Americans don’t know basic facts about their cats, fail to properly care for them and overestimate how well they do as pet parents, according to a new poll.
The survey of cat owners commissioned by PetSafe found most people in the US who have cats in their home don’t know their feline friends typically have 18 toes, for example, and don’t realize cats purr when they’re content as well as when they’re trying to soothe themselves.
Respondents said they frequently forget to refill their furry little buddies’ water bowls, but the thing that really blew my mind is that people supposedly forget to feed their cats an average of three times a week.
How is that possible?!?
The number of times Bud has missed a meal in 10 years is precisely zero. Even when I had COVID, even when half my face was frozen with Bell’s Palsy and I was throbbing with the worst headache I’d ever endured, I fed the little guy according to his schedule.
It’s not just that he reminds me. There’s a whole ritual around it, an elaborate series of increasingly affirmative and urgent meows that quickly give way to panic if Buddy doesn’t see activity associated with a bowl of fresh wet food and water delivered to his nook.
The pre-reminder reminders begin about 45 minutes to an hour before feeding time, with Bud’s infallible internal clock signaling upcoming meal time.
At the 30 minute mark Bud will put himself directly in my line of sight and stare at me. Then he’ll start to meow at regular intervals, and if I’m not up and heading to the kitchen by T-minus 15 minutes to yums, the meowing begins in earnest.
Even the act of retrieving a pack of wet food from the Buddy Cabinet is highly formalized and ritualistic: the little dude grunts and trills excitedly as I open the seal, dump the food in his bowl, mash it up and pile it in the middle the way he likes it.
Then he leads me back to his nook, looking over his head every few paces to make sure I’m right behind him, even though we’ve done this song and dance literally 7,318 times as of today. (It’s probably more than that since I fed him more than twice a day when he was a kitten, and doesn’t include his bowl of dry food for his late night snack/overnight emergency supply so he doesn’t have to wake me up if he’s hungry.)
I realize Bud’s a bit of a tyrant and there’s no peace until he gets what he wants, but still. Cats are cats. So really, how does anyone “forget” to feed their cat?
Pain In The Bud 
This never happens in Chiswick..;. Bella is VERY VERY vocal at least 1 hour before feed times and Bertie sits and allows her to shout ( the volume increases if no response is forthcoming!) water bowls are changed every day ( thats down to me ). They both have a midnight snack ( Bertie may be off visiting other houses but Bella insists on her snack !) I guess is also because I am totally dedicated to them and they know it.
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Exactly. The shrieking that happens if they don’t see activity indicating food is heading their way ensures it’s impossible to forget.
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Yikes. Buddy shrieks? 🤣🤣My cat walks all around me on the bed. He has dry food but needs his wet at about 5 am.
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Well he doesn’t start out that way but yes, if he really wants something and I don’t comply within his arbitrary timeframe, his vocalizations become increasingly more demanding and annoying. He is a world class expert in that category. I still love him.
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This is pathetic. These people should not have cat. Only thing i ever forgot to give my cat was fresh water. And that was about 3 times since i had him. I get people have hectic lives but when i was taking care of my suicidal elderly mother all by myself i never forgot to feed my cat. And i was in a total fog.
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People forget to feed their cats? I’m gobsmacked! Josie-Pye and every other cat I’ve ever lived with would never let me forget. lol
We once had a cat named Lisa who was a calico. Every morning, just before the alarm went off at 4:30 am, she would sit on The Mister’s chest while he slept with his glasses in her mouth! LOLOL It was the funniest thing. Anyway, she was never late for a meal.
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Was Lisa bringing him his glasses because she knew he needs them when he wakes up? If so, that’s pretty incredible that she’d know that, and funny that she wants to speed things along.
Bud’s version of that is smacking my glasses onto the floor like “Ooops, now you gotta get up, my dude. Your glasses are on the floor! How ever did they get there?”
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Yes, the first thing The Mister has always done is when his alarm goes off, he reaches for his glasses. He’s a creature of habit and Lisa totally caught on. It was like her own way of telling him to get a move on. lol
I love Bud’s version! LOL He’s so smart to get you out of bed like that. 😀
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That’s amazing. Cats are so much more intelligent than we generally give them credit for.
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When I took sociology in college, I learned to write a survey and also how to assess the results of published surveys.
There are a lot of questions I have about this survey: Where did they get their respondents? How was the survey structured? What questions did they ask? (You can inadvertently – or deliberately – direct the choices of the respondents by including or leaving out some questions.) Did they include a space for open-ended answers?
I don’t trust the authors of this “survey.” It sounds to me like poppycock.
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I looked for those details but couldn’t find them. Since it’s a survey commissioned by a private group, and not published research, I suppose they’d don’t have any obligation to provide details, but they should. In any case, yeah, that’s why I was skeptical as well.
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My cats started grumbling, not when there was no food in the bowl, but when there was a quarter-sized empty spot in the bottom of the bowl: “I can see the bottom! I’m starving!”
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But we’re great at not forgetting to feed our canines, am I right?
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Probably according to this poll, which seems like it was answered by people who treat their cats like house plants.
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