Meeethisistoofunnyooww! I was catching up on my reading when this amusing little news story caught my eye: "67 Percent of Owners Claim to Understand Pet Woofs & Meows". I laughed so hard I nearly spilled my cinnamon caffe latte!! Once again, the persons of the world are desperate to believe that maybe - just
maybe - they can communicate with the felines among them. While there is no question that they can communicate with dogs (how difficult could it be to comprehend dog-speak when "Woof!" can only mean, "I'm hungry" or "I want to go outside"?), cat-speak is at an entirely different level of communication.
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The article does help me to understand better why my manperson and ladyperson insist on engaging me in mundane conversations: they truly believe I'm listening! Actually, SHE more than HE: my ladyperson can go on and on and on to me about events in her own life that, quite frankly, are of zero interest to me. However, I have learned that if I reward her with a seemingly interested wide-eyed gaze and I utter a few syllables, she is satisfied and generally moves on.
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---> On a serious note, one extremely alarming portion of the news story pertains to a new trend of persons buying fewer Christmas gifts for their pets. My own manperson and ladyperson best not even consider such antics, as they are already alarmingly inept in their gift-giving skills.
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For your amusement, here are the highlights of the news story:
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"Sixty-seven percent of pet owners say they understand their animals' woofs, meows or other sounds, saying they comprehend completely. Sixty-two percent of pet owners say that when they speak, their critter gets the message. The high level of communication is but one way the poll highlights the bond between many owners and their pets.
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More women than men say they and their pets understand each other's verbal stabs at communication. , Molly Thibodeau of Fort Riley, Kansas, said her two cats understand her so completely that if she wants to shoo them off furniture, "I point at them and they get right down." On the flip side, men are twice as likely as women to say they and their pets are clueless about what each is saying to the other. "It's kind of like, 'What are you doing?'" Edwin Oto, of Moraga, California, says of his futile efforts to figure out what his dog wants when she keeps barking after he lets her into the house.
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When it comes to communicating in the other direction, cat owners do better. Twenty-five percent of them say they completely understand their cats' meows, compared with 16 percent of dog owners who claim to be totally fluent in barks. But Jane Starring, 48, of Barrington, R.I., says she and her family are confounded by their 8-year-old cat, Flannel, who often chases people about the house meowing. "We're not sure we're making much progress understanding him," said Starring. "I don't know what his point is."
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William Miller, a professor of veterinary medicine and medical director of Cornell University's Companion Animal Hospital, says it's not unusual for many owners and pets to understand some of each other's speech. He said animals and people learn to communicate verbally by over time associating certain sounds with actions, such as a particular bark when a dog wishes to go outside or the soothing tone many people use when petting their cat.
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With many households having more than one pet, 74 percent of all pet owners have a dog and 46 percent have a cat, according to the poll. Men and women were about equally likely to own either kind of animal. Twelve percent of pet owners have fish, 7 percent have birds, and 2 percent or fewer have horses, rabbits, rodents, turtles, lizards or other pets.
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---> Fifteen percent of all owners said they have scaled back spending for their pets in the past year. Of the group that is cutting back, seventy-one percent say they've thought about buying fewer toys or clothes, while 60 percent cite switching to less costly pet food. Even so, 43 percent of owners said they would buy holiday gifts for their pets, compared with 46 percent who said they had done so last year."
