March 28, 2023 • 24 mins
Do our cats really love being held and loved and squeezed and kissed? Find out in this episode of 6 Degrees of Cats, the world's #1 (and only) cat-themed culture, history and science podcast. With the help of two certified cat behaviorists and a reproduction and sexuality educator, we apply a popular contemporary human psychology construct to investigate how cats experience, and express, affection and love.
Feline training and behavior pro Jennifer van de Kieft offers insights into how cats communicate their feelings and preferences, while reproductive and sexual health educator Jade F. Hillery, M.P.H., provides context for the five love languages. To round out the conversation, cat cognition researcher Kristyn Vitale, Ph.D., weighs in on what the media gets right - and wrong - about cats' affection for humans.
Support the podcast, sign up for The Captain’s Log, the companion podcast newsletter and learn about way$ to help keep this ship afloat for our next season here: linktr.ee/6degreesofcats.
About the experts:
- Jade F. Hillery, MPH, CD (DTI), is a reproductive and sexual health trainer and educator, full spectrum doula, and sensual movement instructor. She works to support other trainers and educators in creating intentional learning spaces; promote healing through sensual movement; and help people tap into their own power. She is also a board member for Aaliyah in Action and a co-host of The Good Black Podcast.
- Jennifer van de Kieft is a Certified Advanced Feline Training and Behavior Professional and Pet Nutrition Coach. She is experienced in science driven strategies and solutions to address problem behavior and is the owner of Cat Advocate LLC.
- Kristyn Vitale, Ph.D., is the founder of Maueyes and star of Netflix’s hit feature film, “The Mind of a Cat”. Her innovative research on cat behavior and human-animal interaction has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals and been covered by such international publications as Science, National Geographic, The New York Times, and The Times of London.
Producer, writer, editor, sound designer, host, basically everything*
- Captain Kitty (Amanda B.)
* with co-executive producers Binky & Snuggles
Animal voices include:
- Binky & Snuggles _^..^_
Opening and closing credits:
- Leathered: "Look Alive" (c) 2022
- Samples licensed via Loopcloud
- Additional sound effects from Pixabay.com
Logo design:
- Edward Anthony © 2024 (Instagram: @itsmyunzii)
Research cited:
- Chapman, G. D. (2010). The five love languages. Walker Large Print.
- Gupta, A. H., & Mazón, L. (2022, August 27). The Sixth Love Language does not exist. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/27/well/family/love-languages-author.html
- Peterson, E. (2013, March 29). Why do cats bring home dead animals? LiveScience. Retrieved from https://www.livescience.com/34471-cats-dead-animals.html
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I understand he's your brother...
(00:02):
Okay fine, equal billing is co-producers.
Okay, another can of food for you.
Fair enough.
And we're back.
To Amandaland!
I mean, 6 degrees of cats.
A podcast about how cats have influenced
our past, present, and future.
Ah, cats.
(00:23):
Aren't they the best?
No.
Or, yes.
The answer is yes.
They are the best.
And there's something really magical, I think, about how we humans can forge such close, trusting
bonds with a completely different species.
We talked a bit in the first episode about how that relationship first started.
(00:44):
And now I want to know...
How did we somehow figure out ways to communicate to each other, we cats and humans, that
not only do we come in peace, we don't want to eat each other, and in fact, we kind
of like each other.
Is there a secret language?
Well, kind of, at least for humans.
(01:07):
So why not apply some of these relationship models to the human cat connection?
Ever heard of love languages?
These love languages, acts of love and care that are given or received to communicate love.
(01:28):
Were first documented by marriage counselor Gary Chapman.
Chapman observed that there were about five different ways that love tended to be given or felt.
The five love languages.
Which are?
Words of affirmation.
(01:49):
Quality time.
Physical touch.
Gift.
And acts of service.
Easy peasy, right?
No.
Communication is hard, everyone.
And if you ever are told differently, that's a bunch of malarkey.
(02:10):
Things tend to get lost in translation.
And oh my goodness, it's even more confusing for cats and humans.
We don't even speak the same verbal language.
A whole lot of cat memes and jokes like to call cats jerks -
due to behaviors that from the human perspective seem like intentional acts of sabotage, rejection,
(02:37):
or outright rudeness.
Dead mouse on a pillow, knocking over water, jumping on keyboards to delete the line of code that
breaks the entire sequence.
That's totally them being jerks, right?
Whoa!
Not quite.
We may be misunderstanding their signals and they hours.
(03:01):
In this episode, using the five love languages construct, we're going to re-examine the
way we're communicating love and affection with our fur children.
And hopefully answer the ever pressing question of inter and intra-species affinity.
How do cats and humans work around this communication barrier?
(03:22):
To get to the heart of things - er, cats, I consulted with a fantastic cat advocate who has often
fielded this question over her career supporting humans in living with and loving on their
feline family members.
My name is Jennifer Van de Kieft
I'm a certified advanced feline training and behavior professional.
(03:45):
I have a business called Cat Advocate, which is a feline behavior consulting business.
I basically help cat guardians with issues such as litter box issues, tough introductions, excessive
vocalization, aggression, basically any kind of behavior issue that a cat might be experiencing,
or demonstrating.
(04:06):
My website is cat-advocate.com.
So for the rest of this episode, Jennifer will interpret the hundreds of hours of cat meows I have
on my phone.
Just kidding.
Though there is a research team that created an app called MeowTalk (they're not returning my calls, so if anyone knows...) do cats love,
(04:30):
or heck, even like us?
Or are they merely tolerating our presence until the day we expire,
at which point we will finally make our annoying, noisy existence justified as a source of protein.
Cats absolutely love us and appreciate us.
(04:50):
I think they show that in so many ways.
The one thing I've learned in this is that cats are individuals.
The way one cat shows affection might be completely different from the next cat.
They all express it in a different way.
Some cats like to be pet a lot and other cats don't, and I don't think that has anything to
do with how they feel about us.
(05:11):
That makes me feel a little better.
But really, to quote the late, great Whitney Houston, "How will I know?"
(Oh, that was bad.
Let's forget that happened.)
How will I know?
Back to Jennifer.
The problem with cat research is there's just not a lot of it.
I think that's changing.
(05:31):
There's so much more research about dogs than there is about cats.
That is definitely changing, but the thing is, you don't know that much about cats.
We're still learning.
Dr. Krysten Vitale, the feline cognition researcher we heard from in earlier episodes, has something
else to add here.
I will say a lot of the research I do is very much mirrored in cats and dogs.
(05:56):
I will get a lot of social cognition and a lot of the test we run even if they might be slightly
modified for cats.
We find that the cats are performing similarly to the dogs.
As far as my research goes, we're finding a lot of parallels between the two, even just
in the bonds that the cat shares with the human.
It looks exactly the same as what we see between the dog and the human.
(06:21):
For a long time, that was kind of thought of to be something special between dogs and humans
and that dogs had evolved to have a special bond with people.
But now we're finding, hey, cats seem to be able to have the same bond with people.
For example, even though she can't speak and sometimes I wonder if she can understand
(06:45):
me or if she's trying to play me to the left.
Sometimes I don't have to say anything and she will be right there.
She's so attuned to me that she knows, hey mom, mom needs a little extra love and care.
Just a reminder that she's here and someone loves her and sees her.
(07:06):
So I think that's just been so special and so sweet.
That was our next expert.
I'm Jade Hillery and I am a training and learning design professional for Planned Parenthood
Federation of America, a full spectrum doula.
I'm also a board member for Aaliyah in Action and I'm a community collaborator for Cornerstone
trainings and essential movement instructor.
(07:28):
I'm also one half of the Good Black podcast with my co-host and best friend, Gantt.
And that's the Good Black podcast on all your favorite streaming platforms.
Words of affirmation.
Physical touch.
Quality time.
Gifts.
Acts of service.
(07:49):
(You're welcome.)
Jade provided the foundation for all of these love languages.
It's trust, it's communication gathering information about how they best receive love
because then following that blueprint and then expanding from there is the biggest thing.
I can't underscore how important Jade's reminder of cultures impact on communication
(08:14):
is.
(08:34):
A refer back to a point that Dr. Vitale raised when we last spoke.
There's a lot of these negative stereotypes surrounding cats that then biases how that research is reported.
And I think that we use researchers have to be kind of careful that you know it's not a bad thing if a cat looks at you but doesn't approach.
(08:55):
It's just a finding and signing some kind of intent to it that we can't understand what the cat's thinking.
We can only try to have our best you know estimation from looking at their behavior.
Let's keep all of this in mind as we continue to crack the cat love language code.
After the break, let's dive deeper into those five love languages for six degrees of cats.
(09:21):
[Music]
Before the break, we briefed on the five love languages and addressed some limitations and caveats to anthropomorph-
(09:42):
Anthropomorphism.
Anthropomorphism.
There we go.
[Music]
With these things in mind, let's take a closer look at these five love languages to see if they do in fact show up in our cat human loving interactions.
Let's start with words of affirmation.
(10:05):
What does that even mean?
I guess for humans who feel loved by words of affirmation, that might be in the form of compliments or encouragement.
And this would heavily rely on being able to speak the same language.
Now this isn't quite possible with humans and cats.
Or is it?
(10:27):
It's been so fascinating having this other creature in my home and she cannot talk but she-
She can vocalize, she can verbalize, you know, we're locked in pretty well.
One of my favorite fun facts to drop on people I have just met is that cats do not actually now add each other.
Right, they mostly meow to us because we respond to it.
(10:52):
And those sweet or annoying vocalizations were specifically developed to get our attention.
I suspect that most of the meaning of those meows is some variation of.
I choose to imagine that they're also saying, "Thank you mother for working so hard to put food in my bowl and to shelter me."
(11:18):
Or, "I'm a magic or creature from another dimension and I bring you great fortune, the legends are true."
The legends are true.
So yeah, it's a choice. I choose to feel loved when I hear them sing the song of their people at 3am at increasing volume and urgency.
(11:39):
It does kind of feel one-way when I call out my cats names and they don't respond to me.
I think I read that while cats do recognize their names, they just choose to ignore us.
Sounds kind of personal.
Is it?
There was this study that showed that cats respond significantly more to their owners voice than to a stranger's voice.
(12:05):
But what they found was that they were orienting their body or their ears or looking,
but they weren't necessarily getting up and approaching the person the way the dogs would.
And so there was a lot of this negative media from that, but your cat can hear you, but chooses to ignore you and things like that.
But why is approaching what we're using as our metric for listening?
(12:29):
Obviously, the cats are responding and they're responding not only to their owner's voice, but also to their own names compared to other random words.
So cats really are picking up on our verbal cues and responding differently based on who's saying it.
Some cats have sort of like a vibrating tail when they see you.
That's really like a high level of excitement. There's of course, purring. They have pheremones in their cheeks and are marking you.
(12:56):
They headbutt you and they may just like punt their head into a different part of your body, not necessarily your head.
They might roll around in the floor in front of you.
They might scratch your sofa, which is again mixing scents.
You might be upset when your cat scratches your sofa, but it's really kind of a compliment because they're mixing their scent with yours.
(13:19):
That makes me feel so much better.
My couch shows that my cats love me so much.
I guess if they're not doing that to be jerks, but in fact, potentially to write, "I love my mommy" in cat scratches...
maybe I shouldn't yell at them.
I love what Jade shared about her relationship with Pippi.
(13:43):
Sometimes I'll talk to her as if she is a human.
Of course, I talk to her like she's a human, but I do forget that she cannot respond to me through the English language.
She can respond to me in her own ways, which I pick up on that.
But she either doesn't respond or doesn't respect that type of response, but also why am I raising my voice to my cat?
(14:06):
I wouldn't want somebody to do that to me.
I wouldn't want to do that to a human partner.
Why do I think it's okay?
Why do I think that there's room for that in this relationship?
Another thing that we're working on slash I'm working on this year is having more patients.
Being softer, being gentler, even in the moments where I'm frustrated with her.
(14:32):
Oh, hey, son. How long have you been sitting there?
Well, this is timely.
The next to love languages.
Well, quality time sharing space together.
Sometimes I don't care about us doing a specific activity together, but I would like to just be in the room with you while we're both working.
(14:54):
And that's a form of us spending time together.
We're still focusing on our own things, but those are the moments where you've been working on.
The moments where you really get to experience the day with them to support how their day is going or how it could unfold.
So small moments of their day or in an activity that they've got going on that would better support them and achieving an outcome or take some of the load off of them.
(15:18):
Things like that.
Jennifer reminds us of another aspect of quality time.
It's quality, not quantity.
I don't want someone to think that's not how I interact with my cat and it's wrong.
But I would say in general a healthy relationship is one where you can leave and your cat is not going to get like so upset.
(15:39):
They're resilient.
They know you're coming back and it's going to be fine.
There's affection, but it's not 24/7.
It's not like the cat has to be near you every second of the day.
They can go off and look out the window.
They can play sometimes we create an unhealthy bond where we need them so much.
So I think that there's a line there between a healthy, I can live without you for a few minutes.
(16:03):
You know, and it's fine versus like I can't get you out of my sight.
Wait.
Am I the clingy one for wanting my kiddies to be loving on me all the time?
[sound effect]
It's very, very hard to spend quality time with my cats without wanting to express my love through hugs and kisses.
(16:28):
But this is kind of a touchy subject.
How does the love language of physical touch translate for cats?
Per Jennifer.
I would say there are unique species.
They're predators, but they're also prey.
So you know, a lot of times cats are just naturally cautious because of that.
(16:49):
We think of them as maybe a loop when really they're just evaluating the situation before they come closer.
It's all about consent.
You ask a cat for consent by presenting your finger or just gently your hand and seeing if they smell it.
And then what do they do?
Do they lean into your hand?
Like, yeah, I want to be pet.
Or do they kind of take a step back?
(17:10):
Meaning that's enough for right now.
Cats really like frequent, but low intensity interaction.
So they like to come over to you a lot, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they want to be pet.
They just kind of like to see what's going on.
They're very scent oriented.
They have a much stronger sense of smell than we do - like, significantly stronger.
(17:31):
They kind of mix their scent with ours.
Sometimes cats lick us.
Sometimes they rub up against us.
I just love kissing my cat on the head.
It's irresistible.
Does my cat feel loved when I do that?
I think most cats probably do not appreciate this with some exceptions.
(17:53):
You're welcome to try it with your cat if they even let you get that close.
And you'll see, does your cat seem to want more?
Or are they taking two feet back and looking at you like, don't ever do that again?
So it's just something we want to do.
It's not something necessarily that they appreciate having like our lips on their head.
I think they prefer a little head rub with a finger to or a chin scratch.
(18:19):
Well, okay.
The old chin scratch.
Beyond that, how else can I love on my kitties?
Maybe there's something I can give them.
Because they're predators, they really need to pretend to hunt.
Imagine your cat Snuggles in the forest, fending for herself.
(18:40):
She would catch something like 10 mice a day, plus like forage for bugs.
And so when we invite them into our homes and we're like, usual food,
but kind of takes out a lot of the natural things that they would be doing.
And I think it's harmful to them, creating an environment where they can act out on their natural behaviors,
scratching, playing, pretending, really benefits them physically and emotionally.
(19:05):
Their hunters, and any cat owner whose kitty has spent some time outdoors knows it.
Ever had a dead bug or some remnant of a small animal left somewhere nearby for you?
That's a little gift from your cat.
This feathered cat toy I have is pretty effective proxy for an actual bird.
(19:28):
But really folks.
It's acts of service that are the true cross species love language for humans and cats.
That's how it all started.
I think they benefit a lot.
They really bond with us.
(19:50):
Not only do they expect to be fed and have their litter box scoops and maybe some play time that emotional connection is really strong.
I think a healthy bond is really beneficial for both the human and the cat.
By sheltering and feeding my cats, I'm showing them love.
And as you may recall from episode one, they're returning it by keeping my domicile free of vermin.
(20:13):
And ghosts.
I don't know what they're looking at at night.
I don't want to see it.
Cats were not brought into our lives to be entertainment or toys or passive play things that we just use for our own needs.
This is a mutual relationship and it requires constant maintenance, understanding and trust.
(20:34):
Jade has a really good final reminders about healthy relationships with our cats and honestly each other.
You'll see the cat videos on Instagram or social media feeds and they're hilarious, they're cute.
And I would always think, "Well, why doesn't my cat do some of this?"
(20:55):
Like, why isn't she a lap cat?
Why doesn't she show me affection in that way?
This was earlier on.
And then I realized, "Well, Jade, wait a minute, she is showing you affection.
You just have to pay attention.
This is how she's able to show it."
And so, stay tuned to her, pick up on the signals that she's putting out, pick up her specific ways of showing affection to you.
(21:20):
Until maybe she learned something else.
Or until she continues to evolve what that looks like.
And these moments, this is when she's been showing you affection.
And might not always be an Instagramable moment, but she is showing you that she loves you and she needs you and she wants you here as well.
And that's been a huge lesson for me, especially over the last few years.
(21:41):
Well folks, we did it.
We cracked the code.
All five love languages translated.
And thanks to our experts, I think all signs are at least most of them indicate that yes, our cats do love us.
Well, some of us, if you're stoned, it's just because they find your scent offensive.
(22:05):
This motivates me to work on appreciating my cats love differently, and to be a little better about not kissing them on the head.
Oh, and while we're on the subject, my love language, cold, hard cat and candy.
In the next episode, we're going to take a giant step back and look at the greater positive impact that loving on cats has for the world.
(22:31):
And how to be better in general about the ecosystems within which we all live and love together.
Speaking of love, I said lots of love to all of you out there.
Hi, appreciate you.
Oh, hey, thank you.
What you doing, okay?
I want to thank the wonderful returning voice, Kristyn Vitale, cat, advocate and behaviorist, Jennifer Van de Kieft, and fellow podcaster educator and full spectrum doula, Jade Hillery.
(22:57):
While the opinions are my own, the research and work is theirs.
You can find their information in the show notes as well as some research that I used for this episode.
If you love this episode, please give us a top rating and review.
Thanks again for coming on board.
Everything is connected.
[Music]
(23:20):
60 Grease of Cats is produced, written, edited and hosted by yours truly, Captain Kitty, aka Amanda B.
Please subscribe to our mailing list by visiting tinyurl.com/6degreesofcats or find us on all those social media platforms.
And for my paid subscribers, you'll have access to the extra audio with more deep dives by our experts.
(23:44):
This and all episodes are dedicated to the misunderstood, the marginalized, the resilient and the weird.
And of course, all the cats we've loved and lost.
[Music]
(24:07):
So prior to this moment in time, I had never been a cat owner.
I've always been a dog lover.
Never really had cats in our family.
I didn't know the first thing about cats.
Like, what do you do with them? I don't get it.
And then I think I turned to my right and I happened to see this beautiful, blue point, Siamese kitten.
(24:28):
She was in her own playpen.
All by herself and she was, you know, doing her thing. And it was like love at first sight.
And I had never felt this way about an animal before, but especially a cat.
She's supposed to be in my life. I don't know what this is, but she's supposed to be with me.
I understand he's your brother...
(00:02):
Okay fine, equal billing is co-producers.
Okay, another can of food for you.
Fair enough.
And we're back.
To Amandaland!
I mean, 6 degrees of cats.
A podcast about how cats have influenced
our past, present, and future.
Ah, cats.
(00:23):
Aren't they the best?
No.
Or, yes.
The answer is yes.
They are the best.
And there's something really magical, I think, about how we humans can forge such close, trusting
bonds with a completely different species.
We talked a bit in the first episode about how that relationship first started.
(00:44):
And now I want to know...
How did we somehow figure out ways to communicate to each other, we cats and humans, that
not only do we come in peace, we don't want to eat each other, and in fact, we kind
of like each other.
Is there a secret language?
Well, kind of, at least for humans.
(01:07):
So why not apply some of these relationship models to the human cat connection?
Ever heard of love languages?
These love languages, acts of love and care that are given or received to communicate love.
(01:28):
Were first documented by marriage counselor Gary Chapman.
Chapman observed that there were about five different ways that love tended to be given or felt.
The five love languages.
Which are?
Words of affirmation.
(01:49):
Quality time.
Physical touch.
Gift.
And acts of service.
Easy peasy, right?
No.
Communication is hard, everyone.
And if you ever are told differently, that's a bunch of malarkey.
(02:10):
Things tend to get lost in translation.
And oh my goodness, it's even more confusing for cats and humans.
We don't even speak the same verbal language.
A whole lot of cat memes and jokes like to call cats jerks -
due to behaviors that from the human perspective seem like intentional acts of sabotage, rejection,
(02:37):
or outright rudeness.
Dead mouse on a pillow, knocking over water, jumping on keyboards to delete the line of code that
breaks the entire sequence.
That's totally them being jerks, right?
Whoa!
Not quite.
We may be misunderstanding their signals and they hours.
(03:01):
In this episode, using the five love languages construct, we're going to re-examine the
way we're communicating love and affection with our fur children.
And hopefully answer the ever pressing question of inter and intra-species affinity.
How do cats and humans work around this communication barrier?
(03:22):
To get to the heart of things - er, cats, I consulted with a fantastic cat advocate who has often
fielded this question over her career supporting humans in living with and loving on their
feline family members.
My name is Jennifer Van de Kieft
I'm a certified advanced feline training and behavior professional.
(03:45):
I have a business called Cat Advocate, which is a feline behavior consulting business.
I basically help cat guardians with issues such as litter box issues, tough introductions, excessive
vocalization, aggression, basically any kind of behavior issue that a cat might be experiencing,
or demonstrating.
(04:06):
My website is cat-advocate.com.
So for the rest of this episode, Jennifer will interpret the hundreds of hours of cat meows I have
on my phone.
Just kidding.
Though there is a research team that created an app called MeowTalk (they're not returning my calls, so if anyone knows...) do cats love,
(04:30):
or heck, even like us?
Or are they merely tolerating our presence until the day we expire,
at which point we will finally make our annoying, noisy existence justified as a source of protein.
Cats absolutely love us and appreciate us.
(04:50):
I think they show that in so many ways.
The one thing I've learned in this is that cats are individuals.
The way one cat shows affection might be completely different from the next cat.
They all express it in a different way.
Some cats like to be pet a lot and other cats don't, and I don't think that has anything to
do with how they feel about us.
(05:11):
That makes me feel a little better.
But really, to quote the late, great Whitney Houston, "How will I know?"
(Oh, that was bad.
Let's forget that happened.)
How will I know?
Back to Jennifer.
The problem with cat research is there's just not a lot of it.
I think that's changing.
(05:31):
There's so much more research about dogs than there is about cats.
That is definitely changing, but the thing is, you don't know that much about cats.
We're still learning.
Dr. Krysten Vitale, the feline cognition researcher we heard from in earlier episodes, has something
else to add here.
I will say a lot of the research I do is very much mirrored in cats and dogs.
(05:56):
I will get a lot of social cognition and a lot of the test we run even if they might be slightly
modified for cats.
We find that the cats are performing similarly to the dogs.
As far as my research goes, we're finding a lot of parallels between the two, even just
in the bonds that the cat shares with the human.
It looks exactly the same as what we see between the dog and the human.
(06:21):
For a long time, that was kind of thought of to be something special between dogs and humans
and that dogs had evolved to have a special bond with people.
But now we're finding, hey, cats seem to be able to have the same bond with people.
For example, even though she can't speak and sometimes I wonder if she can understand
(06:45):
me or if she's trying to play me to the left.
Sometimes I don't have to say anything and she will be right there.
She's so attuned to me that she knows, hey mom, mom needs a little extra love and care.
Just a reminder that she's here and someone loves her and sees her.
(07:06):
So I think that's just been so special and so sweet.
That was our next expert.
I'm Jade Hillery and I am a training and learning design professional for Planned Parenthood
Federation of America, a full spectrum doula.
I'm also a board member for Aaliyah in Action and I'm a community collaborator for Cornerstone
trainings and essential movement instructor.
(07:28):
I'm also one half of the Good Black podcast with my co-host and best friend, Gantt.
And that's the Good Black podcast on all your favorite streaming platforms.
Words of affirmation.
Physical touch.
Quality time.
Gifts.
Acts of service.
(07:49):
(You're welcome.)
Jade provided the foundation for all of these love languages.
It's trust, it's communication gathering information about how they best receive love
because then following that blueprint and then expanding from there is the biggest thing.
I can't underscore how important Jade's reminder of cultures impact on communication
(08:14):
is.
(08:34):
A refer back to a point that Dr. Vitale raised when we last spoke.
There's a lot of these negative stereotypes surrounding cats that then biases how that research is reported.
And I think that we use researchers have to be kind of careful that you know it's not a bad thing if a cat looks at you but doesn't approach.
(08:55):
It's just a finding and signing some kind of intent to it that we can't understand what the cat's thinking.
We can only try to have our best you know estimation from looking at their behavior.
Let's keep all of this in mind as we continue to crack the cat love language code.
After the break, let's dive deeper into those five love languages for six degrees of cats.
(09:21):
[Music]
Before the break, we briefed on the five love languages and addressed some limitations and caveats to anthropomorph-
(09:42):
Anthropomorphism.
Anthropomorphism.
There we go.
[Music]
With these things in mind, let's take a closer look at these five love languages to see if they do in fact show up in our cat human loving interactions.
Let's start with words of affirmation.
(10:05):
What does that even mean?
I guess for humans who feel loved by words of affirmation, that might be in the form of compliments or encouragement.
And this would heavily rely on being able to speak the same language.
Now this isn't quite possible with humans and cats.
Or is it?
(10:27):
It's been so fascinating having this other creature in my home and she cannot talk but she-
She can vocalize, she can verbalize, you know, we're locked in pretty well.
One of my favorite fun facts to drop on people I have just met is that cats do not actually now add each other.
Right, they mostly meow to us because we respond to it.
(10:52):
And those sweet or annoying vocalizations were specifically developed to get our attention.
I suspect that most of the meaning of those meows is some variation of.
I choose to imagine that they're also saying, "Thank you mother for working so hard to put food in my bowl and to shelter me."
(11:18):
Or, "I'm a magic or creature from another dimension and I bring you great fortune, the legends are true."
The legends are true.
So yeah, it's a choice. I choose to feel loved when I hear them sing the song of their people at 3am at increasing volume and urgency.
(11:39):
It does kind of feel one-way when I call out my cats names and they don't respond to me.
I think I read that while cats do recognize their names, they just choose to ignore us.
Sounds kind of personal.
Is it?
There was this study that showed that cats respond significantly more to their owners voice than to a stranger's voice.
(12:05):
But what they found was that they were orienting their body or their ears or looking,
but they weren't necessarily getting up and approaching the person the way the dogs would.
And so there was a lot of this negative media from that, but your cat can hear you, but chooses to ignore you and things like that.
But why is approaching what we're using as our metric for listening?
(12:29):
Obviously, the cats are responding and they're responding not only to their owner's voice, but also to their own names compared to other random words.
So cats really are picking up on our verbal cues and responding differently based on who's saying it.
Some cats have sort of like a vibrating tail when they see you.
That's really like a high level of excitement. There's of course, purring. They have pheremones in their cheeks and are marking you.
(12:56):
They headbutt you and they may just like punt their head into a different part of your body, not necessarily your head.
They might roll around in the floor in front of you.
They might scratch your sofa, which is again mixing scents.
You might be upset when your cat scratches your sofa, but it's really kind of a compliment because they're mixing their scent with yours.
(13:19):
That makes me feel so much better.
My couch shows that my cats love me so much.
I guess if they're not doing that to be jerks, but in fact, potentially to write, "I love my mommy" in cat scratches...
maybe I shouldn't yell at them.
I love what Jade shared about her relationship with Pippi.
(13:43):
Sometimes I'll talk to her as if she is a human.
Of course, I talk to her like she's a human, but I do forget that she cannot respond to me through the English language.
She can respond to me in her own ways, which I pick up on that.
But she either doesn't respond or doesn't respect that type of response, but also why am I raising my voice to my cat?
(14:06):
I wouldn't want somebody to do that to me.
I wouldn't want to do that to a human partner.
Why do I think it's okay?
Why do I think that there's room for that in this relationship?
Another thing that we're working on slash I'm working on this year is having more patients.
Being softer, being gentler, even in the moments where I'm frustrated with her.
(14:32):
Oh, hey, son. How long have you been sitting there?
Well, this is timely.
The next to love languages.
Well, quality time sharing space together.
Sometimes I don't care about us doing a specific activity together, but I would like to just be in the room with you while we're both working.
(14:54):
And that's a form of us spending time together.
We're still focusing on our own things, but those are the moments where you've been working on.
The moments where you really get to experience the day with them to support how their day is going or how it could unfold.
So small moments of their day or in an activity that they've got going on that would better support them and achieving an outcome or take some of the load off of them.
(15:18):
Things like that.
Jennifer reminds us of another aspect of quality time.
It's quality, not quantity.
I don't want someone to think that's not how I interact with my cat and it's wrong.
But I would say in general a healthy relationship is one where you can leave and your cat is not going to get like so upset.
(15:39):
They're resilient.
They know you're coming back and it's going to be fine.
There's affection, but it's not 24/7.
It's not like the cat has to be near you every second of the day.
They can go off and look out the window.
They can play sometimes we create an unhealthy bond where we need them so much.
So I think that there's a line there between a healthy, I can live without you for a few minutes.
(16:03):
You know, and it's fine versus like I can't get you out of my sight.
Wait.
Am I the clingy one for wanting my kiddies to be loving on me all the time?
[sound effect]
It's very, very hard to spend quality time with my cats without wanting to express my love through hugs and kisses.
(16:28):
But this is kind of a touchy subject.
How does the love language of physical touch translate for cats?
Per Jennifer.
I would say there are unique species.
They're predators, but they're also prey.
So you know, a lot of times cats are just naturally cautious because of that.
(16:49):
We think of them as maybe a loop when really they're just evaluating the situation before they come closer.
It's all about consent.
You ask a cat for consent by presenting your finger or just gently your hand and seeing if they smell it.
And then what do they do?
Do they lean into your hand?
Like, yeah, I want to be pet.
Or do they kind of take a step back?
(17:10):
Meaning that's enough for right now.
Cats really like frequent, but low intensity interaction.
So they like to come over to you a lot, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they want to be pet.
They just kind of like to see what's going on.
They're very scent oriented.
They have a much stronger sense of smell than we do - like, significantly stronger.
(17:31):
They kind of mix their scent with ours.
Sometimes cats lick us.
Sometimes they rub up against us.
I just love kissing my cat on the head.
It's irresistible.
Does my cat feel loved when I do that?
I think most cats probably do not appreciate this with some exceptions.
(17:53):
You're welcome to try it with your cat if they even let you get that close.
And you'll see, does your cat seem to want more?
Or are they taking two feet back and looking at you like, don't ever do that again?
So it's just something we want to do.
It's not something necessarily that they appreciate having like our lips on their head.
I think they prefer a little head rub with a finger to or a chin scratch.
(18:19):
Well, okay.
The old chin scratch.
Beyond that, how else can I love on my kitties?
Maybe there's something I can give them.
Because they're predators, they really need to pretend to hunt.
Imagine your cat Snuggles in the forest, fending for herself.
(18:40):
She would catch something like 10 mice a day, plus like forage for bugs.
And so when we invite them into our homes and we're like, usual food,
but kind of takes out a lot of the natural things that they would be doing.
And I think it's harmful to them, creating an environment where they can act out on their natural behaviors,
scratching, playing, pretending, really benefits them physically and emotionally.
(19:05):
Their hunters, and any cat owner whose kitty has spent some time outdoors knows it.
Ever had a dead bug or some remnant of a small animal left somewhere nearby for you?
That's a little gift from your cat.
This feathered cat toy I have is pretty effective proxy for an actual bird.
(19:28):
But really folks.
It's acts of service that are the true cross species love language for humans and cats.
That's how it all started.
I think they benefit a lot.
They really bond with us.
(19:50):
Not only do they expect to be fed and have their litter box scoops and maybe some play time that emotional connection is really strong.
I think a healthy bond is really beneficial for both the human and the cat.
By sheltering and feeding my cats, I'm showing them love.
And as you may recall from episode one, they're returning it by keeping my domicile free of vermin.
(20:13):
And ghosts.
I don't know what they're looking at at night.
I don't want to see it.
Cats were not brought into our lives to be entertainment or toys or passive play things that we just use for our own needs.
This is a mutual relationship and it requires constant maintenance, understanding and trust.
(20:34):
Jade has a really good final reminders about healthy relationships with our cats and honestly each other.
You'll see the cat videos on Instagram or social media feeds and they're hilarious, they're cute.
And I would always think, "Well, why doesn't my cat do some of this?"
(20:55):
Like, why isn't she a lap cat?
Why doesn't she show me affection in that way?
This was earlier on.
And then I realized, "Well, Jade, wait a minute, she is showing you affection.
You just have to pay attention.
This is how she's able to show it."
And so, stay tuned to her, pick up on the signals that she's putting out, pick up her specific ways of showing affection to you.
(21:20):
Until maybe she learned something else.
Or until she continues to evolve what that looks like.
And these moments, this is when she's been showing you affection.
And might not always be an Instagramable moment, but she is showing you that she loves you and she needs you and she wants you here as well.
And that's been a huge lesson for me, especially over the last few years.
(21:41):
Well folks, we did it.
We cracked the code.
All five love languages translated.
And thanks to our experts, I think all signs are at least most of them indicate that yes, our cats do love us.
Well, some of us, if you're stoned, it's just because they find your scent offensive.
(22:05):
This motivates me to work on appreciating my cats love differently, and to be a little better about not kissing them on the head.
Oh, and while we're on the subject, my love language, cold, hard cat and candy.
In the next episode, we're going to take a giant step back and look at the greater positive impact that loving on cats has for the world.
(22:31):
And how to be better in general about the ecosystems within which we all live and love together.
Speaking of love, I said lots of love to all of you out there.
Hi, appreciate you.
Oh, hey, thank you.
What you doing, okay?
I want to thank the wonderful returning voice, Kristyn Vitale, cat, advocate and behaviorist, Jennifer Van de Kieft, and fellow podcaster educator and full spectrum doula, Jade Hillery.
(22:57):
While the opinions are my own, the research and work is theirs.
You can find their information in the show notes as well as some research that I used for this episode.
If you love this episode, please give us a top rating and review.
Thanks again for coming on board.
Everything is connected.
[Music]
(23:20):
60 Grease of Cats is produced, written, edited and hosted by yours truly, Captain Kitty, aka Amanda B.
Please subscribe to our mailing list by visiting tinyurl.com/6degreesofcats or find us on all those social media platforms.
And for my paid subscribers, you'll have access to the extra audio with more deep dives by our experts.
(23:44):
This and all episodes are dedicated to the misunderstood, the marginalized, the resilient and the weird.
And of course, all the cats we've loved and lost.
[Music]
(24:07):
So prior to this moment in time, I had never been a cat owner.
I've always been a dog lover.
Never really had cats in our family.
I didn't know the first thing about cats.
Like, what do you do with them? I don't get it.
And then I think I turned to my right and I happened to see this beautiful, blue point, Siamese kitten.
(24:28):
She was in her own playpen.
All by herself and she was, you know, doing her thing. And it was like love at first sight.
And I had never felt this way about an animal before, but especially a cat.
She's supposed to be in my life. I don't know what this is, but she's supposed to be with me.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.