BS: How well can your cat hear......

Subject: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 18 May 05 - 12:42 AM

I have had cats for a number of years and I am amazed by how good their hearing is.

Mimi , No.1 Housecat, can tell the difference between our car coming round the corner and other cars. Even before we have arrived around she is sitting in front of the garage doors. I have watched her when other cars pass and she does not flick a whisker.

All three of them can hear the rustle of a bag of cat biscuits from long distance and no matter how quielty I try and open a can of tuna to make a sandwich I am suddenly surrounded by mewling mogs. Mimi seems particularly acute in the hearing dept as she has run across gardens on hearing the click of the can top.

And of course when they do not want to hear no amount of noise or words will make them blink.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: open mike
Date: 18 May 05 - 12:46 AM

a mother cat has a particular sound when she is announcing to her kittens that she has a mouse for them..mostly because she has to
meow with her mouth full...they always hear her and come running.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: GUEST,ClintonHammond
Date: 18 May 05 - 05:09 AM

Listen to what it sounds like when you have your head -right- beside your microwave when it's running... Your cats ears are so good that the power running through your house wiring sounds like that to them all the time...

I've seen things on the Discovery Channel that suggest that your cats hearing is better than your dogs... and their noses are pretty much equally good as well...

In the Big Norh American Black-Out, couple of years ago, my cats were visibly freaked out... by the sudden quiet!

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: GUEST,gnu
Date: 18 May 05 - 05:59 AM

Once a year, I have a lobster scoff. I had one cat that could hear the clerk take my money at the fish market on the other side of town when I bought lobster. I've seen cats keen for various types of food, but that cat, who was very well-trained and very well-mannered, would become viscious if the lobster wasn't coming fast enough.

I watched a documentary about cats in which cats were placed in complete darkness and still managed to catch mice. Now, that's acute hearing, aided by independant movement of the ears, allowing pinpointing almost as accurate as sight.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: Cats at Work
Date: 18 May 05 - 06:09 AM

The opening of a sachet of cat food from half a mile... can differentiate the sound of our cars coming up the lane... and they have a good vocabulary but not as extensive as the Burmese that we used to have.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: GUEST, puss
Date: 18 May 05 - 06:17 AM

Could be they're telepathic ...

Anyone got one of those deaf white cats?

If so, does it know when you buy lobster or open catfood tins?

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: GUEST,gnu
Date: 18 May 05 - 06:25 AM

Depends on wind speed and direction, no?

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 18 May 05 - 06:33 AM

If someone is snooping outside your house your cat will know and show signs of it before your dog even wakes up. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 05 - 06:44 AM

You would have to show me that on a video made when the house is empty. I believe that the dog figures it's partly off duty when you are home so it's resting up for when you go out.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: GUEST,gnu
Date: 18 May 05 - 06:55 AM

GUEST @ 06:44 was me.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 May 05 - 07:18 AM

My cat reacts when my partner's car drive into our fairly busy street, and she can be driving one of three.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 18 May 05 - 08:10 AM

I think it may well be telepathy, my cat sometimes beats me to the kitchen when I'm only thinking about preparing a meal.

She also does a very expressive offended exit if she finds out I'm only going to slice vegetables or, worst of all, Garlic.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: GUEST,Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 May 05 - 08:28 AM

Not only could one of my cats hear a packet of crisps opened three rooms away, he could determine what flavour and only come running for cheese and onion, never plain.

Shadow cat will come running when she hears me get the cutting board out or hears the knife hitting the kitchen surface, but only when it's one of the sharp knives, not a table knife. She's associated that sound with the chance of scraps so is always up for a scavenge.

And how is it, cats with a sense of smell 14 times greater than our own, STILL eat tinned cat food when it smells like that?!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: GUEST
Date: 18 May 05 - 08:39 AM

My pussy doesn't have ears but it comes when I play with it

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 May 05 - 07:26 PM

Did you know white eared cats can lose them to skin cancer if they bask in the sun too often?!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: Bill D
Date: 18 May 05 - 11:31 PM

we used to have 3 cats...came feeding time one day and I only saw two. My wife said I'd better call him, or the others would eat it all...

So I said "watch this" and stepped onto the back porch and pulled the tab on a cat food can.    There was this yellow blur as the missing cat soared over the neighbors fence and skidded to a stop at my feet...... I had never tried that before- I just knew...

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: GUEST,Shanghaiceltic
Date: 19 May 05 - 01:00 AM

OK try these sound downloads on the cats see if they can tell the diffeence between a recording and the real thing.

Sound tests

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: JennieG
Date: 19 May 05 - 03:47 AM

Liz,

Skin cancer in white-eared (and pink-nosed) cats is a problem in Oz - we lost a cat several years ago to it. Bianca The White Cat lives indoors because of the risk; the other cats have dark ears and noses.

And they all have very good hearing, even Prickle the nearly-18-YO puss.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 May 05 - 06:15 AM

Tried the sound effects...sound up loud, in the next room... not a flicker.. not a twitch!

Went downstairs, opened the silent cupboard door, just brushed past the packet of biscuits..... suddenly three moggies skid to a halt and sit there looking hungry.

I wouldn't mind, but we only have two moggies at the moment!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: Gurney
Date: 19 May 05 - 06:16 AM

Guest Puss, we had one of the white, deaf cats years ago. He really was totally deaf, but it was difficult to tell, as his ears swivelled just as much as any other cat's ears, and he kept an eye on our other cats for cues.
Snow was a very big cat, not fat, just big and powerful, very confident, easygoing, and we kept a supply of paper balls to throw at him when he was up to mischief. It was no use shouting.
I expected him to get run over or killed by a dog, but he died of natural causes at a good age.

The only cat we've ever had who didn't leave the room when I played the concertina. Are cats accordion/melodeon critics?

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: GUEST, Puss
Date: 19 May 05 - 07:24 AM

Mine can't stand the concertina either.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: jeffp
Date: 19 May 05 - 08:51 AM

Mine come running when I pull out the guitar, but if I open the fiddle case they scatter. One of them yells at me on her way out. I think they think I am torturing one of their relatives.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: Charley Noble
Date: 19 May 05 - 09:03 AM

Our two cats didn't like my concertina playing a few years ago but neither did my wife. Now that I've improved they all seem to take it in stride.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 May 05 - 09:11 AM

When Manitas gets his melodeon out, both cats (and child) scatter to the furthest corners of the house.

The little white cat we had liked it, because he would then curl up and sleep in the case given half the chance - but we think he was one of Gods' "happy cats"..... not the shiniest shoe in the box......

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: GUEST,neovo
Date: 19 May 05 - 10:33 AM

May cat used to jump on my knee when I played the duet concertina - between me and the instrument - but wasn't interested in the English.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: SharonA
Date: 19 May 05 - 07:53 PM

Shanghaiceltic: Do you know of those "Jingle Cats" recordings, where meows were recorded and spliced together to approximate the melodies of Christmas carols? They drove my cats crazy; played a tape of them on a boom box once, and Chester and Arthur walked rings around the boombox trying to catch a glimpse of the cats inside.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 19 May 05 - 08:05 PM

Sorry dont know those jingles.

Our cats scatter when the bodhrans come out, but they will sneek back and sleep in the bags, so one has to be careful when forcing the drum back in it's bag.

We have No.4 cat arriving this weekend. A wee ginger female whose owners do not want it. about 6-8 weeks old. It is called Gua-Gua which means 'Melon' I am having it's name changed by deed pole, it's street cred would be well down with a name like that!

As it is ginger and comes from China I thought of something along the lines of 'Ginger Khan'. Might even get away with 'Lash (the cat)'.

Be intersting to see it too has acute hearing.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: GUEST, Topsy
Date: 19 May 05 - 08:24 PM

I was camped near some Dutch people at Sidmouth one year. One of them evidently had a birthday and I was woken early one morning by them singing, to the tune of 'Happy Birthday', these words:

Miaow-miaow miaow miaow miaow miaow,
Miaow-miaow miaow miaow miaow miaow,
Miaow-miaow miaow miaow, miaow miaow miaow,
Miaow-miaow miaow miaow miaow miaow.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 May 05 - 11:17 PM

I don't have a cat at the moment but I've committed to one for about a month from now. I can't do it right now because on June 4 I'm going visiting to Anchorage Alaska until the 21st and I don't want a being thinking that I've abandoned him right after he got here.

archy (mehitable disappeared, they said) is 10 years old, longhaired, coalblack, greeneyed, beautiful. He's a one family cat, so this will be a difficult move for him. They're having to adopt him out because it turns out that one of their adopted sons is sensitive to archy's dander.

The family tells me that they haven't had much laptime to give him the last couple of years and he misses that, so that's where I come in.

I'm excited about it.

Subject: RE: BS: How well can your cat hear......
From: gnomad
Date: 20 May 05 - 07:30 AM

My cat of some years ago recognised the sound of my car & would arrive at a run when I returned from work.

It confused him awfully the weekend I sold that car and the opposite neighbours bought the same model, the different colour apparently didn't register with Spencer. He would arrive at the run just the same, but seemed unsure why I parked in the wrong drive, went into the wrong house, and had suddenly turned into a woman. He wasn't the brightest of cats, but he was good fun.