Select a Name for the Cat to Which She Will Respond
Does your cat seem to be ignoring you? Don’t they come when called? Your cat might be a jerk. Or they may simply not recognize their name.
What a cat is called can change over the years. My first cat was named Kitten, and since then things have started to improve. Not to Kitten – she’s dead. But she lived a good long life, although she didn’t seem particularly attached to what people called her. Now I name my cats after the characters in the PG Wodehouse. Turns out this is a bad idea too, according to feline guru Helpful Vancouver Vet.
If you haven’t seen the video of Veterinarian Dr. Uri Burstin on YouTube yet, a treat awaits you. His simple and relaxing videos explain everything you ever wanted to know about your kittens , and in this he makes a very compelling case for how to get a cat’s attention: essentially, chirp like a bird and squeal like a mouse.
Using his Lancelot feline model as an example, Dr. Burstyn explains that feline ears have evolved and are now adapted to hear high pitched sounds. Lancelot doesn’t really respond to his name as the stress doesn’t end on the last syllable. But “Lan-CEY!” gets a comical reaction from a very relaxed feline.
Perhaps you instinctively know that your cat will respond to a squeaky “eh”. This is probably why Kitten ended up becoming Kitty, and why Bert and George (my current fuzzy fighters) are now Bertie and Georgie. You can’t get a cat to pay attention to you all the time, but you can certainly get it to look in your direction if you yelp loudly enough.