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Can Our Cats Understand Us?
Are cats capable of understanding certain words we speak to them?
It started innocently enough, as I am sure many other cat owners experience: the early morning wake up. My partner lying in bed, still half asleep; my cat perched expectantly on his shoulders. Occasionally I have been fortunate enough to watch my cat gently take the headphone strings in his mouth (my partner will often fall asleep listening to a TV show or movie) and unceremoniously rip the headphones out and proceed to meow directly in his ear.
This morning routine is something that we have come to be very familiar with. Starting as early as 6:30 am the cat demands to be heard. It is time for breakfast. My cat will sit balanced on his shoulders until he hears the (somewhat strange to us now but) magical phrase: “okay”.
In hearing this small two-syllable word he will leap up and jump off the bed in an excited trill and begin to rush downstairs. He knows it is now time for breakfast.
More recently I had realized that it is not just the word “okay” that is he had become familiar with (as we often said this hastily in the resignation of another morning’s sleep lost). It appears my cat has also familiarized himself with another word: “dinner”.
