Cheetah meow is part of their rich vocal repertoire

Cheetahs have a rich vocal repertoire. And before I go any further, I'm going to stress the fact that it includes a meow which is very like that of the domestic cat. It's a bit louder and a little bit wilder but unmistakably a genuine meow, which doesn't surprise me one bit because this large wild cat species really does have some domestic cat traits. 

Captive cheetah meowing. Screenshot.

I've just seen a picture of a cheetah cosying up to a photographer. In the photo the cheetah has a GPS collar around their neck and it's in the wild but they decided that they would like to have a bit of human company. They can be like that sometimes. 

It is why, hundreds of years ago, they were tamed to hunt with rich humans in India and other Asian countries for sport. They are therefore tameable and somewhat domesticatable but don't think that they make good pets because they do not.

My thanks to the TikToker 'renn' for the video below.

The cheetah also has a yelp which is a brief, high-pitched yow sounding vocalisation which can travel some distance. A scientist, Mr R McLaughlin, said that he heard the yelp 2 km away.

When the cheetah utters this sound, they open and close their mouth rapidly while their abdomen and head jerk with the effort.

It is a contact call normally made by the mother who has been separated from her cubs or by young cheetahs who have lost their mother or siblings. That information is according to Mr J Kingdon (1977).

Another contact call would be the churr. This sound is used by mothers to call or encourage their offspring and by male cheetahs to relocate their siblings or coalition partners and also in a variety of other circumstances according to Mr TM Caro (1994).

The churr is also called a "stutter". It can indicate that the female is in heat (oestrus) and when males use the stutter, they do so to indicate an interest in a female according to Mr TM Caro (1993).

The cheetah also gurgles. This is a friendly close-range vocalisation. That information, by the way, come from Mr G Peters (1984).

Further, cheetahs occasionally growl when involved in agonistic encounters at a kill. They also moan when they are attacked or threatened by other cheetahs, leopards or lions. That information comes from a variety of researchers/scientists including TM Caro mentioned above.

And finally, the cheetah purrs like a domestic cat during friend encounters and after a meal or when resting. Of course, the cheetah purr is much louder than that of the domestic cat.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Cats can make a demand in a meow even though they do not want anything

You may have met with this somewhat baffling feline behaviour. I'll describe what my cat does. In fact, he did it about an hour ago when I came in from buying a newspaper. My cat and I have set up a routine. When I come in the front door he expects me to give him some prawns - a treat. 

Cats can make a demand in a meow even though they do not want anything. Image: MikeB

And over the years this has created habitual behaviour; a pattern of behaviour which includes a request by my cat in the form of a meow for prawns. The point is though that he will still meow and ask for prawns even though he does not want them.

I can put them in a bowl and he can go up to them and licked them but he won't eat because he is not hungry enough to eat them. His meows are simply part of the scenario that both my cat and myself have created. Part of that interaction is that he meows for food. It can be a 'hollow' meaningless meow for food when he is not hungry and has no desire to eat it.

This is an example of where habits and routines outstrip reality. The players, humans and cats, create a situation in which the players do certain things and it no longer matters that the objective of the routine is unviable. The routine is the objective not the goal. 

The end result is that I have to put the prawns back in the box and put the box back in the fridge. I will bring them out at another time when I think that his demands are genuine. Although of course it is almost impossible to make an accurate decision about that.

It is a classic case of informal positive reinforcement training. The instigating action is my arrival at home. My cat gets an urge to eat prawns as it has been positively reinforced in him to do that. He has been rewarded for asking for prawns. He gets them which reinforces further his behaviour.

Cat owners are not great at understanding their cats' sounds out of context

A study carried out in 2003 and published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, probably discovered what we already know but I think it's worth briefly discussing here. 

They wanted to test how well cat owners understood the calls that their cats made. They used experienced cat owners and inexperienced cat owners. They classified domestic cat sounds into two groups: single calls and "bouts of calls". I take the latter to mean the situation when domestic cats produce a series of meows and meow-like sounds. 

Oriental Shorthair meow-honk. Screenshot plus words added.

They found that experienced cat owners were better at interpreting feline sounds than inexperienced cat owners, which is to be expected. They also found that there was a better understanding of bouts of calls compared to single calls. 

They also concluded that "classification accuracy was significantly above chance, but modestly so". This, on my interpretation, means that cat owners indicated that they understood their cat's meows but only slightly above a level of pure guesswork. This is why the title to this post is that cat owners are not great at understanding their cat's meow sounds.

ASSOCIATED PAGE: Why do feral cats not meow?

What do we take from this?

Well, I can't read the entire study which would help me because I am only allowed to read the summary. But the big point is this: cat owners interpret their cat's meows in the context in which they are produced. In fact the context is probably more important than the sound. It's the timing of the sound which is the context. 

The timing of meows is part of the routines and rhythms of human-to-cat interactions.

The meow sound is a request, normally. The study scientists refer to this as "negatively toned". They also said that the meows were non-specific. I get that but if you read a meow sound in context the sound is specific.

ASSOCIATED PAGE: What does a purr-meow mean?

So for example if you feed your cat when you get up in the morning and your cat makes a meow sound at that time then you know that your cat is requesting food. And if you let your cat out into the backyard at 4 PM every day through the back door and your cat makes a meow sound at that time then you know that your cat wants to be let out into the backyard! It's about context. Non-specifics become specifics under those situations.

But if you try and read and understand the meow sound out of context it is difficult because you know your cat is requesting something but you won't know what it is unless you put into context. This is because the meow is non-specific. They are all the same out of context.

The study: Classification of domestic cat (Felis catus) vocalizations by naive and experienced human listeners.

Cat with the sweetest meow converses with her human guardian

The title to the video tells us that this cat has an adorable meow. She certainly has. This is a conversation between human and cat and the meow has a hint of the human language in it perhaps because of its intonation. A cute little video with a duration of a mere 10 seconds but a nice record of an interaction between human and cat.

This is the conversation:

"Do you love your blanky?"

"Meow"

"You do?"

"Do you want to see me?"

"Meow"

"Peekaboo"

"Meow"

Cat with the sweetest meow converses with her human guardian. Screenshot.

About the video: This embedded video may (almost certainly will!) disappear one day because it is held on a server other than Google's server and therefore, I have no control over it. Sometimes videos do disappear like this one because the people who control the original video sometimes delete it for whatever reason. The video you see on this page is "embedded" through an <iframe> tag.

Is it true that cats only meow at humans?

I am referring to domestic and feral cats. It is not 100% true that cats only meow at humans but you will find that feral cats do not meow at each other very often. This is because the meow is a learned request by the domestic cat living in the human home for something such as food or interaction.  It's been learned over thousands of years. That's what the experts say. It is quite rare for the average person to mingle with feral cats in a colony to check this advice. But it makes sense.

Feral cat colony. All shorthairs. Photo: in public domain.

In fact the domestic cat has refined the meow sometimes so that it sounds a little bit like a baby crying. Some cats have learned that this slightly modified meow is more effective in getting their way.

Long-haired feral cats?

As an aside, you will also rarely see long-haired feral cats. Why is this? It must depend upon how long-standing the colony is. You will get new cats coming into a colony and some of them may be strays having been abandoned and these cats may have long hair. But if feral cats have had time to evolve their family over several generations, within a colony, it is argued they will normally be shorthaired cats because shorthair is more effective when living in the wild.

This, though, must only apply to countries where the climate allows it. Arguably, in very cold climates you should see long-haired feral cats. Perhaps the argument about feral cats normally being shorthaired relates to most parts of the USA, particular the south, where the climate is amenable to a shorthaired coat which requires less maintenance by the cat to keep it in good condition.

Excessively long hair, we know, is beyond the means of a domestic cat to maintain themselves. This is why owners of Persian cats have to support their cat by grooming him or her. This is an anomaly and it would never have happened under normal evolutionary pressure.

Is your cat meowing too much?

An author on the website Catster.com asks whether your cat is meowing too much. My first thought was that a domestic cat cannot meow too much. It's impossible to envisage that situation. For a start off, domestic cats are not, in general terms, that vocal. Some cat breeds such as the Siamese are more vocal in others. The Siamese' rather raucous and harsh voice may grate sometimes but when you adopt a Siamese cat you know what you're getting. You are adopting a loyal, vocal creature and you like it. So no complaints. Cats start to meow at around 4 months normally. And they only meow at humans. Feral cats don't meow at each other.

The only time that a cat can meow too much is not when they're meowing but when they're howling at night at midnight in the morning! Yes, cats can be too vocal but it will be when they are vocal at times which are undesirable from a human's perspective.

Image: PoC

The reason why this should happen is because cats are essentially nocturnal hunters. Or to be more precise they are crepuscular creatures. They like to be active when we like to be inactive and fast asleep. The vocalisation aspect of this behavioural trait is an adjunct to the more important behavioural trait as described.

Howling at night, can be caused by a cat who is elderly and who may suffer from early-stage dementia and is therefore confused. The howl is a call for company. The response should be to provide them with company even if it is highly inconvenient. If you're awake because of the howling then it is not much of an added burden to get up and deal with it. We should be very sympathetic and sensitive to our cat's emotional problems.

However, if your cat wants to wake you up at four in the morning by meowing and you don't like it, the classic treatment is to ignore it. For the immediate future your cat will try harder and then eventually she will give up. That is the argument. The argument is to ignore demands that you don't want to meet because if you respond to demands you feed them and encourage more. Personally, I don't subscribe to ignoring requests from my cat. Maybe that's just me but if he is asking for something there's good reason for it and I feel duty bound as his caregiver to do something about it.

The cat's meow may irritate some people some time. This is because it is a demand or polite request depending upon your viewpoint for food. And sometimes cats can linger around your feet as you walk around the kitchen meowing at you and rubbing their bodies against you. They can get in the way. Cats are persistent and they will go on until they get what they are asking for. As I said, this may irritate some people if they are not in the mood to respond. The best response is to respond! Cats get their way. It's an example of the cat training the human rather than vice versa.

Caterwauling is rarely heard in my opinion. It is described as "an aggressive, threatening sound made by sexual or territorial rivals.... It may be heard at any time when two or more cats are fighting and may, on occasion, have nothing to do with sexual encounters". I am quoting Desmond Morris.

The author on Catster says that an indoor cat when seeing an outdoor cat may vocalise their frustration or excitement. My experience tells me that under these circumstances the indoor cat is normally quite silent. They may look intently and wish to get out side and do something about it. If they are allowed outside they will go but this is more about action rather than vocalisation. It's like the hunt: cats are silent when in pursuit.

If a cat owner is going to complain about meowing it will normally be because their cat is not meowing enough. And on this subject, some cats produce silent meows. If a person wants to adopt a cat and wants that cat to be relatively quiet then they should consider seeking out a cat who likes to meow silently. This happens when the cat opened their mouths as if to meow but no sound comes out.

My conclusion is that domestic cats can never meow too much. They can never vocalise too much and if you are irritated and consider their noise-making too much then I think you should look at yourself and ask whether you might be unreasonable.