I was zoom chatting with my niece and nephew and the 9 year old asked « if O’Malley wasn’t a cat, what would he be? » (I adore little kid questions like this!! So out of the box and mind opening!) and at first my adult brain was like LOL he’s a cat what else could he be. But after just a second i instantly knew to answer « African grey parrot. » because this cat wants so much to be able to communicate complex things to the humans he would be over the moon about the ability to speak.
Like for example, two of the other cats in the house I would consider normal cat communication (the fourth cat has shared custody of a single brain cell and gets it on every other weekend. I love him and his empty skull dearly.) like they can communicate complaint, contentment, and demand, and you have to play a guessing game like « food? Walk outside? Pets? Did someone close a door? » Ect.
But O’Malley has the most diverse array of meows of any cat I’ve ever had, and understands enough human speech that you can have actual conversations with him. He has specific meows for asking where each member of the family is (well, one for each cat, mom, and then one for « where are humans? » for everyone else)
Like this (words between * are distinct meows he uses consistently. Italics are human words I know he understands so I say them slowly to him):
O’Malley: *where is apricot?*
Me: he’s downstairs honey
O’Malley: *thank you* (heads downstairs)
O’Malley: *where is Harold?*
O’Malley: (heads to living room)
O’Malley: *where is toy?*
O’Malley: (heads to dresser, sticks his paws under and tries to get it out. Fails, sits up and looks at me) *help*
O’Malley : *MOOOOOOMMMMM*
O’Malley: (trots into room) *want*
Me: not now you just ate.
O’Malley: *NOOOOOOOOO* (dramatically flops on floor)
(I swear he must have picked this one up from the people because his « extreme displeasure » noise actually sounds like he’s saying « NOOOOOOO » lol)
Me: (moves furniture around in the house)
O’Malley: (comes in the room) *NOOOOOO* (walks up to each moved item) *why* *why* *why* *why*
Me: it’s ok honey. It’s ok.
O’Malley: (hops up on my lap) *why?*
Me: (gives an explaination I’m sure he doesn’t understand but he seems to understand that I tried to tell him why.)
O’Malley: *i don’t like it* (this is a much smaller sound similar to the NOOOOO meow but he doesn’t seem to expect me to fix the problem with this noise, he’s just expressing himself)
O’Malley: (hops up on windowsill) *SNOW!*
Me: yeah? (He understands this to mean « tell me more » and he usually adds more sounds to express himself)
O’Malley: (looks at me) *excited!*
Me: not now. I’m working now.
O’Malley: (sits down) *i don’t like it*
Me: I know. Later. Go play with a toy.
O’Malley: (long pause) *i don’t like it* (hops down and goes and gets his toy)
(He uses the *sick* meow any time he feels bad- if he’s about to puke, or did puke, or if he’s too cold or too hot or got bit too hard by another cat and it hurts later(he comes to show me his booboo and says *sick*) and he also uses it to alert me that Harold(who has digestive issues we are trying to sort out with the vet) pooped outside the litter box, which might be me reading too much into it but it seems like he is demonstrating an awareness that Harold is sick?? Like some form of empathy in putting himself in harolds place and understanding that diarrhea means Harold feels bad? That seems like a surprising amount of dots to connect for a cat but I’m trying not to underestimate animal intelligence until proven otherwise)
Vetblr and cat science people, have you seen a lot of this? I’m super curious to know how common this is. Out of the 13 cats I’ve had in my life this is the only one that communicates so clearly and consistently. Does he just have a wider range of sounds so I can understand him, and we as humans are just too deaf to understand the variation in other cat’s meows? Are my other cats trying to say this much to me and I’m just stupid?
