I don’t have a favorite cat, but Honey Pie…well let’s just say I’m her favorite. She and I bonded a lot when she was a kitten because her back legs are incredibly weak, so it took her a while to figure out how to use the litter box without making a mess of litter on her legs.

So she spent a lot of her kittenhood gazing up at me adoringly while I cleaned poopy litter out of her fur.

Anyway, for whatever reason instead of a normal meow, she has something verging much more on a screech, and since she needs help getting certain places (you’d be amazed how few she can’t manage though) she has a lot of different screeches that she uses to tell me what she needs.

Sometimes she wants to go in the window, sometimes up on her favorite dresser, sometimes she just urgently wants to sit in my lap and wants me to pick her up even though she could make it with her front paws - as literally happened as I started writing this.

Anyway, my point is, I’m not sure there is a sound that instantly melts my heart like her insane screeching does. I love it and I can hear it from the other room, through music, whatever. It isn’t uncommon for me to randomly get up and dart into the room mid conversation but my wife understands.

She’s amazing and I could talk about her forever but I will just pay the cat tax:

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 7 points 14 hours ago

I'm trying to think how many meows my cats have. I can think of five off the top of my head, and they change their tone depending who they're talking to (they call for my wife with a different meow than they call for me). I have just always kind of thought of them as 2 year olds with damaged language centers of their brain. I just talk to them and they meow back, and I pretend that we both understand each other.

That being said, there are a few words they've come to recognize. Like when I yell WHERE MY KITTIES AT they come running from wherever they were hiding for treats and cuddles. Very, very helpful when we had to evacuate.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

aw. I'm melting.

I had a boy with a weak back left leg, Pipo. He trained out the disability, so it was probably not as serious as whatever Honey Pie has. I made a litterbox with a step so he could climb in, but he didn't need it long. He also wasn't particularly vocal...

[–] deacon@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

She can move her hind legs a bit, and even walk a very little bit if she can get her back feet under her, but once she wants to move at any kind of speed she is fully just dragging herself by her front legs.

So her front legs are incredibly, like ridiculously strong, and her hind legs are quite atrophied, and we have to do manual stretches with her.

She can move very quickly and she can climb almost anywhere she wants to get to, and where she doesn’t, she’s got her screeches.

Cats are amazing the way they adapt. I love watching her figure things out.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Neat ! she lives inside ?

[–] deacon@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Fully, yeah. We live in quite an urban area, but some of my cats do like to go out in the backyard with me to act like they are hunting birds and butterflies, but that’s generally minutes at a time and fairly rare. I did recently install a catio in the small space between my house and my neighbors and she (and almost all of our cats really) loves that.