There’s story, entitled “Cats ‘exploit’ humans by purring” on the BBC website. The study to which the BBC refers, one conducted at the University of Sussex, contends that
Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a “soliciting purr” to overpower their owners and garner attention and food. Unlike regular purring, this sound incorporates a “cry”, with a similar frequency to a human baby’s. The team said cats have “tapped into” a human bias – producing a sound that humans find very difficult to ignore.
There’s a video on the BBC site of Pepo the cat purring in the way researchers contend is distinctively designed for humans.
Candidly, it sounds like any ordinary cat’s purr to me. That hardly discredits the British research; if anything, it suggests that the cats may be even smarter than the reserchers understand, if an ordinary domestic shorthair can convince a British Ph.D. that a conventional purr is a special one. It didn’t even take a Siamese, or Rex, or Persian to dupe these reseachers; any cat would do.
I’m not surprised. I’ve always had a particular admiration for cats, even more than for dogs. (Plus, the British are way, way over-rated.)
Cats are very American, too — both cities and towns have cats aplenty, and no farm would be complete without a few. Lincoln is reported to have liked cats, as did Twain, and countless other Americans.
Why am I writing about cats? Because in a later post, I’ll contend that dislike of cats and their habits is odd, fussy, and that the dislike of feline behavior is also a fitting metaphor for much of the fussiness, the insistence on the ‘appropriate,’ etc., that afflicts my hometown, Whitewater, Wisconsin.