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When my wife and I are speaking to each other, we are either A) Talking about our kid, B) Repeating something our kid said, C) Talking about our cats or D) Screaming whatever our cats are screaming, right back in their dumb, little, fuzzy, stupid idiot faces.
Our kid and our cats are basically our own, 2 person only, super-exclusive pop culture memes. What I mean to say, is we spend an awful lot of time conversing in references and memes to things that ABSOLUTELY NO ONE ELSE in the world would understand. Being a people is weird.
COMMENTERS: Do you talk to your animals or mimic their behavior when you’re alone in ways that you WOULD NOT do in mixed company for fear of having to defend yourself in a committal trial?
I'm seriously considering posting a version of this comic from the cats' perspectives. Hmmm…
I often wonder what the cats think is happening when we are talking to/mimicking them.
I talk to my cats, but everyone who comes to my house knows I'm a crazy cat mom, so I don't bother to hide it.
fart casket… that punched me right in the funny. head between my knees, deep breaths, still recovering…
Our male cat was such a cute little kitten, now he is demonspawn incarnate. He yelps he stupid face off at 3:30 in the morning and them comes to the bedroom to GRAB the door, it sounds like he is trying to rip it off the hinges. Our other 2 cats have no front claws and are completely defenseless. He terrorizes them worse than the CIA blasting Journey at gitmo prisoners.
We totally mock-talk our cats. We've got one who's so food obsessed he cries like he's dying of starvation every time we *face the direction* of where the kibbles are located. Like, he's whine-meowing. It's so terrible and annoying sometimes the only response is to do it back to his stupid cute fuzzy face. The other one just does this adorable little purtle that's too great not to try to replicate.
I had to move cabinets from where I store(d) my spare lightbulbs, cook books, batteries, etc because that just happened to be where I also kept the doggie bones.
The magnetic release "tick" triggers the "I'm getting a treat" instinct no matter what; and I'm not left alone until said treat is delivered.
[I tried just moving the treats, but that did nothing to change the expectation when I needed a bulb]
One of my cats does the incessant whine-meowing, and I sometimes do it back to her, then adding, "THIS IS WHAT YOU SOUND LIKE!! WHY DO THINK THAT'S GOING TO ENDEAR YOU TO ANYONE???"
oh man, my one cat gets so worked up over her nightly treat of wet food that as soon as I walk in the door she starts screeching at me like MOM I HAVEN'T EATEN IN SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN TO ME?? She's normally pretty talkative (likes to yell at walls, chirps at me and her brother) but she can make this horrible sound that sounds like a child having a tantrum in the grocery store. I tell her, you don't get fed (they have kibble out 24/7 and I know she eats it, she's just spoiled) until you stop making the horrible sound, and sometimes this actually works, but other times, I make the sound back at her til she gives up. I tell her, do you hear how awful that sounds? that's what you sound like! too – sometimes it even works. It's like how my cats know their names, they just don't want you to think they'll come when called (even though they totally do, losers <3 )
The short answer to your question is yes. Also we too have lengthy conversation about the cats as if there is nothing else going on in our lives.
Also also m the predictive text on my tablet actually accurately predicted the last six words of that sentence.
Saw the $10 off code for the hoodies,… Man I want a hoodie…… But at 6'4" 265lb I need a xxxl for them to reach my waist …. (lay a xxxl on top of a xxl, it is just longer, not wider) …… Alas, None in xxxl size,…. Makes me sad …..
When I had a dog I had full conversations with it. We had a weird understanding of each other. I guess it was more therapeutic to just talk to it like it was a person. I feel I'll do the same with my inevitable child mainly to amuse myself. I hate baby talk that adults do.
Yeah, I used to repeat back the vocalizations of my dogs sometimes if I was alone with them and felt like teasing. Sometimes they'd just look back at me funny, sometimes they seemed like they'd try to communicate, and sometimes they'd just act like "enough of this crap" and leave the room.
I think every pet owner at least attempts something similar once in a while, if only just for their own amusement.
My cat is eardrum bursting vocal sometimes and the best way to get her to shut up is to converse with her in cattish… meowese… a mocking facsimile of her crying and english. Usually it's something like, Cat: ::drywall shattering crying:: Me: "OMG What?!" Cat: "Merrrooowww!" Me: "Merow? Really?" Cat: "Mew. Meow. Merf." Me: "Meow merf? That's fascinating. Then what?" Cat: "Prrrr!" Me: "Well, I'm glad we had this little chat." And then the cat seems happy to have gotten whatever crazy cat issues she had off of her chest and is blissfully quiet again. I figure she owes me a ton of cat psychiatry gold.
The dog, in comparison, looks at me as if to say "Why are you making dog sounds when you have perfectly good lips and a dexterous tongue and highly developed neurolinguistics? Why???" Which is probably the proper response.
When our cockatiel is being unreasonably loud, I will shout "I'M A BIRD!" repeatedly into his face, a la this Hyperbole and a Half entry.
Yea, I do tend to do that, trying to match the cats' vocalizations. What's hard is that our big grey fluffball Merlin has the stupidest squeaky voice. My other cat Silvia leads me around the house, back and forth, chirruping at me to make sure Im following.
When I noticed my dogs used to watch my mouth carefully when I spoke to them, I started breaking down words into syllables to see which ones they cared about. Eventually, I could just say "go" and they'd run to the back door to go outside, "muh" and they'd run to get a munchie, or "squh" and they'd bark like mad at a squirrel that didn't even exist.
And then, you happen to meet a new Native American friend who's name is 'Gomuhsquh'. 🙂
Spending a decent amount of time around family farms, I’ve been exposed to a whole menagerie of overly-expressive animals that trick me into acting in ways that would make me look like a complete nutter in front of mixed company. Just in these past few months: a llama (named Dalai Llama, of course) that will brilliantly imitate a tornado siren until I do it back (and it usually has to be ME, since only I can apparently make a test siren "sound cross"); a pair of horses that will somehow goad me via whinnies and neighs into a seemingly one-sided conversation that sounds like a David Brent rant right from The Office (including awkward polite nodding from them at all the right moments, which I find oddly unsettling); and my late grandfather’s cat that we recently inherited, Data (TNG fans, the lot of us), who will actually seem to listen in on conversations for a while, and then wait for a lull in topics before meowing his opinions to the room at large until one of us chimes in with equally poignant mews and yowls to cut him off. (He's either reciting some overly complex Starfleet codex entry or he’s proudly announcing he just shat half a bird into somebody’s shoe. Not sure which.)
I like to slowly follow my cat around our apartment chanting "Eat the kitty, eat the kitty"… Olive (the kitty) seems to have more fun with it than my girlfriend.
Our 16 year old pug will stand in the middle of the room and bark at me until I get down and play with her as another pug would, which involves head butting and pinching her ears (she nips my earlobes) and grabbing at her back legs until I roll over on my back so she can climb on my chest (with some help, she's old) and snort in my face, signifying victory.