I have 2 cats, but they have both developed their own verbal and non-verbal ways of communicating their wants/ needs.
The Doofman verbalises wanting to go out with a loud meow that sounds like "out!" (not necessarily anywhere near a door), and wants in with one that sounds remarkably like "Hello!!!". Wanting food is always a tug on my left sleeve with a gentle claw.
Little Missy rarely speaks but uses different types of headbuts and nudges to indicate the same.
Doof grew up with us humans, whereas Missy was with us for a few months as a feral kitten before escaping to live wild for 10 years+, then remarkably returning "home" earlier this year and settling right back into the same spot she left. She'd been feral the entire time, and took 6 months to coax back before she seemed to remember where home was. She is slowly learning how to meow as it's not something cats use much in the wild. Her first efforts were croaky "yaks".
They both seem to understand stuff like "I'll be back in a bit", and "see you later, I'm off to work"! The former gets me followed halfway to the catfood shop, the latter has them stay put in the yard.
Anyone else "talk" to their pets ?
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I know her 'someone is at the door bark' vs her 'I need a poo' bark.
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That aside, Mac (our older husky-collie-GSD mix, 12-13yrs old) has developed a lot of communication skills; if I'm sitting on the sofa, he's got a whole range of signals (facial expressions, vocalisations and paw taps) to distinctly tell me what he wants - hungry, thirsty, wants to go out for a pee, wants to go out for a poo, wants to go out the back or front, wants to play...even when he wants us all to go to bed. The point is that we've never explicitly taught him these things...if anything, he taught us.
Millie is like Gromit, she doesn't need much of a voice to communicate with us.
She's amazing. She's a rescue cat who had a terrible life before she dragged herself to our door and meow'd like hell until Natasha opened it and found her. From that point in her life she's gradually learned about love, care and being part of a Family and she loves it.
So do we.
Cheek rubs mean hello, i want food
Cheek rubs with a curly tail like a question mark means i love you and i want attention and fuss
Prancing around in front of the fridge means, i know you keep the treats up there on top of the fridge and i want one !
I get cheek rubs to wake me up, normally at 4am and quite a lot of the time it's to play 'Hairband' with her, but she still knows what to do to communicate with us.
She's an indoor cat but we're on the top floor of a 4 story block and she has the whole top floor to herself. She doesn't like being outside after her old life of being locked out without food for days on end (among other awful things) so she sleeps in the sun on the windowsill and spends the rest of her time generally making the place look pretty and sleeping some more.
I don't know what i would do without her.
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She's not that well developed yet but if she barks twice it means she wants me to use the 2290 not the TES, 3 times and it's the Lazy J40 over the Hiwatt.
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Dylan will tap his paw twice on my chair if he wants to come up for a cuddle or tap my foot twice and run away to the front door if he wants a walk or to the living room rug if he wants to play .
He also sings along with Ylvis "what does the fox say " but that's another story ...
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