Do cats have feelings?

It's hard to tell exactly what animals feel, since we are not mind-readers, but most evidence state that cats have many human like feelings like happiness, depression, loliness and loss.

 

I think all living animals must have at minimum basic emotions. Fear is probably the most common. It's instinct of self preservation.

 

They must. I know when my Nynaeve is happy to see me, and I know she loves me just as much as I love her. And you know when her and any of the others cats feels like affronted, scared, lonely, freaked out, etc. I feel that cats, dogs, horses and may others must feel emotion. Like Data said, at the very least basic emotions, and I feel for many it can go farther and more advanced. There are many who go through grief and stuff when a loved one dies (be it human or otherwise)so yeah...

 

I wholeheartedly agree. As a cat owner, I have witnessed my baby clearly feeling joy, fear, contentment, anger, loneliness, and so on. His feelings almost display as any other human's would.

 

Yes. All big mammals tend to have feelings that are roughly as complicated as human feelings. I've met cats with more complexity of personality than some humans I know.

My dogs have incredibly complex feelings, too. It's less that they don't have the feelings; it's that we aren't able to comprehend them easily without language.

 

Elephants mourn the deaths of their family members, so I have no doubt cats and other animals can feel emotions just as we do.

 

I think they do, though not as pronounced as those of humans. I think dogs are more emotive than cats, though. That's why I'm a dog person. I still like cats nonetheless.

 

Absolutely. I dropped my cat off to be boarded and the way she looked at me... It nearly broke my heart. She looked so scared and so betrayed.

But when I went to pick her up, as soon as she saw me she pressed her head against me and started cuddling with and mewing. She's very anti-social, and I was terrified she'd give me the cold shoulder. But she has been so happy to be home and to be around me again.

 

Most definitely.

 

I just got back from petting my cat. When I come out of room, he gets up and follows me. Then when I look at him and say "What can I do for you Fish" he looks me right on the eye and meows. Then as I pet him, he starts purring. Cats pur because they're happy and not for any other reason. He is obviously happy to see me and have me pet him.

So both fear and joy are confirmed in my mind. Anger is possible, because we had a foster cat who got angry if you touched his tail. It could have been fear, but I think he was angered.

 

Yep, they do. Science also proved that Plants have feelings. When they wag their tails, then they're annoyed, and purring is obviously happiness, and so on and so forth.

Why cats though?

 

Tell him he's a pretty cat, and a good cat.

^_^ I had to.

 

Yes.

We had 3 cats. 2 girls, 1 boy. 1 boy/girl in same litter, 1 girl a year later.

The girl from the first litter was the first to pass away. She was 11, and Spitfire (the boy) saw her when she was dead. Afterward, he went out to look for her for a couple weeks. When it finally sunk in, he got extremely depressed. He changed from his usual active self to completely lazy and obviously sad. A few months later, the other girl went out one night and never came back. I didn't want to let her out, as she looked rather sick, but she was very insistent on going out. We think she didn't want us to see her die.

After that, Spitfire also went out for a few days to look for her. We think he found her, as he came back after a couple days rather than weeks he spent for Celest, and he was never the same.

He was always this hyperactive cat who stayed away from us for the most part, and only ever let my mom or sister touch him. After that, he became extremely sad, docile and would often have issues if one of us wasn't in the house. He'd constantly hop on my lap, and come in my room, etc. Just to cuddle on my lap or bed. We'd come back to things off the tables near the door, like he had tried to get out to find us or something, which had never happened (because we always left a window open so he could get out, but he apparently thought we were stuck behind the door or something). When we got home, he'd instantly try to sleep on us, etc. He passed away a few months ago, at 14. I remember getting really mad at him like a month before because he ate the food I had just spent an hour cooking when I went to clean up a spill. Over the past year, my mom had become fed up with him, because he clawed her legs so much she still has scars from the amount of holes he made. He never did it in vengeance, it was just how he showed he liked someone. We made sure he knew we were there when we knew he was going though. We all said our goodbyes before bed that night and when we woke up in the morning, he was dead.

So yes, they do have feelings. They may not always be as obvious as humans or other animals, but they do have them.

I honestly never thought of cats of having many emotions until Celest died. The way Spitfire and our other cat changed showed me otherwise. I've never seen an animal grieve as bad as Spitfire did.

 

This has been a long standing issue in psychology. What's more or less been discovered is that some animals do have genuine emotion. However, for most (if not all) animals, this emotion is not the same as humans, and shouldn't be interpreted as the same.

As humans, we project our own understanding of emotion and cognition on to other species. This however is erroneous. Often we form deep relationships with our pets which serves to further obfuscate our perspective. We tend to rely on anecdotal evidence which assures us our projection is true when in fact that is not the case.

Animals who do show emotion or even communication are not so much based on self-conscious cognition, but on an instinctual or physiological response. Descartes once referred to this as "passions". Even humans commit acts which are influenced by "passions" - communicating that one is hungry in response to one's hunger is an example of this. So while most animals may express an emotion, it is not an independent, consciously crafted thought but rather a response to stimuli.

 

That is so sad. :icon_sad: It also reminds me of this book memoir I read where the author had these horses, and two of the horses formed a close bond/romance, and the other would become distressed when the other went away. And then when one of them died, the other was really overcome with grief, and whinnied into the sky for three days...

 

Of course they do! The parts of the brain that govern emotion are some of the first to develop, and are present in all mammals.

 

They probably have feelings but that doesn't mean that they are conscience of them like we are. Most Animals aren't self aware therefore the cat doesn't notice itself feeling.

 

i think they do maybe cuz if you have two and one dies the other still looks around for it and gets a little sad i think.

 

As a cat owner, yes, absolutely. Sidney is ashamed when he is sick on the floor, even though he can't help it. He also expresses that he misses my brother who has gone to university. If locked inside or if there is a thunderstorm, he will become frustrated. Most of the time, though, he's apathetic, or he becomes happy and content if given attention. As with most cats, he can purr to show those feelings.

Cats can also show desire (through certain purrs and miaows), anxiety (like a kitten I played with on Saturday -- whenever she couldn't see her sister, she started chirruping something terrible), recognition (though that might not be a feeling), and all sorts of other things.

Some of them are really quite expressive, and they are also intelligent enough to link causes and effects. For example, Sidney runs whenever he sees the vacuum, because he hates the noise that it's going to make. They aren't sapient, but they can definitely think and feel a bit.