I’ve been meaning to blog this for some time. Back in November we took a much needed vacation to Kauai, HI. I had recently purchased a DropCam so that we could keep an eye on the house.
Around that same time this study came out about cats responding to their owners voice. TLDR; They do hear us, they just choose not to react.
Well one morning, while having my coffee and waiting for Robin to wake, I peeked in on the house. To my surprise I was greeted by the sound of our papered Rag-Doll Otto making a mournful cry. We had already been gone for a week, and I suppose the sudden loss of all that human contact had gotten to him. Note: our neighbor was coming over at least once a day to feed them and take care of the litter box. Still, that is a big cut in their amount of human contact. It’s one thing leave them alone for a three day weekend. They never seem to know we were gone anyways, as most any cat owner will tell you. After a week of only seeing a “stranger” once a day, I could totally understand the mournful cry Otto was making.
So one of the features of drop cam is that can speak to the room via it’s built in speaker. So I decided to try and console poor Otto by speaking to him from 3,000 miles away. Well to my surprise, the sound he made in response to my voice was … well just hear it for your self. I think it’s proof that cats do recognize when they are called, but I think us cat owners know that already.
So the key moment it at :36.