Cats do know their names... but don't care...

[Manotea]

It says in the papers - according to a recent scientific study, so it must be true - that:

'if your cat does not respond when you call it, it is not because it does not recognise its name but because it does not respect you and instead views your life with, at best, cold indifference.

Who knew?

[fuzzy]

So- the boss treats the staff like shit?

[trekker12]

And yet when we ring a small bell on the end of a fishing wire they both come running

[Pingu]

Pumpkin responds to her name, Ninkasi doesn't.

[hellymedic]

I don't think our cats respond to their names.
They respond to:
Any lights switched on after either of us returns home
David and I speaking to each other
The sound on my chair being dragged on the kitchen floor
My getting dressed in the morning
The sound of cat food dishes on the counter
The sound of cat food being opened.

They respond to any sound they associate with FOOD but HATE the doorbell.

No surprises...

[Kim]

One of my cats knew her name.  She was the clever one, and I successfully taught her all sorts of tricks, like playing fetch, jumping on command, hide and seek and sitting quietly and waiting by her bowl rather than trying to steal food.

The others didn't seem to, but they did have a special "Where are you?" meow when calling for each other, so it's possible we were just using the wrong language^[1].  I tested this at one point, and they'd respond to recordings of each other's "Where are you?".

They were both skilled at recognising other specific sounds: the obvious catfood-related noises, the approach of the family cars, footsteps on the gravel driveway, particular doors opening, interesting toys, and so on.


_{[1] AUIU the SCIENCE on this one is that meow sounds made for specific things aren't consistent between cats, but that humans - being wired for language - are able to learn those of their own cats.  I certainly knew the meows for "Where are you?", "Follow me", "Hello?  Let me in!", "Feed me!", "I'm about to vomit", "I'd like to register a complaint about the standard of maintenance of this litter tray", "Why did you let the weather do *that*?" and "Come quick, there's a critter!".  Siamese cats make this sort of thing easier, as they're so vocal.}

[hellymedic]

AIUI Cats' hearing is biased towards the high-pitched and Mama Cat's 'Grub's Up' miaow was very high-pitched and resulted in immediate attachment by the kits.

Big Tom responds better and issues much lower-pitched sounds than Blackie, the rumble of my chair scraping on the floor quickly stirs him. He might be feeling the vibration though.

[Kim]

Yeah, I think they can hear above 60kHz, at least when young.  All the better for locating meeces.  I wouldn't be surprised if all those whiskers give them some infrasonic pickup too.

Most cat vocalisations are juvenile/mothering behaviour, which gets extended to humans in those who are socialised as kittens.  Adult cats rarely vocalise to communicate with each other, other than purring, aggressive hissing, growling and yelping, and sexual caterwauling.

Our cats' "Where are you?" meow was interesting in this respect (it was a deep, resonant "mawww", quite different from the sounds they used for talking to humans, but not quite a caterwaul), I presume a variation on the sound for calling to lost kittens (which tends to have more purr in it), though neither had been a mother.

That cats learn to modulate their solicitation purr to hit the frequencies of a human baby crying is well documented.  Humans are hardwired to have a low tolerance for this noise, and will readily feed the cat to make them stop.

[rogerzilla]

Tigs comes when called.  It sometimes takes 5 minutes if he's busy down the river with his cat friends (there is an elaborate cat social structure around here).

[SoreTween]

_{[1] AUIU the SCIENCE on this one is that meow sounds made for specific things aren't consistent between cats, but that humans - being wired for language - are able to learn those of their own cats.  I certainly knew the meows for "Where are you?", "Follow me", "Hello?  Let me in!", "Feed me!", "I'm about to vomit", "I'd like to register a complaint about the standard of maintenance of this litter tray", "Why did you let the weather do *that*?" and "Come quick, there's a critter!".  Siamese cats make this sort of thing easier, as they're so vocal.}

You missed: "No you fool, I don't want you to open the door to that weather.  Open the door to the nice weather and do it now!"

[Kim]

_{[1] AUIU the SCIENCE on this one is that meow sounds made for specific things aren't consistent between cats, but that humans - being wired for language - are able to learn those of their own cats.  I certainly knew the meows for "Where are you?", "Follow me", "Hello?  Let me in!", "Feed me!", "I'm about to vomit", "I'd like to register a complaint about the standard of maintenance of this litter tray", "Why did you let the weather do *that*?" and "Come quick, there's a critter!".  Siamese cats make this sort of thing easier, as they're so vocal.}

You missed: "No you fool, I don't want you to open the door to that weather.  Open the door to the nice weather and do it now!"

None of our cats actually did that one.  Their weather complaints were always retrospective (and often muddy).

[rafletcher]

Our cat barely vocalises at all, sometime a squeak when asking for breakfast, but generally she's like a ghost around the place.  She has to go to the cattery in May, that'll be a challenge as she hated - refused to go outside and hid behind a hanging blanket - when she was at the RSPCA centre.

[ian]

Bad Cat miaows all the time and very loudly (this is our fault for encouraging her my miaowing back). Her official name is Lala, because she's mentally la-la and came us as a Lola. Little Monster Cat we mostly call the Hunstersaurus because her real name is Honey and she's a monster. They both come when called (and often when not called), though I suspect we could shout anything at the right tone. If voices fail, Bad Cat can hear the sound of a can opening miles away, and there's nothing she likes more than tuna, other than contact lens solution. LMC is mostly silent other than the rare meep though she does keep a huge miaow inside.

[rogerzilla]

Tigs knows when it's tuna from the can opener.  Sainsbury's tuna in spring water* doesn't have a convenient ring pull.

*which is pretty odd if you think about it

[gibbo]

My cat knows her name. However, like everything else, her coming when called is on her terms. If she doesn't want to do something then she won't. I love cats for that.