If your cat doesn’t know your name, it’s nothing personal. You’re just a human, after all.
I’m pretty sure Buddy does not know my name, and why should he?
He doesn’t hear my name spoken often, and in his mind I’m probably “Big Dumb Benevolent Human And Butler,” or BDBHAB. That’s a mouthful, even in meow, thus the much easier-to-say “Big Buddy.”
But a new study from Japan claims cats “possibly” know the names of their humans.
First, the parameters of the study would have eliminated the Buddies from the start: the research team from Kyoto University enlisted only cats who lived with at least two other felines. This is because they also wanted to find out if cats knew the names of their furry roommates as well.
The 48 cats who participated in the study lived in regular homes or cat cafes. The team played a recording of their human calling the name of one of their buddies, while a monitor showed an image of a cat. Sometimes the names and the images matched, and sometimes they didn’t.
The cats took longer looks at the images when the feline image shown didn’t match the name they heard, which the researchers said was indicative of surprise.
Separately, 26 cats were run through a similar experiment. In that scenario, the researchers played an audio clip of the cat’s human’s name and showed an image of either the human caretaker, or a cat. Like they did with the first experiment, cats looked longer when the images didn’t match the names, expressing apparent puzzlement.
“I’m a Buddy, you’re a Buddy. We’re all Buddies.”
In case you’re wondering, it does seem to matter if a cat grows up in a home rather than a cat cafe. When the name and face matched, researchers called that a “congruent condition.”
“Half of the trials were in a congruent condition where the name and face matched, and half were in an incongruent (mismatch) condition,” they wrote. “Results of Exp.1 showed that household cats paid attention to the monitor for longer in the incongruent condition, suggesting an expectancy violation effect; however, café cats did not.”
The reasons are fairly straightforward. In a home setting, cats almost always interact with their human family members, while felines in cafes interact with different employees on different shifts, and with customers, who might be regulars or strangers. Either way, the cats living in homes are much more likely to hear their own names and the names of their feline roommates.
“The latter probably have more opportunities to observe interactions between the owner and each of the other cohabitating cats, which might facilitate learning of the face–name relationship,” the team wrote.
The Kyoto team pointed out that many wild animals, particularly mammals and birds, make sounds that correspond to animals, objects or abstract ideas. Monkeys and birds, for example, use a range of different calls to communicate to each other when they’ve found food or spotted a predator heading their way.
The stakes are much lower in a home setting, but evolutionary traits can still serve cats and dogs well. One reason pets may be keen to recognize the names of their furry roommates, the research team speculated, is competition. After all, Socks would want to know if Oreo is getting more treats or head scritches.
Buddy has taken to styling himself as a Joseon king after gorging himself on Korean period dramas set during the long-enduring dynasty.
NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat has taken to wearing Joseon dynasty royal robes and insisting others call him “Jeonha” — a style of address for a king which means “Your Highness” — after binging Korean historical dramas over the last several months.
The silver tabby, who once pretended to be Spanish and has previously tried to ingratiate himself with lion prides and zoo tigers, took on the persona of a king of Joseon, the historical name for the kingdom of Korea as it existed for half a millennium. The move followed an extended TV binge during which Buddy watched Netflix’s Kingdom, The Crowned Clown and Six Flying Dragons.
“Where is the Left State Councilor?” Jeonha Buddy shouted on Friday while lounging atop a replica of the famously elaborate Phoenix Throne. “The Ministry of Yums is late with my dinner once again. This will not be overlooked!”
Committing fully to his cosplay, Buddy designated each floor in his apartment building as its own “province,” appointing cats in other apartments as governors, Confucian scholars and tax officials. In addition, he created a court schedule dictating three official audiences per week, demanding reports on “the state of the cat food cupboard” and vigilance in looking for signs that a Japanese neighbor, Mr. Fuji, planned to invade his realm.
“We must not underestimate the Shogunate,” he said. “Have the Chief Secretary draw up an official mobilization order for the Five Armies so that we may have a regiment stationed along the border in case Mr. Fuji has military intentions.”
“Yes, Jeonha!” the other cats said, bowing. “Your grace is immeasurable!”
Asked on Sunday what he thought of the group of cats who stood watch outside his apartment, Mr. Fuji said: “I like cats!”
Most of Jeonha Buddy’s royal decrees, however, have dealt exclusively with food. Royal Proclamation #11, for example, specified the size and serving time of the king’s late night snack, while Royal Proclamation #19 clarified that seafood must not be served two meals in a row, and should be served only after meals of poultry or beef.
Meanwhile, Royal Proclamation #22 sought to appoint Big Buddy as the king’s eunuch.
“You’re pressing your luck, ‘Jeonha’,” the human said, glaring at Buddy. “I still have my balls. You, however, do not.”
As of press time, Buddy consulted the basket that holds his many toys and confirmed that he did indeed still possess his balls, including one that lights up and makes a beeping sound when it’s batted around.
“My court eunuch is a liar,” Jeonha Buddy declared. “Eighty lashes for him!”
Armed with real data, there’s a chance to stop horrific policies designed to kill millions of cats who are blamed for driving small wildlife species to extinction.
For the past two decades, a handful of birders and “conservationists” have claimed cats kill as many as 3.7 billion birds and 22.3 billion small animals every year in the US alone.
“They’ve got to taste good,” an Australian scientist who helped develop the sausage formula said. “They are the cat’s last meal.”
Now who’s the serial killer?
Sadly, few people have thought to question the studies that claim jaw-dropping numbers of birds and small mammals are slaughtered by cats every year.
How did the studies arrive at those numbers? Their formula hasn’t varied much from “study” to “study,” and more or less looks like this:
Assemble your data from old studies that have nothing to do with cats preying on wildlife, or hand out questionnaires to a handful of cat owners and ask them how many animals they think their free-roaming cats might kill.
Since you don’t know how many stray, feral and free-roaming cats exist in the US, invent an arbitrary number. Most of these “studies” put the number of cats anywhere between 25 and 125 million, but higher numbers are better because they make for more apocalyptic predictions and generate more credulous headlines.
Completely ignore the primary factors driving avian extinction in the world, which are human-caused: Habitat destruction, habitat defragmentation, wind turbines, pesticides, cars, high tension wires and windows, which are by far the biggest bird-killers.
Attribute all of the above to feral, stray and free-roaming cats.
Take your original “data” and, without making any adjustments for climate, regional variation, migration patterns, other predatory impacts — or anything else, really — simply extrapolate the total number of bird deaths by multiplying your small dataset by the total number of free-roaming cats in the US, which you invented back in Step 2.
Package the entire thing as a rigorous study by Serious Conservationists, write some apocalyptic press releases and hype up your claims in your abstracts, because you know the vast majority of web aggregators and overworked reporters will not have the time to take a deep dive into the text of your study.
Encourage activist groups and lawmakers to push for the mass culling of cats, based on your studies.
Please, don’t take my word for it. Read the text of any of the widely-cited studies that have been reported as gospel in the last 20 years. You’ll be astonished at what passes for rigorous scientific work, and how policies that determine the fates of millions of cats are largely shaped by these studies.
The D.C. Cat Count and the importance of a baseline
But there’s hope: A coalition of groups in Washington, D.C., spent more than three years methodically taking a “census” of that city’s cat population using a variety of methods.
They surveyed thousands of households within the city limits to find out how many cat owners allow their pets to roam free. They set up 1,530 trail cameras in wooded areas, ditches, alleys, alongside streams. The cameras are motion-activated and they produced more than five million images — including more than 1.2 million images of cats and more than four million images of local wildlife. The cameras captured photos of squirrels, coyotes, raccoons, possums, deer and even wild turkeys.
They assembled teams of dozens of volunteers to personally survey areas where cats are known to congregate. Then, when all the data was collected, they spent months sorting the results, carefully keeping tally, sorting duplicate sightings of individual cats and confirming data when necessary.
Credit: Pixabay/Pexels
When all was said and done, after three years, $1.5 million and countless man-hours, the study determined there are some 200,000 cats living in Washington, D.C., and only about 3,000 of them are truly feral, meaning they’re not pets and not part of managed cat colonies.
The team — which brought together conservationists, bird lovers, cat lovers, shelter volunteers and others who would normally oppose each other on cat-related policies — also documented every step to provide a toolkit for other cities and local governments to conduct their own methodical head counts. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel to take D.C.’s admirable lead.
The leaders of the D.C. Cat Count went to all that trouble because they understood that without knowing exactly how many cats they’re dealing with, where they congregate and how they behave, any policies attempting to deal with their potential impact would be flawed and could end up doing more harm than good.
Making informed decisions about managing outdoor cats
Anyone who continues to cite the old, sloppy studies should be reminded, loudly and often, that they have led to years of failed policies, heartbreaking outcomes, enmity between cat lovers and birders, and widespread misunderstanding of how cats behave and the impact they have on wildlife.
Now the next phase begins: Dispensing with the hysteria and finding real, useful ways to minimize the predatory impact of cats on local wildlife populations.
One of the first follow-up studies to bear fruit comes, not coincidentally, from a research team in nearby Fairfax County, Virginia, and yields some surprising revelations about free-roaming cat behavior and impact.
The biggest takeaway: Because free-roaming cats almost always stick to small areas (spanning only 550 feet, or 170 meters), “cats were unlikely to prey on native wildlife, such as songbirds or small mammals, when they were farther than roughly 1,500 feet (500 meters) from a forested area, such as a park or wooded backyard. We also found that when cats were approximately 800 feet (250 meters) or farther from forest edges, they were more likely to prey on rats than on native wildlife.”
That’s it. In other words, small buffer zones are “the difference between a diet that consists exclusively of native species and one without any native prey,” the study’s authors wrote.
“Our findings suggest that focusing efforts on managing cat populations near forested areas may be a more effective conservation strategy than attempting to manage an entire city’s outdoor cat population,” wrote Daniel Herrera and Travis Gallo of George Mason University.
Credit: Phan Vu00f5 Minh Ku1ef3/Pexels
In other words, minimizing the predatory impact of cats is likely a hyper-local affair, and not something that can be effectively managed on a one-size-fits-all city-wide or county-wide basis.
This is just a first step in the right direction, and follow-up studies will yield further insights that will hopefully lead to fine-tuning strategies in managing free-roaming cats.
We still feel keeping cats indoors — for their own safety, as well as the safety of other animals — is the right thing to do, and all the evidence supports that view.
But what these efforts have shown us is that there is a way forward, and it’s not the contentious, divisive and irresponsible work that has guided cat management policy for two decades. It’s not just possible, but necessary, for all sides to work together to find solutions.
Let’s hope more people realize that, and the old “studies” are relegated to the dustbin where they belong.
Ask not what your Buddy can do for you, but what you can do for your Buddy.
Dear PITB readers,
Today, April 11, is National Pet Day! On behalf of all your kitties, I am here with a gentle reminder that providing more snacks and catnip than usual is the only appropriate way to celebrate this great holiday, and they should be administered along with massages and generous amounts of praise.
National Pet Day should not be confused with Global Cat Day (Oct. 16), National Cat Day (Oct. 29), Hug Your Cat Day (June 4), or International Buddy Day (April 21). Additional yums, catnip and silvervine should be served on each of those days as well.
In addition, on International Buddy Day, there is a feast held in my honor, and my admirers pay tribute with special gifts of turkey pate, turkey treats, turkey bacon or whole turkeys. Toys are also acceptable.
Penalties for failing to observe any of these holidays may include, but are not limited to, extensive yowling, getting the cold shoulder, withholding snuggles, and being deprived of the delightfulness of my company.
Thank you for your understanding and anticipated cooperation.
Your liege lord,
Buddy
First of His Name, Champion of Yums, Prime Connoisseur of Turkey, Feline of Extraordinary Handsomeness, Humble King
Viagen, the only US company to offer cloning services, says the process becomes more popular every year.
The Washington Post has a story today about pet cloning, and thankfully it doesn’t sugar-coat the process.
It does take 10 paragraphs for the story to get to the negatives, but it offers a solid explanation of the cloning process before this quote by Columbia University bioethicist Robert Klitzman:
“People think, ‘Oh, I’ll just press a button and out will come Fido,’ but that’s just not the case. So you may love Fido, but do you really want several animals to die and suffer in order to have the one healthy Fido?”
That’s because even with the advancements made in the 21 years since CC the cat became the first of her kind to be cloned, the process still only has a 20 percent success rate. The other 80 percent of attempts end in still births, animals who die shortly after birth due to genetic defects, or animals who survive but suffer from flaws that make them “unsuitable” for the clients who are paying tens of thousands of dollars to clone their cats and dogs.
A terrifying prospect! (And a massive monthly turkey bill.)
As we’ve noted before, cloning doesn’t actually guarantee that you’ll get animal who looks like the departed pet. Fur color, length and coat patterns are all variable, and temperament is even more of a crapshoot thanks to the many variables in both nature and nurture.
Klitzman puts it in stark terms.
“I can either pay thousands of dollars to create a new pet that’s actually going to have a different history and personality,” he told the Post. “Or maybe I could adopt an animal that would otherwise be killed in a shelter. Those are things that ethically need to be considered.”
The Post’s article centers on Kelly Anderson and her cat, Belle. If the names sound familiar, that’s because we’ve written about them in earlier posts. Belle was cloned from Anderson’s beloved cat, Chai, and has her looks but not her disposition.
CC was famously different from Rainbow, the cat she was cloned from. While Rainbow had a Calico pattern with tabby stripes on her head, CC had tabby stripes on both her head and her sides. As the BBC noted in 2002, shortly after CC’s birth was announced, the cloned cat’s coat differed from her “mother’s” “because the pattern of colours on multicoloured animals is determined by events in the womb rather than by genes – a reminder that clones may be genetic copies of their parent but are never quite identical.”
Rainbow, left, and her clone, CC, short for CopyCat.
John Mendola, a retired NYPD officer from Staten Island, features in a BBC story posted last week on the increasingly popular cloning option.
Mendola paid $50,000 to have his dog, Princess, cloned. It’s not clear how many unsuccessful attempts were involved — and Texas-based Viagen doesn’t reveal that information — but the successful litter produced two dogs who look like Princess, which Mendola named Princess Ariel and Princess Jasmine. (Dude really loves Disney animation, apparently.)
Viagen charges between $25,000 and $35,000 to clone cats, according to different press reports. Grieving pet parents who haven’t made up their minds can have their late pets’ DNA preserved with the company for $1,600. There’s a short window after death during which viable cells can be harvested, but once they’re stored, they can last years or even decades thanks to cryopreservation methods. In one case, a client decided to clone a dog after storing the DNA for 17 years, Viagen’s Melain Rodriguez told the Post.
Viagen doesn’t disclose figures, but the company said it’s cloning more animals — dogs, cats and horses — every year, and has cloned “hundreds” for clients so far.
Blake Russell, the company’s president, likened cloning to a cat or dog having a littermate separated by time.
“A cloned pet is, simply put, an identical genetic twin,” he said, “separated by years, decades, perhaps centuries.”
Animal welfare groups remain staunchly opposed, not only because of the suffering among cloning failures and surrogate mothers, but also because millions of unwanted cats and dogs are euthanized annually.
“Animals’ personalities, quirks, and very essence simply cannot be replicated,” PETA UK Director Elisa Allen told the BBC. “And when you consider that millions of wonderful, adoptable dogs and cats are languishing in animal shelters every year or dying in terrifying ways after being abandoned, you realise that cloning adds to the homeless-animal overpopulation crisis.”
