Purring and its meanings

 

 

Hear Tilly purring here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMH0Q-3hEcw

 

We purr, therefore we are. Yet the purr means different things, depending on what is happening around us. 

An example of the happy relaxed purr can be found here It is my friend, Tilly, being stroked. Yet we also purr (with a tiny cry inside the purr) when we want something. Purrhaps when we want food from our humans.

And finally, some of us purr when we are at the veterinary surgery. It's a way of trying to soothe our anxiety and it may even help our pain.

But how do we make this low noise? We are only small animals and small animals make high rather than low noises? Scientists used to think we were moving the muscles of our voicebox or larynx.

Now they think it may be because we have pads on our vocal chords which press together and then start vibrating automatically, making this low noise.

Aren't we wonderful?

 

• To learn more about us buy Being Your Cat here
  
  
  
  

The oldies need you.....

Elderly Maggie waits for someone to love her.

When we get old and our fur becomes tatty, we need kind humans to help us. Especially if we are in a shelter waiting for a home.

We can't look beautiful when we have arthritis and our fur gets a bit rough, in those areas where we can't groom it.

We can't look graceful, if our aches and pains stop us jumping up high or being athletic.

We can't catch the adopters' eye if we are sleeping rather than playing. And we do sleep a lot.

We can give love. But only if a human recognises that we want to be a loving pet, rather than an old cat stuck for weeks and weeks in a pen waiting.

So please adopt the elderly.

I'm a tiger....

 

A domestic Bengal cat not a leopard!

We cats really are tigers -- small ones but nevertheless tigers. Or lions if you prefer. Tiny leopards in your kitchen?

Why?

Because we all have the same body plan and we all do the same thing - prey on other animals and eat them. We are totally carnivorous - "obligate carnivores" is the phrase.Or, you could say, serial killers.s

An evolution expert, Anjali Goswami, has said that we cats are perfect. We may vary in size but we don't change our shape and lifestyle pattern because we don't need to. 

Want to learn more? Read this interview in Scientific American. She says: Cats have nailed this one thing so well that they all do it and just come up with slightly different sizes. That’s why they’re perfect, evolutionarily. They don’t need variation."

There is one difference, however. Bit cats roar. We domestic cats purr. 

Which makes us even more purrfect....