The Sounds Cats Make

Cat Sounds 

If you've read Tails from the Park you've encountered some of my Maxisms which are the special sounds I make to communicate both with humans and other cats.

Just for Humans

Did you know that cats have a unique ability to tailor sounds to the humans in their life? When cats want your attention they will experiment with sounds until one works to get the desired results. Some people call this idiosyncratic sounds. Cats are one of the few animals that can make up their own sounds, a cat vocabulary, localized to his own human family.

Pretty cool, huh?

A Wide Variety of Sounds

Cats have a wide variety of sounds their humans should get to know.  Here's a brief list from Messy Beast

• Caterwaul - cat wants sex!
• Chatter - excitement, frustration e.g. when prey is out of reach or escapes (involves rapid teeth-chattering jaw movements)
• Chirrup - friendly greeting sound, a cross between a meow and a purr! (friendly greeting sound with rising inflection; familiar to most cat owners)
• Cough-bark - alarm signal (rare in pet cats); like us, cats can cough both voluntarily and involuntarily)
• Growl - threat, challenge, warns others to go away
• Hiss (with or without spit) - threat, fear, warns others to back off
• Meow - general-purpose attention seeking sound used by adult cats to communicate with owners or with kittens
• Mew (of kittens) - distress, hunger, cold (to attract mother's attention)
• Purr - contentment, relaxation, also to comfort itself if in pain (cats in extremis may purr); a loud purr invites close contact or attention
• Scream - fear, pain, anger, distress
• Squawk - surprise, shock (somewhat strangled sound)
• Yowl - a threat, offensive or defensive, but also used in a modified form by some cats seeking attention when owner is out of sight
• Idiosyncratic sounds - a sound which a particular cat uses in a particular context.

If you missed the Maxisms you can get all the Tails From The Park books by visiting my author page. You can leave me a message there, too. I love to here from my readers.