Suppose one day your feline friend suddenly disappears and you reunite a few days later, then the first question that may come to your mind is whether your pet cat recognizes you as the owner ?
Let me save you from the suspense, of course, cats can recognize their owners in their own way. So if you want to go somewhere far away while you are on vacation or for some important work, you can feel free to leave your cat with someone else.
Cats recognize their owners in a variety of ways, especially when they identify someone by their own odor. Moreover, they can recognize their owners by their looks, voices, and their demeanor.
What Do Cats Recognize and Respond To
Among many animals, the feline is one of the most enthusiastic and sensitive species. Cats’ senses are different from human senses in many ways. One of the most notable differences is that they can hear different frequencies that humans cannot.
Fellins can also detect sounds below 55 Hz. Cats hear a wide variety of frequencies and are thought to hear much better than most mammals. Unlike other animals with acute hearing, cats do not use ultrasound during communication. However, cats can hear ultrasonic sounds and respond to them.
Cats also have very keen eyesight due to their evolution from predatory ancestors, which is why even in low light they can see a lot clearer than most other animals. So cats can detect the distinctive facial features of other animals easily and recognize them as their friend or foe.
Cats can recognize human voices and respond primarily by moving their ears and heads. It is also known that using harmonics and broad pitch was more effective in finding that response. They also respond to many sounds like purr, trill, distress calls, howl and snarl.
Evolution in progress
Even a decade or two ago, most cats spent more time outside. With the change of time, the tendency of cats to stay indoors has also increased. The more time they spend in contact with people, the better they are at communicating with us. By listening to our voices, they have now learned to understand whether we want to harm them or help them. Such an evolution of cats in a short time is really commendable.
How Cats Recognize Their owners
Compared to other animals, cats started living in human society thinking of their own benefit. There was a time when the infestation of rats around us was increasing day by day, the cats then found a good source of their food and started living among the people. Thus gradually they began to evolve into domesticated animals. To find out more about when cats were domesticated and how we got cats as pets, click on our other article “How Did Cats Become Domesticated”.
Since they came to us on their own terms, there was no need for them to communicate with us. So cats have never really shown much interest in understanding human gestures and expressions. That’s why cats lag far behind other domestic animals in communicating with humans.
Yet gradually they came to our home and began to see us as one of their well-wishers. Then, in some weird way they started talking to us. Cats can usually recognize their owner or people close to them by smell, touch, and sound.
1. Recognizing by Scent
When cats like a toy to play with or feel comfortable spending time in a place, they mark it with their own scent. They also apply this method to mark humans as well. Cats can recognize them by that smell when marked people wander around them.
Marking is very important for cats. This is because in this way they not only remember their owners but also the smell acts as a warning to other animals therefore they try to keep their distance.
2. Cats Can Recognize Your Voice
Some experts have speculated that human faces are not as important to cats. A study by scientists at the University of Tokyo found that cats can recognize the voice recordings of their owners rather than the voices of strangers. In that survey, cats ignored the recordings of most strangers calling their names but listened to their owners’ voices more closely.
Of course, none of the cats in the study actually got up to look for their missing owners, because cats are very cushy animals and they understand very well that it is foolish to leave a good napping place.
3. Recognizing By Face
If you have ever wondered, whether your cat will recognize you just by looking? Then you can rest assured that most of the time cats can recognize their owners just by their looks. In some cases, even your cat will know you better than you do.
Both animal behavior experts and pet owners have observed that cats learn the habits of their human friends. They know who manages the morning food, who carries a bag of treats in his pocket, and who knows exactly the right place to scratch. They are skilled at determining which words and actions will elicit some desired response from people.
Although many domesticated animal experts think that cats probably do not recognize us by looking at our appearance. Rather, almost all human faces look the same to cats. Through a study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University and the University of Texas at Dallas. When pictures of human faces were shown, cats could tell their owner about 54 percent of the time, excluding strangers. The cats in the study were better at recognizing the faces of other cats, they recognized about 91 percent of the time correctly.
Do Cats Recognize Their Own Names?
Cats are notorious for their incompatibility with humans. Most cat owners admit that even if they call their pets by name, they avoid that call most of the time. But a new study indicates that domestic cats can recognize their own names even if they leave after hearing their names.
A behavioral scientist at Sophia University in Tokyo has previously shown that cats can recognize their owner’s voice. In the latest study, which involved 78 cats from Japanese families and a cat cafe, we got to know that cats do respond to their names.
Cats can learn a lot better and faster than most other domestic animals. But they don’t like to show it off as other animals.