Thread: Do Cats Feel Love?

I recently adopted two kittens, and they are both as cute as a button but different as can be. Pouncer is a red tabby, with markings like a jaguar. He is very playful and funny and loves attention. He loves treats and is a bit free with his claws. He will immediately love up on anyone who comes in the room, looking for a pet or a treat. He loves to be picked up and purrs the minute you start to pet him.

Ashes is about 4 weeks younger than his "brother" and much more reserved. Probably because he was separated from his Mama a bit too young. For a few weeks I had to bottle feed him special kitten milk. He is also playful but he only wants to be hugged or petted when he's tired. Then he will climb in my lap, head butt my hands, and curl up in my arms for a belly rub. He falls asleep purring while cuddled up to me. But when he's wide awake don't try to pet him because he's simply not interested. And he doesn't take as well to strangers as Pouncer does. He loves belly rubs but I'm the only one he will allow to do it. Almost like he's afraid...

Now that I've bored you all with a self-indulgent description of my kittens, I am curious to hear your opinions on whether our pet cats love us. This thread is specific to cats, as I think we all know the loyalty and love a dog is capable of. With cats I'm not so sure. I think cats are extremely smart and know that they are dependent on their humans to feed them. They also enjoy the treats we give them and the playtime, as well as the attention. But do they actually feel love for us? Or are they just giving us affection because they understand that's the trade-off? (i.e. we feed and protect them and in exchange they let us pet and cuddle them?)

I say they do because my cat is always meowing when somebody leaves the house and absolutely loves my niece and she follows her where ever she goes. we had a male cat for a short time he had big paws like a bobcat maybe mixed idk but he was a bit wild running and jumping all over the place we had to give him away to another family member that had time and space for it and is very happy where hes at now, I named him knuckles because of his big paws and the one we have now is named pepper because of her mostly black with white kind of swirl coat a very calm cat and very petite too lol shes picky on what she eats but a good cat nevertheless :)

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.........~ Spoiler alert ~

.........If you are happy in your belief that your cat loves you..
.........then you're going to be happier if you stop reading here. Really. You don't really want to have ugly facts thrown in your face...









Ha! Still reading huh? You know what they say.. curiosity killed the ***

Look I like cats. Really I do. I've raised Main Coons for years. And a few Ragdolls have deigned to let me live in their house too. But do cats love us? LOL this argument has been raging for years and is quite polarized. But c'mon, love us? No, they don't. We love our cats & it is very one sided at that. Cats come from a long line of hunting animals. They are not nearly as domesticated as dogs are, but they do like to play. Play = happiness due to a bunch of pesky hormones and neurotransmitters. You could even get me to grudgingly concede that cats feel something akin to affection. But love..? Uh, no.

How cats think..

But my cat loves me!

My, my.. but you make my point for me. We have a profound tendency to anthropomorphize.

But, but she cuddles with me. Purrs..

Uh huh. Look at it from a cat's point of view:

My owner has returned..
Fight or Flight Response.. Do I run away? No, not unless I am a very nervous cat or my owner has unusual scents about him or startles me.

Do I fight? No.
Food or Mate Response.. Do I feed? No, my owner is not a food item.
Do I mate with him/her? No, I've probably been spade. And in any case, s/he doesn't smell like a suitable mate for me.

Learned responses.. My surrogate parent or surrogate litter-mate has returned.. I will greet enthusiastically with submissive actions (rolling on back) or play actions appropriate to my status as a kitten.

I am curious.. I will investigate and greet him/her. Interpreted as "pleased to see me" by owner.

S/he is no threat, is not food and is not a mate. No action is required so I shall do nothing. Interpreted as sulking/punishment by my human.


LOL ....I love cats. And I love how people misinterpret them





disclaimer.. portions of this post were wantonly stolen from messy beast
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One of my cats, Rosie, should have little hearts floating out of her ears when she walks around. She's a very vocal kitty, always mowing out for attention.

I catch my other kitty, Oscar (haha), staring at me all the time, with big glassy eyes. When I come near her she flops on the ground so hard air is pushed out her lungs, and she makes this air coming out of a balloon sound.

Mowley, another one of my kitties...well I'm not sure if she loves me. She definitely sees me as master, and gives attention and demands it when she wants it, but she is just so animal and wild...

So yeah, I think some kitties love their owners more than as a mere provider.

But if you really want to get into it, I'm not sure how far you can separate love from evolutionary driven effects, which is what you describe above.

About your kittens... I think you'll see that they get much more loving as they get older. My kitty Oscar was a terror at 6 months. Watch out if you walk around with your shoes off, and you better not pass near a kitty on a high place, lol. She would purposely knock over glasses of water so she could watch the liquid run. Actually she still does that, haha.

I had two adopted cats, kept them since they were kittens until they were nice and fat. They were nice but only loved me when I scratched behind their ears, or I had a new scratching post, catnip, or at feeding time so they could stuff their fat bellies. This was almost a decade ago, but they thanked me by scratching the hell out of my apartment walls and floors, tearing up my sofa and other similar furniture, and peeing in their favorite spot when they were in heat. But your cats are male, so I dunno.

I think the best test of this would be to figure out if the cat in question truly *misses* their owner. Some dogs have been known to whine, keep their tails between their legs, and act lethargic when separated from their real owners, even when a new human caretaker gives them all the same attention and food etc. Cats will act anti-social to strange humans (assuming they are still in their same environment), but their displays of 'sadness' are much harder to read. In general, they are far more independent than dogs, and I imagine that a few of them really do get emotionally attached to a specific owner, but my guess is that such cases are not common.

I have read stories about cats that traveled long distances through unfamiliar territory to reunite with their family. Why would they do this if they don't feel love?

Love is sort of an abstract term as you use it here. Not entirely sure what you mean by it.

Still, it would probably comfort cat owners everywhere more to believe that it is "love" which they are receiving. If they could be disabused of this notion then they probably wouldn't be cat owners.

Same thing goes for any kind of pet, really.

Originally Posted by JustJenna

I have read stories about cats that traveled long distances through unfamiliar territory to reunite with their family. Why would they do this if they don't feel love?

No one is particularly obliged to agree with me. We all have opinions. Sometimes we even try to reconcile our beliefs with reality. And it's hard to see the harm in having our cats love us. But someone made the mistake of asking.. and some of us do like to debate.. So there are a plethora of reasons why a cat would travel a long distance to return home. Learned behaviour. Habit. Known refuge: food, safety, comfort. Territoriality.

What is love anyway? n. An intense feeling of deep affection. v. Feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment (to someone)

Love is an abstract concept. Even the definition and adjectives are imbued with personified emotions, little epiphanies of human experience. Anthropomorphisms. Are cats smart? Sure. Are they as smart as people? Well.. that would be a stretch. Smarter than my neighbour perhaps. But I'd have to say no in general. And likewise cats have rational behaviour, habits, instincts and some kind of familial bonding. But love? It's a nice thought that simply has no objective evidence to support it. If I am honest with myself I can't believe that my cats love me anymore than I can believe in pink elephants. But I am open to compelling arguments that say otherwise.






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