{"id":1660,"date":"2016-12-08T04:27:54","date_gmt":"2016-12-08T12:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/?p=1660"},"modified":"2016-12-08T04:27:54","modified_gmt":"2016-12-08T12:27:54","slug":"thoughts-for-thursday-do-cats-have-feelings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/?p=1660","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts for Thursday \u2013 Do Cats Have Feelings?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"OLYMPUS

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA<\/p><\/div>\n

Before I get into today\u2019s topic, I want to share a bit of information for those living in and around the Los Angeles area. A friend of mine became inundated with feral cats and decided she needed to do something to stop the influx of new kitty families. She contacted FixNation at http:\/\/fixnation.org<\/a> and they loaned her the traps and arranged for the spay\/neuter surgeries of eleven feral cats for free. I imagine they would accept donations.
\nToday, I want to touch on the emotions of a cat and our devotion or lack of for cats. There are cat people and those who can\u2019t stand the beasts. There are animal people who can relate to cats, dogs, lions, horses at a level that can\u2019t easily be explained. And there are others who don\u2019t give animals a second thought except to avoid them or perhaps use them or even abuse them.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s question is, do cats (and other animals) have feelings? According to Rene \"KittenFullSizeRender\"Descartes (17th<\/sup>-century French philosopher), \u201cAnimals eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it, they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing.\u201d Now he doesn\u2019t sound like someone who ever spent a second in the company of any sort of animal. Is observations are certainly of animals at a distance. He probably never had a cat curl up in his lap or look into his eyes or a dog express excitement at his presence.<\/p>\n

In the next century, Voltaire wrote \u201cYou discover in an animal all the same organs and feelings as in yourself.\u201d And by 1859, Charles Darwin had advanced this concept, but still many believed and still believe the animal is inferior because they do not have a voice.<\/p>\n

Virginia Morell is a science writer and the author of Animal Wise: How We Know Animals Think and Feel.<\/em> She says \u201cOur language skill is supposedly exceptional. But is it? Or is it just that because we do it so well, we overlook or miss altogether the language-like skills of other creatures?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1682\"Something to think about isn\u2019t it? I remember my children, when they were small, would marvel at how they perceived my understanding of our cat\u2019s chatter. Because I seemed to know when the cat wanted in or out, when she wanted to eat, when she wanted me to dig a ball out from under the couch for her, the girls believed I had some amazing ability to understand the cat\u2019s particular meow\u2014as if it were a language.<\/p>\n

The girls know now that, indeed, I was tapping into the cat\u2019s language\u2014her body language. Don\u2019t you do that with your cat? Can\u2019t you tell when she wants to be petted, would rather be left alone, is ill, frightened, hungry, ready to play, ready to cuddle, and so forth? And I notice that each cat develops her own body language or way of communicating her needs or desires. Do our cats learn this from us or do they come to us with their language in place and teach us to understand them?<\/p>\n

Do cats have feelings? How can anyone look into the eyes of a cat and deny that they do?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I get into today\u2019s topic, I want to share a bit of information for those living in and around the Los Angeles area. A friend of mine became inundated with feral cats and decided she needed to do something … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1661,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1660\/revisions\/1661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}