welcome homeowowow
September 4, 2016 3:20 AM   Subscribe

 
It's wrong how much I laughed over the reaction to the baby.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 3:37 AM on September 4, 2016 [6 favorites]


Me too, fluffy battle kitten (super appropriate btw!)

I love kitty's voice.
posted by kitten magic at 4:04 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


There's something wrong with this cat.

It willingly climbs into the tub to get it's bath. No yowling, no scratching, no piteous moans asking why it's human is torturing it. That's not like any cat I've known.
posted by rdr at 4:20 AM on September 4, 2016 [5 favorites]


Oh god, this sounds so familiar. Triceratops yodels for me, and only me. When I leave in the morning, she sits at the door and howls as I leave. When I leave for fieldwork, she apparently doesn't make much noise until I get back, when the yodeling recommences. Just now, when I played this video, she came running from the other room and started yodeling back.
posted by ChuraChura at 4:52 AM on September 4, 2016 [4 favorites]


This cat is a doppleganger (visually and vocally) for our cat Winslow, who now lives on a farm* Friendliest kitty ever. There's a correlation between white fur on a kitty, and how chill they are.



*Not a euphemism. Our youngest is super allergic, so I had to give him to a coworker. He is now a farm cat.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:09 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


Whoa. As I was watching the second video, our own cow-cat Bonus Cat came up to me and moved in parallel to Moo, walking past me at an angle and then returning for head skritches right on cue. Clearly there's some kind of cat wizardry going on here.
posted by Metroid Baby at 5:28 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


#1 cat, PIkse (creatively spelt by #1 daughter, but turns out to mean "thunder" in Estonian, so we kept the spelling) does the same for me, and only me. I have to make sure she doesn't see me leave, or she'll follow me up the road, howling. Strangely, she's very much Not a Lap Cat, and will not Deign to be Snorgled, unlike her sister who is utter fluffiness and the queen of all snorgles, but couldn't care less if you were here or not.
posted by nonspecialist at 5:39 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


I....don't understand why this cat is noteworthy.
posted by agregoli at 6:14 AM on September 4, 2016 [5 favorites]


Why aren't we talking about the horrifying cat mask yet?! The fact that Moo did not attack her owner while he was wearing that mask makes me think she is a very poor judge of character.
posted by obfuscation at 6:33 AM on September 4, 2016 [4 favorites]


Re: How do cat determine the owner?
Wild guess: posture & smell.
posted by farlukar at 6:44 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


The cat's reaction to the baby was fantastic!
posted by Iteki at 6:45 AM on September 4, 2016


I....don't understand why this cat is noteworthy.

Sorry to hear that. I find the tone of the videos as well as some of the editing (for instance, the replay section in the hamburger video) to be humorous. Also, this.
posted by automatic cabinet at 7:11 AM on September 4, 2016 [5 favorites]


Yes, your cat is trying to talk to you.

Cats not only "speak" to humans in purrs, meows, lurps, yowps, and chirrups that they almost never use among themselves, but also train "their" humans to respond these sounds appropriately. (In their own inter-feline communication, cats emphasise body language apart from unsubtle but unmistakable yowls, hisses, and caterwauls.) No two cats will make exactly the same meow, but every meow a cat makes will be the same for a particular person. For example, a cat will decide one vocalisation means "feed me" and another "let me outdoors" and then will use each one repeatedly in the appropriate context until their human figures out the meaning.

It's far easier for a cat to train a human to understand them than vice versa.
posted by Doktor Zed at 7:29 AM on September 4, 2016 [11 favorites]


Also, purring
posted by farlukar at 7:37 AM on September 4, 2016


I....don't understand why this cat is noteworthy.

I suppose she's not. But interacting with talkative cats is honestly one of the things I like most about being alive. All the cats in my life have been big talkers. When I adopted my current cat I even had the shelter volunteers point me towards the more vocal ones. In fact, I'm talking to her right now. She's concerned about a moth she just saw.
posted by Hey Dean Yeager! at 7:45 AM on September 4, 2016 [18 favorites]


I love talkative cats. My neighbour had a cat that used to greet me like this. I'd walk outside and she'd run up to me, doing that jogging meow thing. You know, the one that sounds like "me-ee-ee-ee-ow."
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 7:54 AM on September 4, 2016 [4 favorites]


My cat, who is fairly vocal, has a yowp he only uses when you let him out of the front door. I leave it to the reader to decide whether this means 'thanks' or 'about fricking time'.
posted by biffa at 8:28 AM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is completely charming!
posted by the thought-fox at 8:45 AM on September 4, 2016


My cat is also named Moo aka Little Wow aka Little Schmao aka Wow Wow Wow aka Her Ladyship. She is sick and uncomfortable now though so these videos make me a little wistful for her spunkier days.
posted by bleep at 10:17 AM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm amazed at the (non) reaction to the cat mask. When my sister was nine, she dressed up as a black cat for halloween and our black cat had a fucking nuclear freakout. It was only when she pulled the hood with the ears up over her head. Her face wasn't even masked! He hated those ears though.
posted by lovecrafty at 11:01 AM on September 4, 2016


Oh, I have one of these. Could be this cat's long lost twin. Rygel, aka Rijealous, aka Bilbo Buggins is a non-stop talker. He also doesn't care for other people much. He's always waiting for me when I get home and is willing to air his grievances constantly although Festivus is months off.
posted by nikitabot at 11:35 AM on September 4, 2016


Aww, this kitty looks like my Ada! And, yes, Ada is a big talker, too. She greets me with lots of rubbing interspersed with the occasional meow and purr when I come home.

As for the cat mask, it seems to work on kittens all right...
posted by tickingclock at 11:40 AM on September 4, 2016


I love chatty cats. That's how my Mom's cat Gabby got her name.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:05 PM on September 4, 2016


My late female kitty Victoria used to greet me like Moo *sniff* My current trio are not major chatters, but the two guys both have a bizarre "blipping" meow that sounds like a Windows machine going into meltdown.

That's how my Mom's cat Gabby got her name.

My mother helps take care of a feral cat colony at a nearby college. Ferals don't usually converse with humans at all, but there's a longtime pair of littermates comfortable enough with the Bringers of Noms to exchange a few pleasantries now and then; Mom dubbed them Gabby and Cicero.
posted by thomas j wise at 1:40 PM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


farluker, cats have no need to ask that question, they are. The only question, who will be serving in this decidedly low class restaurant tonight?
posted by evilDoug at 3:40 PM on September 4, 2016


yep, my Purrsephone could be the fatter twin, and she too is the chattiest of cats.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 3:45 PM on September 4, 2016


Amazing how she (I presume) is simply curious about the baby at first, and only after relatively prolonged sniffing gets spooked and runs for it.

I'd bet she spooks when she smells that the baby is the offspring of the owners -- possibly because that triggers some program that makes her avoid other cats' kittens (because too much interest might provoke a defensive reaction from a parent?)?

Here's what I'd guess to be a later video with the baby grown to toddler stage -- she's still not too excited about the kid, but she tolerates him.
posted by jamjam at 3:53 PM on September 4, 2016


One of my favorite kitties (heck, they were/are ALL favoites) named herself Chatter because she was totally bilingual (human-cat fluent.) She even taught me how to roll my rrrrrr's. She had WORDS for everything.

Wake-up time was a loud yell in my ear. She came from a dairy where my husban went on valentine's day (right at mealtime- I had prepared lamb chops, which was totally out of our budget.) By the time he got hime the food was cold but all was forgiven as he presented this approx 5 month old fluffy black kitty to me....she followed him all over the dairy asking to go home with him. Softie and animal lover; he acquiesced to her offer.

Readers, she ate lamb chops that night because we had no kitty food. We ate an omelet. Best valentines day ever.

It took her 4 days of grooming to not smell like cow patty - all of which she wanted to spend in my lap. She outlived my husband and died in her sleep when she was a senile 19 y.o. frail but loving kitty.
posted by mightshould at 3:59 PM on September 4, 2016 [27 favorites]


Our cat speaks primarily in goat-sounds and turkey-gobbles (which result from her attempts to make goat-sounds while running), which is a source of endless delight. She is the catliest of cats, but as soon as she opens her mouth it just sounds like the entirely wrong animal!

And this is why my partner and I nearly had heart attacks the night she hopped onto our bed and said, quite clearly, for the first time ever, "MEOW."
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 4:47 PM on September 4, 2016 [4 favorites]


"Amazing how she (I presume) is simply curious about the baby at first, and only after relatively prolonged sniffing gets spooked and runs for it."

I think the explanation is pretty simple. At first she's curious about the odd thing and sniffs at it. Then (from the scent, I suppose) she realizes that this is the owner's new kitten, and the sheer strangeness of that idea spooks Moo and makes her run for it. What you're seeing is her being frightened by change, in a household that, from her point of view, has always been the same.
posted by Kevin Street at 5:37 PM on September 4, 2016


I keep expecting to see one of these videos with hardsubs that consist of nothing but FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD
posted by Rhomboid at 12:24 AM on September 5, 2016


Re: How do cat determine the owner?
Wild guess: posture & smell.


Also, I bet the sound the owner's keys made was the same sound they usually make, and the sound of him walking into the house was probably the same as usual too.
posted by bananana at 7:04 AM on September 5, 2016


It is the catnip on his hands. Well, that's what my cat thinks. They both watched the video.
posted by Oyéah at 9:50 AM on September 5, 2016


Re: How do cat determine the owner?
Wild guess: posture & smell.


Maybe they have another sense we don't know about. For many years I lived in a 4th floor walk-up in New York. My late, great beloved Orion would start meowing as soon as I unlocked the front door, at street level. From 4 stories up, he knew it was me--despite all the other ambient sounds around and the noises from the other tenants entering and exiting. It happened every time, including when other people were home to witness it.
posted by nikitabot at 4:04 PM on September 5, 2016


possibly because that triggers some program that makes her avoid other cats' kittens (because too much interest might provoke a defensive reaction from a parent?)?

I wouldn't think so. Cats are pack animals, and Mama cats trade-off and nurse each other's kittens as a matter of course. Adolescent females engage in allomothering, that is, grooming and acting maternal toward other females' kittens even when they don't have any of their own. That's why we're always seeing Mama cats fostering squirrels, puppies, and all sorts of other baby animals.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:30 AM on September 6, 2016


> Maybe they have another sense we don't know about. For many years I lived in a 4th floor walk-up in New York. My late, great beloved Orion would start meowing as soon as I unlocked the front door, at street level. From 4 stories up, he knew it was me--despite all the other ambient sounds around and the noises from the other tenants entering and exiting. It happened every time, including when other people were home to witness it.

Did you get there by car? I've seen dogs who could recognize Favourite Human's car engine sound and go crazy with anticipation hearing it.
posted by farlukar at 2:22 PM on September 6, 2016 [1 favorite]


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