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Do you have a cat that always meows? Or is the cat’s meow a strange verse for you? You must know that some cats meow more than others, some are more talkative, others more taciturn, let’s understand why and to discover the meaning of the cat’s meows.
Often the mews of our house cat is music for our ears, flute, cheerful, seems to respond to our words. But other times it’s a real nightmare, especially when it’s terribly insistent and we do not understand the reasons.
In fact, sometimes, for no apparent reason, a cat always meows.
So it may happen that our cat constantly mews, apparently without any valid reason, but why does this happen?
One thing we do not know is that often the cat’s meow frequency depends on the breed: the Siamese, for example, are known to meow very often, sometimes meow up to exhaustion (ours, of course) for the sole purpose of getting what they want.
But if we have a cat of another race or mestizo between our feet, and this cat constantly meows, then the reasons for a cat’s meowing may be others, and they must be carefully investigated.
Because cats meow
Cats in nature among them communicate little through the meow. Or better they communicate through some types of meowing, as a deep verse when they are competing with each other, to ward off the opponent, or the heat of the cat, which wants to attract the male, so that usually when we hear a cat which mews loudly, usually at night in the summer, means that there is a struggle for mating with the female cat.
So why does the cat meow at home? The house cats have learned to mew more frequently because we answer them. So that they learn from an early age to modulate their meowing according to the answers we give them, and to be more or less talkative on how much and how we respond to their meow.
So we will have people telling us to have long talks with their cat, and that this answers and continues the dialogue, and this happens because the cat has been accustomed to receive attentions when responding to the voice of his human.
The cat has learned that when he meows, we get up and do something, how to cuddle him, or open the fridge and feed him, in short he has learned that through the meow the cat gets something from us, so he refined this well technique.
In nature this would serve him little with his conspecifics, since he would communicate with them through other methods, such as smells, scratches, pheromones.
The types of the cat’s verse
The cat emits a great deal of verses and sounds, not just the meow. Among the verses that emits there are also purrs, the blows when it is really annoyed and angry, the growl. A cat that meows may want to communicate different things depending on how it modulates its meow, and depending on the response it has obtained the other times it has mewed.
The cat’s meow can therefore be modulated in several ways, for each mode you can hear an audio of the cat’s meow:
- the meow of greeting: it is more a “trill”, a vibrated meow that the cat for example emits when he greets us while we return home, expresses friendship. Feel here an example of the typical vibration: Trillo del gatto
- the meow “I’m hungry”: they are mews of attention request, typical of when the cat wants something from us, typically the food. Here is an example in this audio file: cat meow
- the meow “I’m sick”: in this case the cat emits some low and prolonged tones, which are immediately recognized as being a symptom of malaise. It can be confused with the cat’s meowing in heat
- the cat’s meowing in heat: in this case the male cat emits low and prolonged meows which, if heard at night, seem almost like a child’s screams and make the skin crawl enough. It also emits them to scare other aspiring cats in mating with the cat. Here is an audio example.
- the “meow!” meow: it’s a cry that emits the cat when, for example, we beat a paw or tail by mistake, or it emits this verse when it suddenly becomes frightened, also joining a nice jump in the air. It’s a sharp and short cry, I hope that your cat emits it as little as possible: D
- the “ciacchiericcio”: has it ever happened that the gato sees something out of the window and winks between himself and himself with his eyes fixed, apart from what makes the laughs see him, here is an example: video youtube
the grumble: the cat grumbles when for example you make him get off the table, because he wants to be there! Then, coming down, it emits a typical rumble, a soft, short meow, as if to say “Ugh that pizza!”
So the cat with its “voice” modulates a great variety of sounds, which, fortunately, after a little you have it at home, translate very easily because they accompany a very precise behavior.
When the cat greets us with the trill, it typically meets us with its tail straight, when it emits the “chatter”, it is usually concentrated to fix something that moves, when it calls us with its meow of “I need”, generally he walks around us, asking for attention. On the contrary, when he is sick, he meows slowly and with a low tone, and he is usually crouched down.
See also: The language of the cat’s tail
Cat that always meows: why?
It may happen that you have a cat that always meows at home, or from a blank spot a cat that has always been silent starts to mew continuously. Why does it happen?
The first of the reasons can be simply character: just as there are more or less talkative people, there are cats who have great desire to communicate to the bipeds that surround them everything that happens to them. See also: The character of the cat
Another reason why our kittens are meowing me insistently is the most classic of love pains, that is, if they are in heat. At that time they become more languid, they need attention and pampering and even their meowing becomes insistent, prolonged and very incisive.
We have in the mating period the emission, by male cats, of deep and prolonged sounds that could be defined as a real “love song”, much more developed would seem in the oriental races.
Here is a video of the typical lines of a cat in heat and its characteristic behavior:
If our cat is sterilized, it is probable that it is only a call, that you want attentions and caresses. A cat that often mews, probably has become accustomed to doing it for the answer we give them, let’s see why.
It is said that the cat is a very autonomous animal, and this is true, but does not mean anaffective. Often his need for attentions is manifested by meowing continuously and our reaction, as a rule, is to caress him to reassure him. This will lead him to mewling again to have more and more caresses. So we must be very careful to respond to their insistent meowing, especially if it is a question of continuous requests for food.
Moreover, cats that live in family groups, understood as social groups of more or less large size, have a greater tendency to the emission of sounds. This in spite that the group to which it belongs is composed of other cats or people.
Read also: Cats language, how to understand them.
With the domestication, man has certainly influenced the ability and ability to modulate the sounds by the cats going mainly to influence the frequency and duration of emission. This means that a cat that is used at home and perhaps surrounded by humans who call and talk to him, will tend to mow a lot more than a cat that we never speak to, as we have already said.
Cats learn to modulate sounds according to the answers they get from us and, if necessary, to request our care and attention.
What to do then to defuse this vicious circle?
Try to pet it when it is quiet and caresses it does not ask us: in this way it will not feel abandoned and will have fewer opportunities to express its discomfort.
Often the cats of the house meow to formulate real requests, such as food and water.
Understanding that their meow refers to this need is easier if the kitten does when he sees us walking near the refrigerator or the pantry, the places where he knows how to keep his food.
Also to avoid this situation, the specialists advise to give the kitten a pimp at set times, so as to prevent him from asking, at any time of the day.
Exactly like the humans they draw inspiration from, cats often just mew to greet (the dog wags its tail to express the same emotion), or because they are very stressed, tension that can be induced by the arrival, for example, of a new animal, of a newborn baby, or for the disappearance of someone.
In this case, often the vocalizations of the cat are more acute and are accompanied by those that we would not hesitate to call ‘spite’ but which in reality are only manifestations of intolerance and discomfort.
Excluding pathologies, for which it is naturally necessary to consult a veterinarian, let’s not forget that even kittens age and with them their neurological system.
In these cases the meow is more than insistent and prolonged even very acute and can often indicate fear.
What to do? Reassure him and minimize the opportunities for fear and fright for him.
Finally there is an unusual form of meowing: not very troublesome because it changes, but for this reason it is quite curious. How to explain it? What does it mean when a cat mews without a voice?
Once it is excluded that it has pathologies affecting the respiratory organs that prevent it from emitting a loud sound, there is only one other explanation: it is a lazy cat!
It reduces to a minimum the effort of the meow since he understood and verified that even without a sound meow his master satisfies him in all respects. Why then get tired? : D Different speech for the purr, but the cat’s purr we talked about in this other article.
What to do if a cat always meows
Recalling that some races seem to have a greater predisposition to use their voice, such as oriental cats, as well as some cats in particular, and this in spite of their race, if you do not want to encourage the use of the voice the first thing to do is not to give in to requests, when the sounds they produce are used to get food, cuddles or games.
In any case, it will be necessary to guarantee them a care so that they do not feel obliged to make further requests.
Make sure that they always have food available, free access to the different areas of the house, games of different shape and consistency, moments of exclusive pampering.
However, if the meow is unusual behavior for our cat and appears suddenly, ask for a visit to your trusted veterinarian.
If the cat meows at night
When you have a cat that mews at night, you must ascertain if the meow is justified by some physical or psychological discomfort, or if it meows because it wants attention and you, who would sleep, do not give it to them.
Remember that if you get up even once from the bed to open the door to the cat because it meows at night, they will learn that you get a reaction from it, and then it will meow until you open the door.
Arm yourself with patience and earplugs and get used to the cat that you are not available at night, but be constant in the effort: it will suffice to satisfy once only his requests, and the work done until then will be in vain.
Kittens mewing
Another of the few moments when cats communicate with each other through meow, is when they are really small. In fact the kittens meow to attract the attention of mother cat.
Mama cat in fact recognizes the verse of their kittens and as soon as you leave these mewing continuously because they need their mother’s constant.
If you have received a small cat in the house, be patient, you must get used to being alone and maybe a kitten that always meows then growing will decrease its vocalizations.
The kittens that mewing emit a high-pitched and mewing continuously, the cat then grows changing the tone of his meow, which will become deeper, even if some cats keep a mute enough acute, because they realize that attracts more attention.
Here is a nice compilation of video and audio of cats meowing: how you can hear and see the meows are various and change from cat to cat, so their meowing also depends on how we get used to our cat to our answers.
And does your cat always meows or does it never make a sound? Is it talkative and you spend long moments of dialogue or communicate in another way? Tell me in the comments!
