The Silent Meow

Mona - the silent meow - MM

Mona and Jinx are two long-haired girls who came to the Cat Sanctuary from another shelter this past January and, until just recently, I couldn’t tell one from the other.  Although Jinx has tabby colouring and Mona is a tortie, they’re both little, friendly and long-haired and hang out in the Front Courtyard, around or inside the little building known as Connor House.

Jinx - MM

And, they’re both darn cute, more so because they frequently do the “silent meow” thing – they look at you earnestly, their little mouths gape open and it looks like they’re meowing but with the sound turned off.  For some reason, this makes them look particularly cute and appealing.

Booster yelling - MM

Most cats have audible meows and a few, like Booster, make their presence known by yelling, loudly and persistently, to get attention so I wondered why, and how, Jinx and Mona are silent meow-ers.

Jinx the sun-worshipper - BC

Upon consulting “Dr. Google”, I found the scientific explanation of how some cats meow silently.  Apparently, the cat is actually making a sound but at a frequency which mere human beings can’t hear – we can hear up to a measly 20 kilohertz only, while cats can hear sounds of a much higher frequency than that.  So, if a silent-meowing feline wants to tell another feline to shove off, their intention is just as clear to the intruder as if it were screeched.  Okay, so that explained how they do it but didn’t tell me why.  

Mona - PH

Dr. Google goes on at length with the many reasons why cats meow, silently or otherwise – they want food, attention, to be let out and then immediately back in, are annoyed or in pain or just want to greet you.  However, if your cat makes a habit of using a silent meow to communicate with you, it’s possibly because it’s just clever and manipulative enough to know how adorable that looks and is taking full advantage of that to get what it wants.  Fluffy or Tom-Tom quickly figure out what’s going to be most effective to get their people to hop to it and do things their way. And if it works, they’ll keep doing it.

Mona dozing in the sun - BC

Dr. Google concludes by saying that if your precious cat really wants something from you and wants it now, it probably won’t hesitate to let you know, one way or another. Playing cute, for example with a silent meow if the cat do it, pretty much guarantees a positive result.

Piper hopes for a tidbit - MM

Having done the on-line research, it was time to do some practical work – a walk around the sanctuary was called for, with eyes open for silent meows.  It’s interesting how meow-free the place usually is – cats are not vocal in the way dogs are, and cat-noise is the exception rather than the rule. There are a few cats with particularly distinctive voices – Gabby lives up to his name, and Desi can be heard through the back area when he decides to talk. But yes, there are a few silent-meow-ers: Freckles is noted for her voiceless yell for chicken and cute little Orlean uses it to get attention.

Freckles sees chicken coming;  Orlean says "Pet me now!" - MW

Owners of particularly yappy cats might welcome one that meows silently but it seems to be an on again-off again thing.  Jinx and Mona can, and do, meow loudly when they want to get someone’s attention for an important message like “Feed me, now!” or “Why aren’t you picking me up?” but for sheer cuteness appeal, they can really work that silent meow.

Blog by Marianne Moore

Pictures by Brigid Coult, Phaedra Hardman, Marianne Moore, Michele Wright, 

The Sound of Mew-sic

Visitors to the Sanctuary are often surprised by how quiet the place is. Other than the occasional plane passing over, and some distant traffic noise, all is very peaceful. Unlike dogs, who are often very vocal, most cat communication lies in body language – both posture and touch.  There are, of course, sounds we would prefer not to hear – the hiccupping noise of an incipient hairball, the occasional spat as Treacle warns someone out of her space, the muttering of grey Leland telling us he’s in one of his bad moods. 

 

There are one or two particularly noisy cats, chief among which has to be Booster, who perches in the corner of a cage and yells until someone comes to pay attention to her.

 

Josie waits impatiently for Doug (or any other Josie-fan) to come and pat her bum – whereupon she trills her little Josie-song.

Other cats are noted for more subdued vocals.

Bubba, in Old Aids, talks to his favourite people until he is hugged, as he wishes.

 

Lucky is pretty quiet for a Bengal – but when he raises his voice, you hear it!

 

Cisco (on right, with Yoda & Fred) is vocal in his impatience in the tea-room as he waits for someone to pour coffee, and give him a little taste of cream.

 

Max, in the Val Jones, talks in a whiskey baritone.

On Sundays the vocals are dialed up as afternoon visitors arrive, and cats swarm the gate, saying “Feed me!  I’m starved!”  Wayne appears with his chicken offering, and the clamouring gets desperate. The same phenomenon occurs every evening as the feeds begin – there is always a chorus of already-well-fed but hungry cats.

Back courtyard Owl is particularly vocal when chicken is about,

though in this case it was a small moth he was after!

Pictures of cats with open mouths got me thinking about what they might be singing

O Solo Meow - Dodger

 

Purrrfidia - Esme

The (would-be) lion sleeps tonight - Achilles

 

Stray Cat Strut - Birdie

 

My purr will go on – Little Orange (PH)

 

(Everything I mew) I mew it for you - Skye

 

You got a fur-iend  - Skouch

 

Good vibrations - Arnie

 

 

What does YOUR cat sing?

 

Blog by Brigid Coult
Photos by (mostly) Michele Wright
with Brigid Coult & Phaedra Hardman

 

 



Graceless kitties of June

It's been brought to my attention that we're long overdue for a "graceless kitties" post. The cats must have heard about this too, as they've generally been refusing to be silly for my camera.

Here are a few shots I did manage to get with, as always, a little help from some friends.

Booster

Chip

Greyson

Grubby
photo by Phaedra

Val and Harry
photo by Ed

cat sanctuary music video!

For a different way of sharing the always entertaining cats living at the sanctuary, I decided to shoot some video. As a number of my RAPS friends know, making music is another thing I like to do...
And so it seemed to me a great idea to create not just a video with the cats, but a music video with the cats.

I recorded a cover of Ingrid Michaelson's The Way I Am, chosen because the cats take us just we are, just as we do for them.
Some of you have seen this already. For those who haven't -- enjoy!

Click on the image below for the embedded player, or click here to watch from the YouTube page.

Here are some of the cats featured in the video:

Yoda

Lucy

Selma

Orlean

Squeakers
(with Orlean still wriggling in the background)

Mario and Nelly

Logan

Marilee

Foxy

Booster

Ziggy Girl

Cookie

Note: There will only be one blog post this week -- the video was lots of fun to do, but really took it out of me!

Update: Booster

When I first posted about Booster two years ago, her signature method of getting attention was to incessantly yell at us from the top of the cages while seldom making much of a move beyond that. Well, she still meows and meows from the top of the cages...

... but she seems to have at last understood that making herself a little more easily accessible for a cuddle results in more cuddles. And so if I call her over to another side of the cages where she can hop down onto a shelf where I can reach her better, she generally comes. (Whereas before she'd just stay right where she was and keep meowing.)

Sometimes when I come in the evening I find she's even ventured down closer to floor level.

All of this makes it much easier to properly respond to her vocal pleas for attention and affection. She loves being picked up and cuddled, and will purr and nuzzle away for a long time. Unfortunately, the time a person can set aside for cuddling one cat when there are many cats' dinners to prepare is usually not enough to satisfy this needy kitty. And so after setting her down again, the meowing still tends to start up anew.

Elliot

A loud and intense yowling demanded my attention when I walked into the Conner building last week.  The yowl was as hard to ignore as Booster’s forlorn meows in the double wide at dinner time and equally exasperating. The raspy cry conjured up images of a four-legged Bob Dillon.  The cat that belonged to this crooner, none other than Elliot, a handsome orange tabby peering at me earnestly from the doors of his cage.

Elliot had been adopted out of RAPS sanctuary for a couple of years but unfortunately was surrendered back to the sanctuary a while back.  I’m told he is known affectionately as “Vampire Boy” because at one point he had had an incredibly long set of fangs that actually extended out of his mouth. Those fangs have now been shaved down to a more civilized length, but the nickname remains.

Elliot is currently being treated for an eye infection which has forced the staff to keep him behind bars as he is a difficult cat to pin down for medications when on the loose.  Unable to ignore his pleas for attention I went into his cage to spend some time with him.  Elliot seemed very pleased to have some one on one focussed attention and bowled me over with more yowls, lots of cheek rubs, some head butts and even a love nip to the shoulder when I tried to leave.

As you can see, Elliot is another cat who is far too interested in people love to stand for much picture taking and I could barely get him to stay in one place long enough to get a picture of him without his face rushing at the camera.

Ziggy

Ziggy is the brother of sweet, needy, noisy Booster.

 Booster and Ziggy

Ziggy is back after spending the past year at the RAPS city shelter on No. 5 Rd. The sign on his cage says he's "been peeing where he shouldn't."

Sanctuary staff thought it might help him reacclimatize if he shared a cage with his sister for a while. Having not seen each other in a year, it took the two a little while to get reacquainted, but it seems they soon started acting like a normal - human - brother and sister: Booster ignores her brother and steals his bed for herself, while Ziggy is much more interested in inhaling their shared dinner.

He's very sweet and likes a cuddle, although it can be hard to get his attention when there's some wet food to be polished off. Waving a dish does get his attention, but tends to result in poses like the one below: