That sound typically means “I want to be pet. I will flee if you try to pet me, I just want you to know that I want the attempt.”
Manny is…difficult.
this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2026
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I wish mine did the mrrrp. He only does MEEEEOWWWOWWWOWWWWWWWWW.
He's a Holy Birma, ergo half Persian, half Siamese.
Former cat, Ada, would snuggle up under the covers at night. She would politely wake me to let her under the covers.
Manny screams because his daily fattening is happening 10 minutes later than he prefers.
What did she become after her cat period?
Which is fair, really.
Sweetie will chirrup at us (that's what I call it. It's not quite a chirp and not quite a purr but man! So to answer your question I don't know) and then jump in the sink. Sometimes she curls up for pets in the sink, sometimes she wants drinks, sometimes she wants to give me a forehead kiss (do not ask me how I taught her to do that I don't know) but all I really know is she wants attention
My former cat, Ada, was very human-compatible. She didn’t do feline masking shit. She said what she meant, for better or worse, so she was always understood.
Since she’s dead in a box in my tv stand, her demands are simpler to parse now.
But manny is a himbo cat that sees everything as the beginning of saving private ryan. He’s from the same hood. He’s seen the same shit. And it hit him totally different. He might be broken.
And I’ll soon be inheriting my sisters cat, who I have nicknamed Goose after if tried to blind me because it’s stressed the fuck out by her kids and keeps attacking them and dads about to turn her into a purse and GODDAMNIT WHY AM I BRINGING A PSYCHICALLY UNSTABLE CAT INTO THE HOME WITH IM-GODS-VICTIM CAT HAVE I LOST MY MIND?!
Because you realize that poor stressed-out cat needs a home where someone understands the importance of regular meals even if she's a little slow sometimes, and is also willing to accept the rejection of pets. Goose and Manny may get along, and/or Goose may give Manny a legitimate reason for his drama. But they'll work out their boundaries and you're doing the right thing.
Okay, I have to chime in here, if only because I not only do this, but somehow distinguish 9 different sets of various meows.
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:
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...
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.
Neat ! she lives inside ?
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.
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.
Before we got our kitten (2 years old) our older cat (8 years old) only had a handful of very similar meows. Sure, there would be tone so you could kinda guess what he wanted, but they were all variations of the same. The new kitten comes in, and she's a chatter box. She makes so many different sounds, you can always tell what mood she's in, what she's doing, and what she wants. It's lovely.
The problem with this is that she's started teaching the older cat new sounds, so on top of his normal sounds he'll occasionally make one that I've never heard him make before. And it's absolutely disorienting. He'll make a noise and look at me expectantly, and I will have absolutely no idea what he wants. He's always good to show me what he wants, but man must he think I'm an idiot now.
Sometimes my grown ass cat would made this really pathetic kitten squeak and I would pick him up like a baby and kiss him. He did it when he wanted attention and cuddles. I think cats are like kids, where you end up with these extremely specific "games" that everyone knows the rules to, but nobody would be able to write them down lol
I mean it sounds a little like something in an obsessive compulsive direction. And our Poor Goober is on Prozac and yells at us if we miss his bedtime (because one of us are his bed)....
Only one of my cats is a chatterbox, but I have no idea what any of his meows mean. He looks somewhere, screams, looks somewhere else, screams again, looks at me, screams. He doesn't even differentiate at all, because he uses all of his different meows for the same things. I think he just likes to talk, because he's been like that since he was a kitten.
I think he just likes to talk, because he's been like that since he was a kitten.
Talk back to him, maybe he just wants a conversation 🥰
Can confirm. My orange loves conversation. Just make up what he says in your imagination and go from there :3
They see that for us humans communicating is a big deal, and they want to be a part of it in our lives ❤️
Yeah, but you train well.
Just good parenting
My cat was born from a stray, and I took it upon myself to raise her. She acts like she doesn't remember what it was like to be outside for two years of her life, as she has completely adapted to her regal lifestyle with no interest in going back outside ever. She is convinced that water straight from the tap is better than water straight from the tap into her bowl. She also will drink from the puddles on the floor after a shower, because that is somehow also better than water in her bowl. She also scratches at doors she wants open. She also was mad at me for an entire day for the two or three drops of flea medication.
should get one of those cat water fountains. they prefer running water instinctually, so the fountain will make the water bowl much more intetesting to them.
they prefer running water instinctually
I've heard that before and it makes sense, but my cat also likes to stick is head in whatever container outside is filled with old rain water
We have a shower chair. Oh meow lord help us if we don't pull the chair out where The Goober can stare at us while soaking his harbls on the leftover shower water in the chair. He will let us know.
Like, I'm not saying I understand how ancient people worshipped cats.
I am saying that I'm not sure how future archeologist will be able to determine that I don't.
You can’t say all that and not post a pic!
So precious 🥹
Such a baby
Oh, sure. Cats, and dogs, too, can learn how to speak in their own sort of language like that. It’s simple, but effective sometimes.
For my cat, it’s mostly limited to:
- hello
- hey (to get my attention)
- I want something
- expressing happiness
- expressing unhappiness
- I am angry
- I am scared
There's a lot more, but we have to start bringing in the non vocal markers in (cat) speech to understand I think. Like how furrowing your brow often implies you're thinking. Or how the cat's tail moves when it's screaming at you
From my last 2 dogs, one could let me know a number of specific things based on context. (Including, the spin that means: I need you to open this specific gate, or I'm just going to jump it, and not come home for a day.)
The other one just had I need something NOW, and then various emotions (and being hungry was an emotion, and he had it all the time lol).
Cat parents? We hoomans are just mere caretakers. Butlers. Slaves.
I do like to butle
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