Dr. Laurie Santos
Dr. Laurie Santos is Professor of Psychology and Head of Silliman College at Yale University. Professor and podcast host Dr. Laurie Santos is an expert on human cognition and the…
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Cats have a reputation for being aloof, independent, and sometimes downright indifferent to their human companions. But what if we’ve been getting cats all wrong?
In honor of National Cat Day, Dr. Laurie is joined by cat behavior expert Dr. Kristyn Vitale to explore the surprising science of our relationships with cats. They unpack what cats really think about their human caregivers, how our feline friends can boost our happiness and wellbeing, and what we can do to make their lives happier, too.
Experts Mentioned:
- Kristyn Vitale, Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist and internationally recognized expert in cat behavior and the cat-human relationship
- John Bowlby, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and founder of attachment theory
- Mary Ainsworth, developmental psychologist and creator of the Strange Situation assessment
- Harry Harlow, University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher and former director of their Primate Laboratory
- Karen McComb, Emeritus Professor of Animal Behaviour and Cognition at the University of Sussex
- Wendy Berry Mendes, Professor of Psychology at Yale University
- Mikel Maria Delgado, animal behavioural scientist
Resources Mentioned:
- “Social interaction, food, scent or toys? A formal assessment of domestic pet and shelter cat (Felis silvestris catus) preferences,” by Kristyn Vitale, Lindsay Mehrkam, and Monique Udell (Behavioural Processes, 2017)
- “The quality of being sociable: The influence of human attentional state, population, and human familiarity on domestic cat sociability,” by Kristyn Vitale and Monique Udell (Behavioural Processes, 2019)
- “Attachment bonds between domestic cats and humans,” by Kristyn Vitale, Alexandra Behnke, and Monique Udell (Current Biology, 2019)
- “The Development of Affectional Responses in Infant Monkeys,” by Harry Harlow and Robert Zimmermann (Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1958)
- “Attachment, Exploration, and Separation: Illustrated by the Behavior of One-Year-Olds in a Strange Situation,” by Mary Ainsworth and Silvia Bell (Child Development, 1970)
- “Maternal Care and Mental Health,” by John Bowlby (Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 1951)
- “The cry embedded within the purr,” by Karen McComb, Anna Taylor, Christian Wilson, Benjamin Charlton (Current Biology, 2009) — Thank you to Professor McComb and her team for letting us include the solution purr audio in this episode!
- “Cardiovascular reactivity and the presence of pets, friends, and spouses: the truth about cats and dogs,” by Karen Allen, Jim Blascovich, and Wendy Mendes (Psychosomatic Medicine, 2002)
- “Social referencing and cat-human communication,” by Isabella Merola, Martina Lazzaroni, Sarah Marshall-Pescini, and Emanuela Prato-Previde (Animal Cognition, 2015)
- “Cats (Felis silvestris catus) read human gaze for referential information,” by Péter Pongrácz, Julianna Szulamit Szapu, and Tamás Faragó (Intelligence, 2019)
- “Domestic cats (Felis catus) discriminate their names from other words,” by Atsuko Saito, Kazutaka Shinozuka, Yuki Ito, and Toshikazu Hasegawa (Scientific Reports, 2019)
- “The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat–human communication,” by Tasmin Humphrey, Leanne Proops, Jemma Forman, Rebecca Spooner, and Karen McComb (Scientific Reports, 2020)
- Play with Your Cat!, by Mikel Maria Delgado (2024)
- “Cat School” — Youtube channel
- “Positive Reinforcement Training Educational Toolkit,” by Feline Veterinary Medical Association (2026)
- Maueyes — Educational resources
Related Episodes:
Pushkin.
00:12
Speaker 2
When I think about the stuff that brings people joy in the age of the internet, there's one unlikely source of happiness that seems to be everywhere.
00:21
Speaker 3
Cats.
00:22
Speaker 2
Even in the early days of the World Wide Web, cats have been there to make us laugh. You might remember cracking up over keyboard cat or grumpy cat.
00:30
Speaker 1
And then there was.
00:31
Speaker 2
The whole era of lolcats. But why do we love watching these furry creatures so much? Are cats actually doing something for our happiness?
00:39
Speaker 4
Yeah, watching cat videos boost people's mood for sure. I think that's why cats are all over the internet. We love seeing cats. It brings us so much joy.
00:48
Speaker 2
This is Dr. Kristen Vitale.
00:50
Speaker 4
I'm a certified applied animal behaviorist, and I work with the domestic cat, studying their behavior and social cognition.
00:57
Speaker 2
I've invited Kristen on the show today for two reasons. First, it's National Cat Day this week. And what better way to celebrate than by exploring the science of cats and happiness? And second, well, I've been having a bit of a personal dilemma lately. I've been wondering whether I should get a cat. You see, my family's been petless for a while now. And after years of talking about all the ways that animals can boost our well-being, I've been wondering whether it's time to take some of my own advice. Now, you may be wondering, Laurie, why a cat? Isn't it dogs that are supposed to be man's best friend? Why choose a pet that has a reputation for being aloof and just doing its own thing? Well, as we're about to learn today, a lot of what we think we know about cats is just plain wrong.
01:41
Speaker 4
Cats are not aloof. Cats are seeking out social direction from people. They're preferring it. And they're actually using their human as a source of comfort and security.
01:52
Speaker 2
It turns out our feline friends have a whole lot more to offer our happiness than you might initially expect. Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy. But what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy? The good news is that understanding the science of the mind can point us all back in the right direction. You're listening to The Happiness Lab with Dr.
02:17
Speaker 1
Laurie Santos.
02:23
Speaker 2
One of the things I find so striking about your work is that there are lots of people who are studying psychology in dogs, you know, another critter that we have running around the home with us. There's also lots of people that study psychology in other animals, say like non-human primates, like monkeys and apes and so on. But it's been funny that cognition work has been less focused on cats, even though like roughly a third of U.S. households actually have cats. And so I'm curious, why do you think that is? Why has there been less attention to cat behavior when we're thinking about psychology?
02:50
Speaker 5
I think there's a few reasons.
02:53
Speaker 4
The first is the stereotypes that we have about cats. I've heard researchers say that, oh, I don't want to get into working with cats. They're just too difficult to work with. And then I also think that there's a lot more utility seen for dog work. So with dogs, you know, they can serve as service animals. They can be bomb sniffing dogs, drug sniffing dogs. But I think people see less of the importance for understanding the stuff in cats because they don't see the utility in And how we might make some money off this. But I think it's actually really starting to change. And I'm starting to see more and more people getting into this area of work and more and more funding. So I'm hoping that kind of starts to shift even more.
03:33
Speaker 2
You mentioned all these stereotypes that we have about cats. And that's one of the things we wanted to get into in the first part of our episode. Maybe some of the myths that we have about cat psychology and the human-cat bond. And one common assumption that I see about cats is that they're less trainable than dogs. What have scientists learned about this idea? And is this assumption correct?
03:52
Speaker 4
So there's nothing about dogs or cats that makes one species more trainable than the other. And there's not really any difference between dogs and cats in their capacity to learn.
04:03
Speaker 5
What I would say from working with cats.
04:06
Speaker 4
That I see the most is that people are not using the right rewards to in order to reinforce behaviors in their cats. And one example I like to give is I was teaching a kitten training and socialization class. And so we had kittens come in to Oregon State University and go through a six-week class. And one caregiver asked their cat to sit. The cat sat. And then they put a treat in front of them and the cat just kind of turned up its nose and walked away. And the caregiver was like, see, the cat can't be trained. But the cat did the trick. The cat sat when you asked. It just didn't eat that reward. And so in our work, we started seeing this more and more, that cats were actually turning their nose up at food often during training classes and in the lab when we were doing conditioning. And so we did a separate study on looking at what cats most prefer, and we gave them options of food, human social interaction, toys.
05:04
Speaker 5
And scent objects.
05:06
Speaker 4
And found that 50% of the cats sampled most preferred social interaction with people and 37% most preferred food. So while food is still highly preferred, it was the second most preferred, social interaction was actually the most highly preferred reward that these cats sought out. And that's what we use a lot during training to reinforce behaviors. If a cat does a behavior, we might pet them or praise them. And so I think people get too stuck in the food realm. So kind of branching out and finding other reinforcers is really important for cat training. So I think it's not so much they're untrainable. It's just finding different items that they actually want to work for.
05:46
Speaker 2
That's such a cool result because you can see where the assumption comes from, right? If I'm going to sit down and train my cat and I put a treat out and the cat doesn't care, I'm like, oh, cat's untrainable. But if I just use petting or maybe play, all of a sudden they would do something completely different. They'd be like totally on top of learning how to sit and do all these things.
06:02
Speaker 5
Absolutely.
06:03
Speaker 2
Yep. So what are some things that you've seen in your own training cats that really disprove the stereotype that they're not trainable?
06:10
Speaker 4
Things like walking on harness and leash, coming when called, go to mat and stay, everything up to more advanced behaviors like jumping through a hoop or going out on a kayak with their owner or going for a hike with their owner.
06:25
Speaker 5
All sorts of things.
06:25
Speaker 4
With my own cats, I've also trained ringing a service bell and I taught my cat to move a piece of chalk on a chalkboard and I called it writing on chalkboard. But really anything you can think up if a cat's physically capable of doing it and you can slowly show them what you want them to do.
06:43
Speaker 5
It's really easy to teach a cat just about anything.
06:47
Speaker 2
And so another assumption that we have about cats is this idea that cats kind of don't care about us.
06:52
Speaker 1
Is this something that you hear a lot?
06:54
Speaker 5
Oh, yeah, I hear it all the time.
06:57
Speaker 4
And in fact, when some of our work has come out, the media has presented it with this kind of like shock. Cats actually like people. The human is a really central part of their lives. And that's not to say there are not some cats out there who prefer their distance, but we see the same in dogs and we see the same in people. So to make these kind of blanket generalizations about all of one species.
07:22
Speaker 5
Is this way is just not how behavior works.
07:26
Speaker 2
Another assumption that I think we see a lot is this idea that cats like people who hate them or they like people who never pay attention to them. I know this is something where we do have some research. What do we know about the value that cats place on human attention? What have we learned so far?
07:41
Speaker 4
Well, so in our work, what we did was a sociability test where we had a person either ignore the cat or pay attention to the cat. And in that work, what we found was when you paid attention to the cat, the cat spent more time with you. So that was interesting because it kind of countered this idea that if you aren't wanting the cat, they come to you. But we actually also found differences between populations of cats. So we did the same test with pet cats and shelter cats and actually found that shelter cats spent more time with a person who ignored them than pet cats did. And that could be because they're living in a situation where they're socially deprived. They don't have a bonded caretaker. So when they're presented with a person, even if they're a stranger who's ignoring them, they're going to go for it because that's their one time to get social interaction.
08:31
Speaker 2
And so you've really tried to dig deep into some of these assumptions to ask whether or not they're true. And one of the things that you've been testing directly in this work that I love is attachment bonds. Now, attachment is something that psychologists have been studying for a long time. So before we jump to attachment in cats, let's first talk a little bit about attachment theory in humans. Like, where does this work come from and what have we learned about attachment in humans and how it works?
08:54
Speaker 4
So the really cool thing about the origins of attachment was it really grew out of work with human infants and with non-human animals, mainly primates.
09:04
Speaker 5
So John Bowlby.
09:06
Speaker 4
And Mary Ainsworth, two of the pioneers of human attachment, they were really informed also by the work of Harry Harlow, who worked with non-human primates. And what they saw is that both humans and many non-human animals were are born with sets of behaviors that help.
09:24
Speaker 5
To promote their survival.
09:26
Speaker 4
So if you think about a human infant or even a monkey or something like that, they're born altricial, meaning they're completely helpless and dependent on a caregiver to provide food, shelter, warmth, protection, all of these things that are going to help them survive. A human infant is not going to survive outside on its own without a caregiver. And the same is true for cats. Cats are also altricial. Puppies are altricial. They depend on their mother or a human in order to survive. And so in all of these species, what we see is they're born with a set of behavior that helps them to stay near to their caregiver, in contact with them, and avoid separation.
10:08
Speaker 5
And that's really what attachment is.
10:09
Speaker 4
It's the set of behaviors that allows them to stay close to each other and avoid being separated from one another. And so how we look at this in the lab is something called the secure base test, which is actually just a modification of what Harry Harlow did with those macaque monkeys. What we do is we bring the cat and the caregiver into an unfamiliar space and they experience leaving the cat alone just for a brief two minutes. And what we know about attachment behavior is that when something kind of uncertain or potentially stressful is happening, attachment behavior is heightened because that's when it functions best.
10:49
Speaker 5
So when the cat is alone, often.
10:50
Speaker 4
What we see is they're distressed, they'll be crying at the door, they're not going to be exploring, just kind of frozen there. And so then we bring the caregiver back and we see its reaction to the caregiver. We'll often see this open and comforting reunion, the cat ceases crying, and then the cat does what's called contact exploration balance. Basically, they go to their caregiver, get reassurance, then go off, explore the room, come back, get some more attention, go off, explore the room. And that's really the hallmark of a secure attachment. This individual is able to calm down when their attachment figure returns and then go back to exploring their unfamiliar situation.
11:32
Speaker 5
So that is a secure attachment.
11:33
Speaker 4
That's the main form of attachment we see in cats as well as dogs and human infants.
11:38
Speaker 2
And what's really cool about your work is it sounds like you found exactly the same attachment styles that we see in humans in cats, too. You just talked about secure attachment, but there are other attachments that we know people and other animals have, too.
11:51
Speaker 1
What are those other kinds of styles?
11:54
Speaker 4
Yeah, so in secure attachment, like I mentioned, they're able to use their attachment figure as that secure base in order to be comforted.
12:01
Speaker 5
And go off and explore.
12:03
Speaker 4
But in insecure individuals, they're not able to use their attachment figure in that way.
12:08
Speaker 5
So after that alone.
12:10
Speaker 4
Phase where there's a little bit of distress and the caregiver comes back, what we see in insecure individuals is they either excessively cling to their caregiver. So basically crawl on their lap and just kind of cling there. They don't leave their side and we'll still see signs of a little bit of stress, even though the caregiver is returned. or they will excessively avoid their caregiver. So they'll sit away from them, turn away, won't look at them, and just kind of keep a distance for the remainder of the test. So, yeah, we see those main three responses, either secure, using their caregiver as a secure base, excessively clinging, which is known as insecure ambivalent or insecure anxious, or excessively avoiding, which is insecure avoidant. It's very interesting when I ask people, what do you think of these three styles? I describe them. What do you think cats will be the most? What is going to be the highest category of attachment? And almost everyone says avoidance because it sounds like how a cat would be.
13:07
Speaker 5
But avoidant was our least common category.
13:11
Speaker 4
Secure was the number one category, followed by insecure and ambivalent.
13:15
Speaker 5
Excessively clinging.
13:16
Speaker 4
So it's just very interesting when you kind of break apart what you think cat might do. And then when you actually run the test and see, it's very different than what people expect, which is why the science is so important. We can't just make all these assumptions because we know cats so well, they might surprise us.
13:34
Speaker 2
It seems like cats are really tapping into the same kinds of bonds that humans make with our own babies. I mean, what does that mean for the cat caregiver bond that we see across a third of households in the United States right now?
13:47
Speaker 4
Well, it's really interesting because, as I mentioned, cats are born with attachment behaviors. They're born being attached to their mother, crying when they're separated from her, following her around. And so they already have this set of behaviors. And then when they're socialized to people, they then are able to adapt those behaviors for life with us. And so because we have such similar attachment systems, it goes to show how easy it is for us to bond to one another, for them to bond to us, but also for us to bond to them. Because it very much is a caregiving relationship, much like a human infant, they're nonverbal. We are 100% responsible for their care. It is a very similar relationship, although obviously very different. It's a very different species with very different behaviors. It's not the same. But attachment wise, it's so similar that I think that's part of why they've become such popular animals across the world.
14:40
Speaker 2
One of the things that I find so interesting about your attachment work is that I think sometimes people get cats because.
14:45
Speaker 1
They assume that cats aren't attached.
14:47
Speaker 2
Like I can travel a lot or I can have this like really busy job where I'm away all the time and it won't affect my cat because it's a cat.
14:53
Speaker 1
I mean, it seems like your work is showing that that's not actually the case.
14:56
Speaker 4
Yeah, I don't think it's a correct assumption that cats do just fine without us home. And I don't really think it's healthy to leave your cat for several days at a time, especially without anyone checking in. It's very likely that separating from them for multiple days isn't great for the attachment bond, but we don't have research to definitively say that. But I would say just from a safety and emotional point of view, it's great just to have someone stop by once a day just to check in with the cat and give them some attention.
15:27
Speaker 2
It also seems like cats have different behaviors that they use to kind of create these bonds. I know cats are often trying to communicate with us, even using the communication that they would use with one another. I've heard some work on these so-called solicitation purrs. What are those and how can that affect the bond that we have with cats?
15:44
Speaker 4
Yeah, the solicitation purr was research done by Karen McComb, and they found that cats produce a distinct purr when they're soliciting something from the human, often food. And so this purr, if you think of a typical purr, there is this high pitch component over top of the typical purr that kind of creates the sound of almost urgency that people respond to. And in the research, they mentioned that the frequency of that high-pitched component is a similar frequency to a human infant's cry, which may be why we respond to it.
16:23
Speaker 5
And we find it urgent and, hey, we got to take care of the cat.
16:26
Speaker 4
And again, it's kind of been painted in the media as cats manipulating people or kind of having this like negative intent. But really, it's just a mammalian response to something that both in human infants and in cats happens. We respond to these high-pitched vocalizations because they remind us of caregiving, of an individual needing to have safety and something provided for it. So it's kind of just tapping into those natural responses that we have.
16:56
Speaker 2
So it turns out that cats are a whole lot more social than we tend to give them credit for. They can form strong attachments to their human caregivers, and they even have some pretty clever ways of communicating with us. But these relationships aren't just important for our cats. They can also be pretty good for us humans, too. So what exactly can cats do for our well-being? We'll find out when the Happiness Lab returns from the break. In honor of National Cat Day, I'm talking with feline behavior expert Dr. Kristen Vitale. Before the break, Kristen and I explored some of our biggest misconceptions about cats. And surprise, surprise, cats actually like us. But what do we humans get out of these relationships? I asked Kristen to share her perspective, not just as a researcher, but as a devoted cat owner herself.
17:50
Speaker 4
I have three boys right now, Bo, Kevin and Carl, and none of them we expected to get. They were all surprise cats. Bo showed up at our house. He was a stray cat.
18:00
Speaker 5
And we brought him in.
18:01
Speaker 4
And then Kevin and Carl, we found on the side of the road in just like a Rubbermaid container and had to bring them home because who leaves kittens in a Rubbermaid container on the road? But Carl and Kevin are super bonded to us because they were so little when we found them that they really grew up with my husband and I. So yeah, I get a lot from my cats. I think that they bring a lot to our family. Carl is one of the cuddliest cats I've ever had. If I had my door open right now, he would be on my lap asleep already and purring.
18:31
Speaker 5
Also, if I'm feeling stressed out or just having a bad day, just.
18:35
Speaker 4
Looking at my cats can make me happy.
18:37
Speaker 5
It's just like, oh, you're such a goof. You're so cute.
18:41
Speaker 1
And so lots of new work has focused on pet-assisted.
18:44
Speaker 2
Therapy in general and feline-assisted therapy most recently in particular. I'm curious, what is feline-assisted therapy and what's the idea behind it?
18:53
Speaker 4
In feline-assisted interventions or feline-assisted therapy, it kind of depends on your goal. So we've actually been doing feline-assisted interventions by bringing children with developmental differences into our lab at Oregon State University. And they bring their cat with them and go through a class. And really the goal is to see if going through this class with their cat helps support better outcomes for both the child in terms of their social behavior and health and for the cat. So we can use these interventions as a way to kind of improve the lives for humans and the cat, hopefully. So there's a few different outlets that people use cats for assisted roles. But legally, right now, we cannot have service cats because under the American law, cats cannot be service animals. Legally, only a dog or a mini horse can be a service animal.
19:49
Speaker 5
Right?
19:49
Speaker 3
Yeah.
19:50
Speaker 2
Know.
19:50
Speaker 4
It's just the way the law is written. And I think part of that is in order to be a service animal, you have to be trained to do a specific task. And while I completely believe that's within the realm of possibility for cats, cats are taught all the time to do different tasks. I think, again, there's maybe just some of the stereotypes that, well, what's really the utility of cats? How many people are actually going to use cats in that way? But I would say, you know, with our work with cat assisted interventions, You'd be surprised by how many people might not feel comfortable using a dog as a service animal or a mini pony. So having a cat, having their own family cat that can be a service animal could be something that could benefit a lot of people. But we would need a change in how the law is written in the United States before that could happen. As far as therapy, usually cats are used to have some kind of specific clinical outcome for an individual, but they can also be more broadly used as just like emotional support animals where they don't really have a therapeutic goal. Just their presence is supposed to be kind of emotionally supportive to the person.
20:54
Speaker 2
And I think this is something that every pet owner knows, right? The idea that pets are beneficial. But I think more and more research is coming out to show just how important pets can be for our well-being and for our physical health. And one of the big benefits of cats seems to be a social benefit. One of my favorite studies on this came from my colleague Wendy Mendez at Yale. She did this test where she forced her participants to do the evil kinds of things that psychologists do where they have to do this stressor test. They're doing what's called mental arithmetic where they're doing math while this, you know, judging panel is watching them. or they're doing what's called a cold presser task, where you have to stick your hand in like super cold water for a really long time. And the key is that you can have different kinds of supports. You're either doing those super stressful things when you're alone, when you're with a friend, or when you're with your pet. And what she found is that just being with your pet can be just as effective at reducing stress as when you're with your friend, or even when you're with your spouse. Explain why cats, even though they're not human, can be such a like powerful social benefit for us.
21:52
Speaker 5
Well, I think that just.
21:54
Speaker 4
because they are just seemingly unconditionally loving for us much of the time. They are so personable and have such unique individual personalities. It feels like you can get to know these creatures, even though they can't talk back to us like a person.
22:11
Speaker 5
They are speaking to us all the time.
22:13
Speaker 4
And I do hear cats are less expressive than dogs, but if you know what you're looking for, your cat is always telling you something. Recently, I got home from a trip that it was just a mess traveling back.
22:25
Speaker 5
And I was just so tired and exhausted.
22:28
Speaker 4
And so ready to be home and a little weepy just from everything, you know. And as soon as I get back, I just like lay on the couch, sprawled out. And already the cats are like each taking their turn coming and sitting on my lap. One by one, they came and like reunited with me and greeted me, laid on me and purred. And I was like feeling better, you know, already. And that's why losing your cat can be so difficult. I think it's something a lot of people think is not so serious, but it's losing a family member. You feel like, you know, your house is empty. There's this gap in your home that can't be filled because that individual is gone. And I think a lot of people struggle when they lose their cat because they are such important parts of their emotional lives.
23:15
Speaker 2
Another way that I know I personally get a mood boost through cats is through touch. What do we know, if anything, about the benefits of petting or stroking cats?
23:23
Speaker 4
We know that it can actually have a physiological effect on us. It can reduce our blood pressure. It can increase oxytocin, which is kind of this love hormone that can be produced. So there is a lot of evidence that shows that just interacting with a cat can have actual physical changes in our body that can then promote happiness. More oxytocin can lead to more happiness.
23:47
Speaker 2
You've also done some work showing that cats can track our mood. Explain what this ability of social referencing is and why it's such an important cognitive ability.
23:55
Speaker 4
Social referencing is this idea that we can reference another individual's behavior and then adjust our response based on what we saw. So if there is a person, maybe I'm in an auditorium and a person walks in in a lizard outfit, that could be kind of scary or it could be kind of funny. So maybe I'll look at the person next to me and see, are they like on the edge of their seat about to bolt out the door or are they laughing? So I might judge how I'm going to respond based on the people's reactions around me.
24:26
Speaker 5
So that's social referencing. And we did that with cats in the lab.
24:30
Speaker 4
What they do is they'll take a fan and put streamers on it. So the idea is that cats have probably typically seen a table fan before. But then when you add those streamers to it, it kind of adds this additional visual and auditory component where the streamers are rustling they're moving so that's kind of the unfamiliar component of it and basically we had their caregiver either act afraid of the fan or happy about the fan we then see okay if the caregiver acts afraid or happy about this new thing how is the cat going to respond And so in the published work that is already out on this, they found that for cats in the group where the owner was happy about the fan, they were more likely to stay up close to the fan and even approach the fan. But in the group where the caregiver acted afraid of the fan, they were more likely to stay away from the fan and look between the exit doors, likely looking for a way to escape. So there is some basic evidence to show that cats are picking up on these emotional cues that we're putting off and adjusting their behavior in response.
25:36
Speaker 2
Another thing that I often hear from pet owners is that being around your pet, particularly being around your cats, can make you feel a little bit more present. I notice whenever I'm around my mom's cat that she's often noticing like novel things. I see her lying in her cat tree near the window, like soaking up the sun. And it kind of reminds me of like what I should notice and kind of being physically present and so on. Have you experienced this with your own boys? And is this something that we see in the literature that cats can make us more mindful?
26:04
Speaker 5
I will say with my own boys, yeah, for sure. I feel that way.
26:06
Speaker 4
And I think that is very true with animals in general, as well as kids. I think there's something about watching animals and children just be present and in the moment. They're not stuck up in their head as much thinking about all their mistakes or what they need to do tomorrow. It's just they're living life right now. And so I love watching like my cats play or watch a bird outside or something like that because they are just fully present in that thing that they're doing. And just watching your pet kind of get lost, you can kind of get lost by watching them. And I've experienced that with other pets too. I used to have chickens. And I could just sit out there for like 45 minutes watching them because they're just doing their chicken thing. And it's kind of a reminder like, huh, maybe we should be like this, too.
26:54
Speaker 2
Another way that we can be more present with our pets is to share information with them, to jointly reference things. And I know this is something that people assumed animals in general couldn't do for a long time, particularly cats couldn't do for a long time. But you have work showing that cats are actually better at looking at what we're paying attention to than previously thought. Tell me about those studies.
27:12
Speaker 4
There's been a couple studies looking at whether cats are able to follow human gestures. And in both of the studies, they have found cats are able to follow both our gazing, where our eye is going to, as well as where we point to. So in the one study, it was comparing both dogs and cats and the person would point to a location. And both dogs and cats were equally as good as going to the pointed location. So they were both able to understand that human gesture and respond to it. And then for the gazing, cats were able to follow the eye gaze of a person. Even when the person just looked for a brief split second, they still knew to go to the location where the eyes briefly looked. And this was done without express training. These are things cats are just picking up from us.
28:02
Speaker 5
And the same with their name. There was another.
28:04
Speaker 4
Study where they used a habituation dishabituation test, which just means that they said words that shouldn't have any meaning to a cat, like cup, pen. And over time, the cat's going to stop paying attention. It's going to pay attention less and less because those words don't have any meaning. But then if you say their name, then all of a sudden they're going to perk up. and recognize their name. They dishabituated. And so we can use kind of psychology to look at what cats know and don't know. And we're seeing, hey, they know their name, even when we're not expressively teaching it to them. So they're picking up on these really subtle cues where we're pointing, where we're looking, even what we're saying or how we're saying it. And if we're thinking, hey, these are just pieces of furniture in our house that don't have social lives, then we're missing out on all these things cats are learning from us. And we're also not really guiding their learning in any way.
29:00
Speaker 2
Another benefit we can often get from pets, this is usually talked about with dogs, is the importance of getting a little bit more exercise, right? If you have a dog, you take it out for a walk and so on. This might not be a benefit you assume you would get with cats, but I'm hearing more and more that there's work showing that cat owners are taking their cats out and that you can have your cat outside for a walk. Tell me more about this trend and why that might be an important benefit for cat caregivers, too.
29:25
Speaker 4
When I was teaching kitten training and socialization classes, because one of the behaviors we worked on was walk on harness and leash, we had a lot of caregivers who ended up taking their cat out after the class and doing things like hikes. One cat ended up going and a kayak with their caregiver and all this stuff.
29:42
Speaker 5
So really gets out there.
29:44
Speaker 4
But there are definitely some cats, especially if you start young with them and show them that leaving the house can be a good experience, that you really can condition them to have a great time out of the house. And I think it's healthy for the cat if it's done in a safe way, because otherwise cats can just be trapped in the same location with no novelty, no stimulation. And it's very natural for a cat to be able to get outside. So this is one way we can do it safely for the cat, give them exercise, give ourselves exercise and give them enrichment. And as I mentioned earlier, we've got this work at Oregon State University, and part of it is the children taking the cats out for walks. So I think there's a lot of potential here that, again, people just don't think about with cats, but it's possible. And it comes back to this idea that we're treating dogs and cats very differently and then saying, look how different they are. If we socialized our cats the same way, had kitten training classes and got them used to riding in the car and got them better socialized to people, would they be so afraid at the vet? Would they be so afraid in the lab? Are these things that we're kind of conditioning the cats to be like?
30:57
Speaker 2
So cats can do a lot more for our happiness than we might realize. They can help us manage stress, they can comfort us, and they can even encourage us to be a little more present. But of course, a good relationship should go both ways. If our cats are doing so much for our well-being, what can we do to improve theirs? We'll find out when this special National Cat Day episode of the Happiness Lab returns from the break. Cat behavior expert Dr. Kristen Vitale says there's a lot we can do to help our feline friends thrive. And it turns out that some of the most important things we can do for our cats happen very early in their lives.
31:38
Speaker 5
Cats are not born just used to people.
31:41
Speaker 4
Even though they are a domesticated species, just like dogs, both dogs and cats really need to have early life experiences with humans in order to learn proper social behavior and learn that humans aren't anything to fear. So both dogs and cats kind of have this sensitive period for learning early on in their life. For cats, it's thought to be between two to eight weeks of age. But really, it's vital that they experience humans within that age range, again, just so that they can grow up to learn, hey, humans aren't scary. And that's really going to help them live in our homes throughout their lives. It's going to be very hard for a cat or a dog that has not been socialized during their sensitive period to live successfully in a human home, just because humans are going to be fear-provoking to them. So yeah, it's really important not only to expose them to people, but expose them to Different people, multiple different people, people of different ethnicities, people wearing different clothing, people wearing glasses or hats, all sorts of different stimuli. And also getting your cat outside of the house, getting them used to riding in.
32:47
Speaker 5
The car just for short bits of time.
32:49
Speaker 4
So showing them that outside of the house is also something that can be safe. It's not scary leaving the home. Those are all going to be things that are going to be beneficial for the cat. And then simple training in and out of the carrier on their own. That's a really big one that can help the cat have some sense of control and choice in their life. So instead of forcing the cat, picking them up and putting them in the carrier, we can ask the cat to go in the carrier. And all of these steps, they're going to be things that are going to promote the cat's welfare by giving them control over their life, but also by helping them trust you by seeing that you aren't forcing them to do something all the time.
33:27
Speaker 2
The other thing you've emphasized is the importance of understanding your cat's own unique temperament or personality. Why is understanding it so important for the bond we have with them?
33:36
Speaker 4
Basically, within any species, you're going to have that variation in personality. It's just how it is. Individuals have different personality traits. We have different life experiences that culminate in us behaving differently. So when we think about that, we also have to kind of take a step back and say it depends on the individual cat. So these things I'm saying that, oh, hey, take your cat out on a walk outside on a harness and leash. That might be great for some cats, but not for other cats. So really considering your individual cat, their limitations or what they're also good at. It might not be going for a walk outside. It might be, you know, doing an agility course inside or it might be sitting for a treat. So you kind of have to adjust based on the cat. But I would also say don't let certain characteristics of the cats paint an incorrect picture. Just because you don't have a kitten doesn't mean you can't be training your cat. You can train an adult eight-year-old cat. I train my 10-year-old cat all the time. So yeah, it's really just kind of about considering the individual, what they need, what they want to work for, the rewards they want to work for. And realizing that different cats in the house might have different needs and that taking one cat outside but leaving one cat inside might be what's best for that pair. Treating them equally does not mean treating them the same always.
34:57
Speaker 2
You've also talked about how cat caregivers really need to understand cat communication, that we need to meet cats where they're at. What are some cat behaviors and vocalizations that you think any cat caregiver should be aware of and identify?
35:10
Speaker 4
One would be just aloe rubbing. So that's when the cat rubs up against a person. And in our work, we've actually seen this as a common reunion behavior. So after a cat was separated and then reunited with her caregiver, we saw that aloe rubs shot up. So you might notice that a cat's doing that when you get home, they're kind of rubbing on your legs a bunch, or when they're just feeling in a good mood and friendly. It's just a friendly social behavior behavior. Another one is just meowing. In our work, we have seen it be in attention-getting behaviors, particularly in shelter cats.
35:44
Speaker 5
So maybe when they need something, they meow at us as a signal.
35:48
Speaker 4
And often that does kind of reinforce our behavior of responding to the meow. So cats meowing for food, and we need to give them the food. Other behaviors that are important, but maybe not less pleasing to people would be things like scratching or scent marking. These are really central cat behaviors. Cats need to do these. These are natural behaviors for them. But when they're directed at spaces that we don't want, that can be a problem behavior. So making sure that cats have an outlet to scratch that isn't your couch or that they have enough scent spots laid out throughout the home that they're not urinating on the carpet. So there are other behaviors that we want to promote, but we want to promote them in the right way.
36:31
Speaker 2
Another behavior I've heard about is this idea of the slow blink. What is that and why is it so compelling for people?
36:37
Speaker 4
If you look at your cat when they're really happy and you're petting them, you'll notice they kind of do this like can't keep their eyes open, slow blink, like almost falling asleep, but then waking up. I didn't know of any research on it until recently a paper came out on slow blinking and the human cat relationship. So I think that there's still a lot to find about this, but we can say that it's related to feeling calm and affiliative and friendly. So it's probably something like, oh, I feel good right now. We're trusting each other kind of interpretation. And it's been found that adopters really respond to that. And that also potentially slow blinking to your cat might also kind of be communicating affiliation back to them. But what really is going on in the cat's brain when they do it or when they receive it, it's kind of hard to know.
37:31
Speaker 2
This is all part of a bigger thing that we need to make sure that we are understanding cats' natural behavior and also allowing them to engage in their natural behaviors. Any other natural cat behaviors we should be paying attention to and making sure we have space for in our cats' lives?
37:45
Speaker 5
I think play is a big one.
37:47
Speaker 4
A lot of people know we should play with our cats, but they don't. And it really doesn't take all that much time or dedication. If you think about a cat, cats hunt multiple times a day and they're ambush predators. So when you think about their play needs, you really need to play with them multiple times a day just for short amounts of time. So think about them running after a bird. It's only going to be a quick you know, 10, 15 seconds of running. And a lot of it's just going to be watching that bird. So when you play, you might have a cat who watches the toy for a long time and then finally goes after it.
38:22
Speaker 5
And then, hey, that could be the end of the bow.
38:24
Speaker 4
A five minute bow to play in the morning.
38:27
Speaker 5
That's great. That's better than not doing anything, you know?
38:31
Speaker 4
And so really focusing on when cats are kind of giving, cues that they need play. Maybe they're a little more active, they're looking around, they're sitting by their toys. If you haven't played with them in a day or a few days, really thinking about the fact that the cat would predate several times a day. So if you're not playing with them at all or they don't have access to toys, they're missing out on that key behavior they'd be doing multiple times a day. And in our work, we found that cats significantly prefer toys with movement. So if all you have is a mouse that just sits on the ground and a stationary, cat's not going to probably pay much attention to it. But if you have a toy that's able to move on its own or you're able to play with them, that's going to be much more stimulating for them.
39:19
Speaker 2
I've also heard you make the suggestion that we need to schedule in time for play with cats that like doing it at a consistent time and in a consistent way can be beneficial for them.
39:28
Speaker 5
Yeah, that was actually something.
39:30
Speaker 4
Michael Delgado talks about and her book, Play With Your Cat.
39:34
Speaker 5
It's an amazing book.
39:35
Speaker 4
If you don't know how to play with your cat, that it will tell you how to play with your cat. But she told me that she does that. And I was like, that's a great idea. And so I've started doing that basically like okay, morning before food, let's do a quick.
39:48
Speaker 5
Bout of play.
39:49
Speaker 4
And again, if you think about it, cats are going to predate and then hopefully eat. So think about the order that they're going to be doing that naturally. So let's play and then we'll give them their food. And it can be kind of just like a little ritual then. One thing I also like to tell caregivers is just to change up their environment a little bit because cats, If you're not changing your cat's environment, then they're not having any new stimulation or any new.
40:14
Speaker 5
Objects to explore.
40:16
Speaker 4
And one thing I like to mention is when my husband and I were going to the beach, we pulled out a cooler and we were going and we were just like grabbing different things. And I come back in the room and the cats are like all crowded around the cooler, like Carl's inside the cooler, Kevin's sniffing it. And so it was just like this one thing that was out of place that was new to them was just so exciting that they just had to go explore it.
40:39
Speaker 5
So you don't really have to do all that much for your cat.
40:42
Speaker 4
Just change things around a little bit, bring out an object they haven't seen, take that object away.
40:48
Speaker 5
Cats do thrive on routine.
40:50
Speaker 4
And so sometimes I hear people saying, well, I don't want to change their environment because it'll stress them out. But it doesn't mean that they don't want any novelty. Cats are also very curious by nature. So you kind of want to find that balance, not changing everything all at once, but slowly introducing new things that they can kind of explore.
41:09
Speaker 2
And so I'm going to end with a personal one, which is part of making this episode is about the fact that.
41:14
Speaker 1
I've been thinking about getting a cat.
41:16
Speaker 2
If somebody is listening and they're thinking about becoming a cat caregiver, what are some things they should take into account when making that decision?
41:23
Speaker 4
One would be, what is your current household like? Do you currently have any pets, dogs, anything else like that? If so, then you need to consider if.
41:32
Speaker 5
They're good with cats. Also, just what you're looking for out of the cat.
41:36
Speaker 4
If you're looking for high energy and wants to do training and play, that's going to be very different than a cat that's kind of laid back and just wants to cuddle all the time. So kind of asking if you're going to be adopting from a shelter, maybe ask the shelter staff, what do you know about these cats? Sometimes shelters will do what's called a felinality assessment, where they put the cat through different stages, like what do they do when a toy is presented? What do they do when we open their cage? And it kind of builds this personality profile. Especially with kids, sensitivity is a big thing. Some shelters, part of the felinality is they'll slightly pull on the cat's tail, not like to hurt them, but just to see how the cat reacts. Because If you have kids at home, they might be grabbing and you want to see what the cat's going to do. So asking the shelter about that, letting them know you have a kid and like a cat that's going to be okay with maybe getting hands on them and isn't highly sensitive to that. Then you can say, oh, I see this cat's personality profile matches up with what I want, a really bold individual or really cuddly individual. And then also when you finally have brought a cat home, I'd say one of the first things to do with them is just kind of discover their preferences. So I mentioned earlier about that preference work where we compared food, toys, scent objects.
42:55
Speaker 5
And social interaction. And that can be one way for you to learn about your cat.
42:59
Speaker 4
Do you have a highly food motivated cat or what kind of toys does your cat like? Just kind of expose them to some different things and see what they go for the most. And that can be just another way to learn about your new cat and just start that bonding process.
43:13
Speaker 2
Any last minute advice for creating the perfect cat-human bond?
43:16
Speaker 4
Really be open and receptive to your cat. So it's really easy, you know, if I'm at my computer working and my cat's seeking attention to kind of just push him away, like I'm a little busy right now, but how hard is it just to give them a couple pets and attention or a treat? You know, really be receptive to them the way you would a friend. If a friend's coming over, calling you for help or looking for something, you would probably respond. So really don't treat them like they're not alive. They're an alive individual with emotional capacity. The other thing to consider is how your expectations might kind of project onto the cat itself. So if you're bringing your cat home for the first time and you think cats are not socially motivated, you're not going out of your way to interact with them very much. Well, from our research, we see that cats are interact more with people who pay attention to them. Even if you already have a cat at home, go up to them and interact with them a little.
44:14
Speaker 5
You might be surprised at how much they respond to you.
44:17
Speaker 2
Hearing about the amazing things cats can do when you train them, I think that is getting a lot of people inspired. You know, if you're a cat caregiver and you're hearing this now and you want to start training your cat, where do you start?
44:28
Speaker 1
Like what resources are available?
44:30
Speaker 4
There are some great YouTube channels done by cat trainers. One is called Cat School, and she's got a lot of intro videos to get started as well as more advanced once you get going. And then I also just worked with the Feline VMA, which is the Veterinary Medical Association, and we created what's called the Positive Reinforcement Toolkit. So it's all about using positive reinforcement or giving something to the animal to increase their behavior.
44:58
Speaker 5
In order to train cats.
45:00
Speaker 4
So that is a free PDF that you can download from the Feline VMA website. And also my website, Mal Eyes, we've got resources on there. And we're also building out courses on cat training. So feel free to check that out. It's really just about kind of changing the way that we're thinking about things and maybe expecting different things.
45:20
Speaker 5
Out of our cats that we hadn't expected before.
45:22
Speaker 2
A very happy National Cat Day to all those who observe. And a big thank you to Dr. Kristen Vitale for joining me today. I'll be sure to let you know if I end up putting some of her advice into practice with a new cat of my own. Next week, we're returning to some of my favorite live conversations from the past year. We'll be heading back to South by Southwest for a discussion about how we can support young people's mental health in the age of artificial intelligence.
45:49
Speaker 3
40% of American two-year-olds have a tablet that reaches 60% by age four. One out of four eight-year-olds has a cell phone. I think the sad part is that is mirrored by their parents welcoming that break so that they can spend a lot of that time feeding their own digital addiction while staring at their phone.
46:13
Speaker 2
That's all next time on The Happiness Lab with me, Dr.
46:16
Speaker 1
Laurie Santos.
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