cat behavior – Page 20 – Pain In The Bud

MeowTalk: Little Buddy’s Rage!

More fun with MeowTalk!

The MeowTalk experiment continues!

Here’s a log of translations from last night:

“I’m angry! … It’s on now, bring it! … I am going to fight!”

Thankfully I believe my readers know me well enough at this point to be certain of the truth, which is that I dote on my cat, give him loads of attention when he wants it, leave him alone when he doesn’t, and generally do my best to consider his feelings.

Out of context, though, that screen looks like we were brawling. MeowTalk deserves credit: The app knew Bud was upset. But our “argument” was one we’ve been having nightly the last week or two: An ongoing disagreement over Buddy climbing up to the one of the few places he’s not allowed, for fear of toppling over a 55″ flatscreen.

He’s a swiper (as in one of those cats who swipes everything off of flat surfaces) and he has a long and demonstrable history of destroying items large and small by swiping, knocking or pulling them onto the floor. In fact, you can often tell where he’s been just by looking at all the stuff he’s knocked over.

“Bud, you were on the table again, weren’t you?”

“Nope. I swear!”

“So how did a salt shaker, yesterday’s mail and a pair of keys end up on the floor.”

“Uh, poltergeists?”

Maybe I should call him Newton after his obsession with gravity experiments:

“Professor Budsaac Newton here.

Gravity experiment #4,256: In my 4,255 previous experiments, an item swiped from this table fell immediately to the floor.

Conclusion: More data needed.
Test objects: An iPhone SE and a Google Pixel 4a.
Method: Standard swiping motion.

And we’re going to begin in 3…2…

** Sound of two smartphones smacking the hardwood floor. **

As expected, both devices immediately fell to the floor. We’re going to take a break now until a human places them back on the table. I’d like to repeat my experiment and see the gravitational forces in action from a different angle.”

Otherwise he can go where he wants, lounge where he wants, play wand games with me, watch Outside TV from his perch, play with his toys, nudge me for a snack, smack some bottle caps around. He’s got options.

But since he can’t claim the spot right next to the new 55″ TV, now he has to have it.

MeowTalk Says Buddy Is A Very Loving Cat!

A new app aims to help us better understand and communicate with our cats.

A while back I wrote a post about MeowTalk, a new app that uses AI — and input from thousands of users sampling their cats’ vocalizations — to translate meows, trills and chirps for the benefit of those of us who don’t fluently speak cat or might need some clarity on what our furry friends are trying to say.

Now that I’ve finally had the opportunity to give MeowTalk a spin, it turns out Bud is a much more polite cat than I thought he was!

What I thought was an unenthusiastic “I acknowledge your presence, human” turned out to be “Nice to see you!” according to MeowTalk.

Buddy’s next meows were “Love me!” and “I love you!”, the app informed me. Weird. I thought he was complaining that I was only half-heartedly simulating prey with his wand toy while watching Jeopardy.

After Jeopardy I headed to the bathroom, which was the real test.

I intentionally closed the door before the little stinker could sneak in the bathroom with me, then held up the phone to capture his muted vocalization. I was sure Bud was saying “Open the door!” but the app told me Buddy was saying “I’m in love!”

Awww. What a good boy. How could I not let him in?

Once inside, Buddy began talking again as I knew he would. He’s a vocal cat.

“I’m looking for love!” the app translated as Bud pawed at the door, demanding to be let back out again. “My love, come find me!”

What was going on here?

Was Bud really professing his undying love for me, his human, or was he workshopping cheesy dialogue for a feline romance novel he’s been secretly working on?

Thankfully, MeowTalk allows you to correct translations if you think the app’s gotten them wrong. This looks more like it:

The Translated Buddy — Translation from the original Buddinese language.

MeowTalk is in beta, and it can only get better as more users download the app, make profiles for their cats and make an effort to tag vocalizations with their correct meaning.

The app was authored by a software engineer who was part of the team that brought Amazon’s Alexa to life, and the algorithms that power it already show promise: When the app is listening (which it does only actively, after you have explicitly given it permission to do so), it does a great job of distinguishing cat vocalizations from background noise, human chatter, televisions and other incidental sounds. Even my fake meows were unable to fool it.

Each vocalization is sampled and saved to the history tab of your cat’s profile, so you can review and adjust the translations later. If you’ve got more than one cat you can make profiles for each one, and the app says it can tell which cat is talking. I wasn’t able to test this since the King does not allow interlopers in his kingdom, but given MeowTalk’s accuracy in distinguishing meows from every other sound — even with lots of background chatter — I have no reason to doubt it can sort vocalizations by cat.

In some respects it reminds me of Waze, the irreplaceable map and real-time route app famous for saving time and eliminating frustration. I was one of the first to download the app when it launched and found it useless, but when I tried it again a few months later, it steered me past traffic jams and got me to my destination with no fuss.

What was the difference? Few people were using it in those first few days, but as the user base expanded, so did its usefulness.

Like Waze, MeowTalk’s value is in its users, and the data it collects from us. The more cats it hears, the better it’ll become at translating them. If enough of us give it an honest shot, it just may turn out to be the feline equivalent of a universal translator.

And if it’s successful, its creator wants to make a standalone version as a collar, which would translate our cats’ vocalizations in real time. As far as I’m concerned, anything that can help us better understand our cats is a good thing.

Check out the free-to-use MeowTalk on Google Play and Apple’s app store.

Buddy the Cat — “Okay, fine. I love you human. But that doesn’t mean you can slack off with the snacks.”

Why Does My Cat Sleep On Me?

Humans make good mattresses!!

As readers of this blog know, Bud’s favorite “place” to sleep is on top of his Big Bud.

Why do cats like sleeping on their humans? A new article from Treehugger provides some possible answers to that question. For accuracy purposes, we asked Buddy to weigh in on the reasons mentioned in the article.

1.To Mark Their Territory

Cats have scent glands that release pheromones all over their body. Marking humans with these pheromones means that they are part of the cat’s in-group, a behavior learned in groups of cats in the wild to distinguish members of the pack from non-members.1 When a cat sleeps on you, it marks you with its scent so it can be reassured that you smell familiar and safe. Even cats who enjoy solitude may rub and head-butt their owners as part of the same scent-marking process.

2.To Stay Warm

Many cat owners are familiar with the sight of their cat sleeping in a sunny patch on the bed, or even knocking over plants and whatever else is in the way in an attempt to get an ideal window napping position. Warmth induces relaxation and sleep in cats, and few spots in the house are warmer than being directly on top of a person. Warmth may also contribute to the initiation or maintenance of restorative sleep in cats, meaning that seeking out warm spots for sleep can help them stay healthy.2

3.To Feel Safe

Animals are more vulnerable to attack while they’re sleeping, and cats are no exception. As a result, cats who see their owners as a sign of safety and security may enjoy sleeping on or near them. This behavior can also be traced back to kittenhood. When young cats are growing, they are typically in large litters with other cats, nursing from their mother, and sleeping together in a group, sometimes stacked on top of one another. Particularly without other cats in the house, humans may have a substitute role in this situation.

4.To Bond With You

In experiments to stop cats from destructive scratching and urine-marking behaviors, scent-marking was proven to be a powerful way to preserve cat-human bonds. When your cat sleeps on you and marks you with their scent, it’s creating a powerful olfactory reminder that you both belong to the same group. Being close to humans also allows cats to hear and feel familiar and comforting sounds, like a beating heart or rhythmic breaths during sleep, which are reminiscent of safe sleeping spaces with a mother cat and siblings.

5.To Show Affection

As demonstrated by a recent study on cat-human bonding, cats are not the solitary creatures they are often portrayed to be. In the wild, cats comfortably live in matriarchal societies and are known to exhibit a variety of group bonding behaviors including mutual grooming, allorubbing, and sleeping together. Sleeping with their owner is one way cats can show affection and caring.

You can interpret it as affection, yes, but the important thing is that Big Buddy cannot go anywhere without me knowing about it. Say he gets up in the middle of the night to use the human litter box room. By sleeping on top of him, I know the second he starts to shift, and I can not only follow him to the litter box room before he shuts the door, I can also howl at him on the way back so he gives me a snack just to shut me up before going to bed. No snack, no peace!

‘Rehomed’ Cat Makes 228-Mile Journey Back Home

A Texas cat’s epic trek home covered 228 miles, and no one’s sure how she did it.

Despite the current golden age of feline cognition studies and a growing body of research that shows cats have genuine affection for their humans, people still think of the little fluffballs as aloof, antisocial and ambivalent.

Old stereotypes about cats die hard, but maybe this latest story will finally give people pause: A cat named Gray C. made an epic, 228-mile journey back to a Texas town after she was ‘rehomed’ a week earlier.

Vikki and Eugene Braun told KTBC, a Fox affiliate in Austin, that they brought Gray C. and their other cat, Sissy, to a friend’s ranch in Terrell, about 35 miles east of Dallas. Both were outdoor cats, they said.

“We thought because they weren’t ‘pet’ cats, they wanted to live outside, we thought, well, maybe they’d rather live in the barn,” Eugene told the Fox affiliate.

The next day, their friend from the ranch in Terrell phoned to tell them the cats were gone. A week later, Vikki Braun was shocked when she came home and found Gray C. inside, helping herself to some food.

“I thought one of the neighbor’s cats had got in through the doggie door and that’s never happened, but I picked it up and I was like, this is Gray C.!” Vikki Braun said.

gracy — Gray C. is held by Vikki Braun after her long trek back to Burnet, Texas.

That was about three weeks ago. The Brauns say they don’t know what happened to Sissy. Hopefully she shows up unhurt.

No one is sure how Gray C. managed to cover so much distance in a little more than a weeks’ time. It seems unlikely a cat could cover more than 32 miles in a day. The little felines are considerably faster than humans but like all felids, they’re built for shorter bursts of intense activity and require lots of rest.

“That’s a lot of miles per day, you know, but I’m sure she probably didn’t stop. She just kept on going,” Eugene Braun said.

garfieldcat — Garfield walked 40 miles back to his owners in London in June 2020.

Gray C’s story mirrors the story of Garfield, an orange tabby who walked 40 miles back home this summer after his owners gave him away. It took Garfield considerably longer to get home as he navigated London and its crowded suburbs, but his determination struck a chord with his people, who reconsidered their decision and kept him after his journey.

Buddy the Cat, Hero of the Pandemic

Buddy receives a commendation for being so awesome during the pandemic.

From the High Office of Really Awesome Cats
Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020

Let it be known that Buddy the Cat has earned this commendation for going above and beyond the call of duty, for being a Good Boy (mostly) who has played an instrumental role in keeping his human sane during a time of absolute insanity. For helping alleviate loneliness and depressing circumstances, for being his naturally delightful self, and for fidelity to the daily schedule so yums are always dispensed at the right time, we salute the inimitable Buddy.

Buddy the Cat, 6, has been a constant companion to his human, Big Buddy, throughout the SARS-CoV2 pandemic, providing him with companionship and lulz during the dark days of March and April when New York became the epicenter of infection. He has continued his duties, raising morale over the summer, fall and into the current winter.

2FCDCAEB-2EB1-427B-B340-D4003AB9D8AB — Buddy the Cat, a true hero.

The dedicated tabby cat has fallen face-first into boxes, misjudged jumps, scared himself with his own shadow and sung the Song of His People at 3 a.m., all in an attempt to bring laughs to the gloom. He has curled up with his human while the latter read books, supervised indoor hobby activities and defeated the Red Dot of Evil.

Also, he’s really good looking, charming and has big muscles!

We recognize Buddy the Cat as a credit to his species and a paragon of feline handsomeness. He is a true buddy and best friend. Now give him snacks!

Has your cat been a hero of the pandemic?