[herodotus]

I have tried to train my two cats with just these words:

1. "Let's go" - morning meal

2. "Upstairs" - I am going to bed

3. "Dinner" (plus clink bowls together) - evening meal

4. "Lie Down"

and their names.

Emerald, who prefers being upstairs, definitely responds to "Upstairs": she charges upstairs when I say it. Jade remains enigmatic and skeptical: that seems to be her nature. But if she is in the mood for a tummy rub, she will respond to "Lie Down".

For me, the great charm of cats is that it is impossible to tell the difference between "No, I don't understand you." and "I understand you perfectly well, but I plan to ignore you completely until I feel like responding".

[happimess]

My cat and I have one firm English phrase: "3...2...1". I say that whenever I want him to make up his mind, and at the end I always close the door, pull the sweater from under him, or whatever. He definitely knows what it means, and knows I mean it.

> between "No, I don't understand you." and "I understand you perfectly well, but [nothing in my nature compels me to care]".

This is where he and I are for lots of other stuff, and I also love him for it.

[_carbyau_]

As a parent, this works well with toddlers too. When you start counting they know a storm is coming and they can avoid it if they choose their next answer/action carefully...

[dansiemens]

“No Dad stop counting!” is how my toddler retorts. Works wonders though!

[Perenti]

"I want that done by the time I count to one" terrifies 5-7 year olds.

[rendall]

"I don't want to have to count" I said to my son the other day, whence he scurried

[_carbyau_]

I say this exact thing too. It usually plays out as:

- ask kiddo to do something, get a "no" or "I'm busy."

- I say "I don't want to have to count." Continued resistance 30% of the time.

- If resistance then counting starts. Compliance comes earlier or later in the counting 95% of the time.

If counting finishes then guaranteed tears also has a plan because wife and I have time to see it coming too.

[thekid314]

That is brilliant

[nlh]

In a similar vein, one of the charming things about my cat is when he chooses to step on my arm/hand/leg as he's walking around me or clamoring for attention. It's done so elegantly that it would be easy to say "oh that's just where he happened to step, and your arm was in the way."

But! Watch him navigate the minefield of my desk as he's going to get a sip of water and you'll realize that he absolutely knows exactly where each paw is going with extreme precision on each step. The effortless "oops did I just step on your hand so you'll notice me?" is anything but an oops :)

[arthurcolle]

I loved when my parents' cat named Booboo (RIP litle buddy) would do the deliberate step onto my belly/arms lol, and also look into the distance/ out a window. Literally a call to action a la Calvin & Hobbes "so what are we doing today, human?"

[eevilspock]

Watch this without the audio, which is annoying:

https://www.tiktok.com/@danil_chernyy/video/7096930280765721...

[Crosseye_Jack]

> Jade remains enigmatic and skeptical: that seems to be her nature.

Its been shown in the past (not got the links to hand, and cba to google right now, but I'm sure they wont be hard to find) that cats know their name, its just often they don't give a shit when you call them. Which pretty much any cat servant will understand. Wouldn't be surprised that also applies to other words/commands.

EDIT: My own cat knows her name, but will ignore me unless she wants attension, sleep or bird watching is far too important to go and see what I want.

EDIT2: Fucking Typos!!!

[godelski]

That's weird, my cat will come no matter what name I call her as long as I use the same intonations. I'm not convinced she knows her name but rather that she knows pitches. Similarly my cat won't do tricks without the hand gestures despite me always using the same commands. Maybe my cat is just dumb or stubborn, or both. I have seen her run head first into a wall before.

[dasil003]

The last part reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H25ve3qts4

[animal531]

I loved the monologue in Austin Powers when Dr. Evil is talking about his childhood and he mentions that his father was a boulangerie owner. I didn't know what it meant at the time and had to google: "Bakeries must bake their bread on-premises to hold the title of 'boulangerie' in France"

[godelski]

I forgot about that video, made me laugh. Thanks. But also, pretty accurate description. Maybe that's why she doesn't play chase as much anymore.

[looshch]

replayed this vid for 10 times, thanks

[forgetfulness]

My cat ignores made up names every time (barely acknowledging that I'm speaking to him by turning his ear around), and will, probably 2/3s of the time, come when called.

The others he just ignores me.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Cats destroy the assumption that animals should do what we tell them to, because that's how it works.

Of course they have agency and their own goals. It's fascinating that humans are surprised and sometimes baffled by this.

[manachar]

Humans are regularly surprised to discover that the preponderance of evidence strongly suggests the universe was not created exclusively for themselves.

[BitwiseFool]

Is solipsism wrong, or is it just me?

[rightbyte]

Who believes that?

[sandgiant]

Sounds just like my 2yo homo sapiens.

[toss1]

Long and close observation of cats leads me to the inescapable conclusion that the latter is almost always the case. The number of times they understand some obscure thing exactly when I have no expectation that they'll get it at all, and their ability to selectively ignore the things I know they already understand, plus their ability to ask for complex things (where often I'm the dummy in the conversation) makes it a pretty inescapable conclusion. . .

[vmception]

A lot of times they respond or acknowledge as well, just not with their eyes

They wont look at you because its not their primary way of “seeing” or spatializing the world or their etiquette

Their ears might briefly move in your direction, their tail might flick in one of their frustrating ways, they might not move a muscle (which is a conscious response for them as well)

[nisegami]

We thought that our cat didn't respond to her name until we noticed she always flicked her tail when we said it. It really blew my mind.

[lkxijlewlf]

The tell tail cat.

[laylomo2]

Tails tell tales.

[leeoniya]

yep, my previous cat responded with his tail every time. we let him roam outside every day and he would always come home when we whistled or called his name. also walked with us like a dog off a leash.

our current cats are less responsive, maybe cause there's two of them, so they have more cat-like comm.

[nescioquid]

> ...their ability to ask for complex things (where often I'm the dummy in the conversation)...

I love the way you put that.

Whenever my office door opens and the cat walks in, she's either there for a visit or to collect me, in which case she waits by the door to lead me to her dish, her toys, or whatever she has in mind. Beyond communicating with humans, cats are pretty good at training them, too.

[Zancarius]

> cats are pretty good at training them, too.

Mum has a cat who has this particular (and peculiar) habit of drinking from the faucet whenever he's had treats.

It's pretty hilarious how well he's trained the humans. Whenever he's had a treat, he'll walk toward the bathroom and flick his tail, ears turned back, expectantly waiting for someone to follow. If no one follows, he'll continue on his way and jump up on the counter top. If he still hasn't collected anyone's attention, he'll emit a distinctive (and very squeaky!) meow that he uses for no other purpose than "I want a drink" and will do so periodically until someone comes to turn the faucet on. Otherwise he'll lay there until he's noticed (if not, he'll give up and finally go to one of the water bowls).

He's also finicky about the flow rate. If it's turned up too high (he prefers a gentle stream—almost a dribble) he'll stare at you until the flow rate is corrected.

Talk about training his humans indeed!

[TheBigSalad]

tbf I ignore my cats too.

[cookiengineer]

We trained our cat from a very young age, and used it as a routine for getting treats or food.

The cat is able to do the following:

- sit

- spin (rotate in a circle)

- "up up" to stand on their feet, tapping my finger with the paws

- "high five" and "low five"

- "platz" to lay down on all fours

- "come on" to follow around

- "nom nom" to signal whether or not it wants food. You can see the eyes getting big immediately when it's very hungry.

- whistling to come to a specific spot

- double tap on a surface to signal to come to a specific spot

There's a theory that cats that don't scream but make the "urrr"ing sounds don't treat their owners like a kitten but as a mutually respected individual. And most people think that cats try to make the "urrr" sounds to communicate with humans.

These sounds vary in pitch and repetition and length and it's very easy to identify what our cat wants from us:

- when it doesn't like something

- when it wants to play hide and seek

- when it wants to go outside

- when it wants us to help it get to a specific spot (e.g. opening the door or making a fort on the bed so it can hide under the sheets).

- when it wants to cuddle

- when it wants to be hold in the arms so it can see what we're doing (on the kitchen counter, where it isn't allowed to jump on)

- and, of course, when it is hungry, that's the high pitch scream most cats do.

What I also wanted to add is that our cat has different moods of cooperating with the tricks it has to do when getting food. When it's only slightly hungry it tries to get away with cuddling us or "pushing" the head to the hand while purring...whereas when it's really really hungry it immediately does the tricks to get it over with.

I guess that cats are intelligent enough for tricks but they are also easily bored, that's why you have to change tricks to keep their brains busy and healthy.

[selfmodruntime]

This seems to be true. My one cat has different „urrr‘s“ and screams for wanting food, attention, begging someone to open a door and especially when he has to relieve himself but his toilet is not in an acceptable state.

[elliottcarlson]

My cat definitely has different sounds for different behaviors -- the most interesting one is when I leave the house and he didn't see me leave, I will get a notification from my nest cam that it thought it heard someone speaking, which will be my cat making a guttural sound that sounds eerily like "hello?" - he will sometimes do this if he can't find me in the house.

A second distinct meow he makes is when he is able to sneak past the baby gate to run down the stairs to the front door -- I call this his "see ya, sucker" meow.

[cookiengineer]

Oh, I forgot to add that I think that cats only hear different pitches and aren't able to differentiate consonants from vocal sounds and/or their meaning.

A couple times I did the morning food routine while brushing my teeth (when I was in a hurry) and I was only humming the words while my cat was perfectly able to understand what I want from it.

[treeman79]

Mine has trained the family that when he is hungry he starts slamming covered doors opening closed repeatedly.

Started off that we kept food in there. So of course he would try and get in. This lead to him being fed when was trying to get in. So now it’s a signal.

We have been well trained

[richrichardsson]

A bit O/T, but presumably you meant "cupboard" doors. What I'm curious about is was this just a stretch of an autocorrect, or if English is a second language, as I could see that it might be a plausible approximation of cupboard if you'd only ever heard the word. I find this kind of thing fascinating, as when I'm trying to learn another language it's all too easy to hear something and switch it to another word that's close enough phonetically.

[treeman79]

I had a series of strokes. I mix up words a lot since. Cupboard is correct.

[wholinator2]

One of my relatives has a similar thing. I hope things are goin well for ya my dude.

[UncleOxidant]

One of ours jumps up on top of our printer and reaches up on the wall and starts pawing at a poster when he's hungry.

[ratww]

What's on the poster?

[UncleOxidant]

A waterfall. I think he's basically just saying "Nice poster you've got there, be a shame if something happened to it"

[throwanem]

Could be the paper makes a distinctive rattle, and he's learned it will elicit a distinctive response. Cats' theory of mind for humans isn't all that thorough, I think, but they have a very solid grasp of cause and effect. Honestly, I think they mostly think we're simple.

They definitely aren't, though, at least not all of them. My guy used to fight like hell any time I tried to trim his claws, so eventually I gave it up and let him look after himself, thinking, well, he's a cat and he's got plenty of carpet to scratch, he'll do fine. That lasted till he got an ingrown claw, so I had to trim that back, debride and disinfect the wound it'd made in his pad, then trim enough fur on his foreleg short enough to get a bandage to stick where he couldn't shake it off.

He really hated that, for all that it only took a couple of days to heal - they're better at that than even we are, and in a week you couldn't tell except by the missing fur that anything had ever happened. Well, by that and one other thing: for the balance of his life, when I went to trim his claws, he never put up much more than a token struggle. Where before he'd fight his way to the top of my head and leap clear, this was just enough of a fuss to make sure nobody thought him a coward, and no more - he'd learned it was worth letting me look after him a little, so he didn't need me to look after him a lot.

[ratww]

> Could be the paper makes a distinctive rattle, and he's learned it will elicit a distinctive response

Yep, I think that's the answer! The cat discovered the dog clicker!

[dghughes]

Cats are incredibly good at knowing the time if it's the same time they probably already know and are thinking "Whatever food giver make those thumbs dance".

Mine gets treats at 9pm and she knows almost exactly when it's 9pm maybe a 1 minute deviation. This is without an external cues. She sits there waiting for me if I forget.

[TowerTall]

I can confirm that cats knows the time. My cats come everyday 3:30 pm sharp signaling that is food time. They are outdoor cats and often go wandering but by 3:30 they are back home.

[clairity]

my cat totally knows her name but listens to most all of my vocalizations for anything she may want. she comes or meows if she hears something desireable (which, as she knows, her name is correlated with but not perfectly), and ignores me or leaves if she hears something undesireable (like "bath"). so it's not just a dichotomy between misunderstanding and apathy, but more a case of personal assessment and desire.

[andrepd]

> For me, the great charm of cats is that it is impossible to tell the difference between "No, I don't understand you." and "I understand you perfectly well, but I plan to ignore you completely until I feel like responding".

Incidentally, this is why I dislike cats so much and prefer dogs :)

[spicybright]

There's a very funny gag in the credits of the movie Inside Out by pixar about cats vs dogs.

https://youtu.be/6DZVnX8bEAs?t=68

(If you've never seen the movie, it's worth a watch!)

[amusedcyclist]

I love how dog people feel the need to talk about how much they hate cats at every turn but cat people kind of like all animals

[droidist2]

It's similar to smartphones. Android users express hate for iPhones and Apple way more than the reverse. Also I'd bet there's a correlation between smartphone brand and animal preference, with Android users preferring dogs and iPhone users preferring cats.

[andrepd]

That's called a confirmation bias, friend.

[TheBlerch]

So true

[carimura]

just don't get a Pyrenees. maybe this whole time he's just been a huge cat.

[zdragnar]

I was going to comment that my dog frequently pretends to not understand me, but he's part Pyrenees... I hadn't realized that was a trait of the breed!

[gattilorenz]

My dachshund is the same. Affectionate as a dog, stubborn as a cat

[crmd]

>the great charm of cats is that it is impossible to tell the difference between "No, I don't understand you." and "I understand you perfectly well, but I plan to ignore you completely until I feel like responding"

It’s totally the same thing with retired racer greyhounds. Gentle, stoic, sleep 20 hours a day, and literally zero eagerness to please. They’re the most catlike of dog breeds.

[throwanem]

It depends a lot on the greyhound, I think.

We had a rescue when I was little, a beautiful dog named Anubis. She wasn't too bright, but that was okay; she had a pal, an Eskimo dog called Raven, who was smart enough for the both of them and had a sense of humor to match - not but a foot high but she could jump up from a standing start and lick my face, and often did. Even on the worst day of my life, Raven could still get me to smile.

Anubis hadn't been a winner on the track but she loved nothing more than to run, and Raven knew it. Every so often, not more than once a month or so, Raven would pick a spot at the edge of the backyard fence. There she'd dig a hole bigger than she needed, because the hole wasn't for her; it was for Anubis, who'd wriggle through and promptly light out for the horizon. Meanwhile Raven amused herself and kept us busy with fruitless attempts to catch her. She'd run straight at me till I crouched down and committed to the lunge, and then she'd dodge on a dime and turn laughing to watch me faceplant in the dirt - cats might not laugh but dogs sure do, and Raven was the laughingest dog I ever did know.

This'd keep up till Anubis had done stretching her legs, and trotted back to press her muzzle into Mom's hand by way of genuine contrition. You could see she felt bad about it, but only to the extent she knew Mom didn't like it, if only because we were concerned with the day's occasions and she worried Anubis would get hit by a truck, which was a real concern on the gravel roads around where we lived then. Hell, Mom and I spent enough time ourselves tooling around those back roads with a six-pack in a foam cooler on the bench seat between us, her getting through a couple-three cans of Bud Light while she taught me how to drive and how to know every bird we saw without most times needing to pick up the Audubon next to the cooler. But just a few beers, barely enough to get buzzed, and most of the folks around there were a fair bit less restrained than Mom - less likely to worry about whether or not they might hit a deer on the road, more so to put a .308 through it, this being close enough to roadkill to keep the fish & game wardens sweet. So I can't blame Mom worrying, but Anubis must've either kept mostly to the woods or else just led a charmed life; occasional fleas notwithstanding, she never came to the least bit of harm.

As for the running itself, Mom understood that was just what Anubis had to do every now and again, but when she came back you could see she'd rather have found a way that wouldn't put Mom out. In any case, only once she saw Anubis was satisfied would Raven let me "catch" her, mainly so she could lick my face and I'd scratch behind her ears - it wasn't that I couldn't stay mad; it was that she was the kind of dog that you couldn't get mad in the first place. Both of them were.

Mom kept Rottweilers later - as pets, not for any other reason - and those were good dogs too, smart and kind and loving, but Anubis and Raven were special. God, I loved those dogs. Every kid should be so lucky.

[daenz]

I use "Let's go" for "it's time to leave this room", and the effect is that they flop on the ground, unwilling to move further. If that had been my intent, it would be a decent trick!

[TheOtherHobbes]

I believe that's cat for "No."

[poisonarena]

I feel skeptical, I think cats and also most dog breeds understand only pitches that sound excited, because that means walk or tummy rub or food, but the actual said words could be anything, every time

[Scalestein]

When I'm training my dog I don't consider them to actually "know" a command until they recognize the word specifically. I can say "sit", "stay", or "lie down" in the exact same tone and my dog responds differently based on the word.

[dmtroyer]

no hand gestures or order in which you say them?

[colechristensen]

Tone is just as much a part of language and there’s a good chance when teaching language you ended up teaching the tone pattern better than the phonemes. It’sa much better pattern March until you have a large vocabulary.

[stormbrew]

This is really more of a comment on a lot of the replies to this comment than the comment itself:

Something to keep in mind is that cats have a very broad but different hearing range from humans. Their central frequency range of hearing overlaps with human speech but doesn't entirely cover it on the low end. So if your voice is low, you might need to raise your pitch a bit to help the cat recognize it as vocalization or differentiate it.

And they also don't really naturally communicate with vocalizations (unlike dogs, I believe); cat to cat communication is through other means. They literally learned to meow to talk to us because we don't understand their communication methods (sometimes, but not always, because we lack the senses to do so). So I think that's something to keep in mind if you feel like your cat is being obtuse: they're literally working pretty hard to make you understand them, actually.

So like, it's not that surprising that sometimes they just don't want to put in the effort. You'd probably feel the same way.

[hooande]

There are many stray cats in my neighborhood and I see them communicate vocally all the time. Mothers definitely call audibly to locate their kittens, and vice versa. They'll often call out to each other as adults, I think for mating?

These cats do a thing where they get inches from each other's faces and make a very loud, very long moaning sound. I imagine it's something in the local gene pool (my neighbor has been feeding strays for over a decade, I hate it)

[oogetyboogety]

Hmm my dog acts like a cat or i suck since i definitely cant tell between "No, I don't understand you." and "I understand you perfectly well, but I plan to ignore you completely until I feel like responding".

[rendall]

I've learned that dogs will "say" no. Cats "say" no by ignoring, which we often misinterpret as that they do not understand