What I found interesting was a study when they tried to domesticate silver foxes for the fur industry (because basically they didn’t take to being raised in fur farms well). So basically they were selectively bread for not being aggressive to humans.

        Which worked, but the drawbacks were effectively… all of their childlike traits remained. IE their ears stayed floppy, and they stopped growing the silver coat that was the whole reason the fur industry wanted them.

        Basically I think it could be said that effectively… most domestication traits are more or less, keeping childlike mentality for life in animals.